Citizenship as Foundation of Rights
Meaning for America

Citizenship as Foundation of Rights explains what it means to have citizen rights and how national identification requirements undermine them.

Richard Sobel (Author)

9781107568037, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 October 2016

240 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

'[An] identification regime is inconsistent with … underpinnings of U.S. citizenship [as] requiring … proof of citizenship inverts the American democratic enterprise. This argument is … insightful … advances our understanding of American citizenship … [and] reinvigorates the citizenship inquiry …' D. Carolina Nidfiez, Tulsa Law Review

Citizenship as Foundation of Rights explores the nature and meaning of American citizenship and the rights flowing from citizenship in the context of current debates around politics, including immigration. The book explains the sources of citizenship rights in the Constitution and focuses on three key citizenship rights - the right to vote, the right to employment, and the right to travel in the US. It explains why those rights are fundamental and how national identification systems and ID requirements to vote, work and travel undermine the fundamental citizen rights. Richard Sobel analyzes how protecting citizens' rights preserves them for future generations of citizens and aspiring citizens here. No other book offers such a clarification of fundamental citizen rights and explains how ID schemes contradict and undermine the constitutional rights of American citizenship.

1. Introduction. Empowering citizenship
2. The nature of American citizenship as the foundation of rights
3. The right to vote
4. The right to employment
5. The right to travel
6. Threats to citizenship rights in identification regime
7. Other countries' systems constitute warnings
8. Conclusions. Sustaining empowering citizenship.

Subject Areas: Law: study & revision guides [LR], Citizenship & nationality law [LNDA], Private / Civil law: general works [LNB], Legal system: general [LNA], Civil rights & citizenship [JPVH1]