{"id":3818,"date":"2026-07-09T22:08:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=3818"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:08:56","slug":"seen-heard-whispered-a-scalia-letter-birthright-citizenships-long-game-and-illegal-dating-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=3818","title":{"rendered":"Seen, Heard & Whispered: A Scalia letter, birthright citizenship\u2019s long game and illegal dating woes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Justice Scalia defended attacks on his landmark religious-liberty opinion, a new document shows<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Iran digs outs from U.S. strikes, sprays missiles across Gulf region as the peace process teeters<\/a><\/p>\n

Justice Antonin Scalia usually let his opinions speak for themselves, but he was so irked by criticism of one of his religious liberty rulings that he wrote a private defense of his reasoning, according to an unsealed court document obtained by Seen, Heard & Whispered.<\/p>\n

The case was Employment Division v. Smith, where Scalia led the court\u2019s majority in rejecting a pair of drug counselors challenging the denial of unemployment benefits after they were fired for ingesting peyote, a powerful hallucinogen. They said they used it as part of their American Indian faith and argued the denial was punishment for religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

Scalia, though, said that it doesn\u2019t run afoul of the First Amendment for a state to pass and uphold neutral laws applicable to all \u2014 even if it might ding someone\u2019s religious practice.<\/p>\n

A decision the other way would have been \u201ccourting anarchy,\u201d Scalia wrote to Judge Thomas J. Aquilino Jr. of the U.S. Court of International Trade on May 25, 1990, just weeks after the decision was issued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have never held that an individual\u2019s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The communication was unearthed in the justice\u2019s papers at Harvard Law School. It\u2019s a signed letter on official chambers stationery.<\/p>\n

The ruling drew sharp criticism from religious-liberty advocates and conservatives who had backed Scalia\u2019s nomination to the high court.<\/p>\n

The justice was defending the Smith decision in a reply to Judge Aquilino, who had previously voiced disagreements over it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should tell your students that there is a difference between demolishing a building and clearing up rubble that someone might trip on,\u201d Scalia wrote.<\/p>\n

James Rosen, chief Washington correspondent at Newsmax, discovered the letter while researching his final installment in a three-volume Scalia biography he is currently compiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cScalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936 to 1986,\u201d was released in 2023, and \u201cScalia: Supreme Court Years, 1986 to 2001,\u201d was published in February. Mr. Rosen has the third volume in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cRarely did Justice Scalia defend his judicial opinions in his correspondence,\u201d Mr. Rosen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis letter captures Scalia fully confident that his decision was the right one: a bright-line ruling of the sort he believed the justices should be providing to lower courts, offering them guidance to adjudicate similar cases on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cScalia: Supreme Court Years,\u201d Mr. Rosen wrote evidence that the justice in his final days had some doubts about his decision in Smith. Scalia died while on a hunting trip to Texas in 2016.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rosen quoted a former Harvard Law classmate as having told him in an interview that in 2015, Scalia said: \u201cI have really got to seriously consider the effects of that decision \u2026 I\u2019m really reconsidering it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birthright citizenship is the new Roe v. Wade<\/strong><\/p>\n

It took nearly 50 years for conservatives to see Roe v. Wade overturned. They\u2019re hoping it won\u2019t take that long to nix Trump v. Barbara, last month\u2019s decision on birthright citizenship.<\/p>

Read more The Bolshevik takeover of the Smithsonian<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the influential voices championing that comparison is Rachel Bovard, a conservative policy wonk and vice president of programming at the Conservative Partnership Institute.<\/p>\n

She called for birthright citizenship to be a litmus test for every future conservative nominee to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly nominees prepared to reconsider expansive readings of the Citizenship Clause \u2014 and who understand that a nation is more than simply a collection of individuals in the same geographic location \u2014 deserve elevation,\u201d she wrote in the First Things blog.<\/p>\n

The court ruled that the Citizenship Clause in the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, including children of unauthorized immigrants and temporary legal visitors.<\/p>\n

The court struck down President Trump\u2019s executive order to strip recognition of citizenship from those two categories.<\/p>\n

Five justices, including two GOP appointees, ruled that the Constitution guaranteed citizenship. Four Republican appointees disagreed on that, though one of them, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, still argued that a 1940 law superseded the president\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

South Florida faces illegal dating problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dating is hard enough without throwing illegal immigration into the equation.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s exactly what women in South Florida are now facing, a conservative communications professional told Seen, Heard & Whispered.<\/p>\n

She said at least three of her friends have been bamboozled by migrants to date \u2014 and even marry \u2014 American citizens.<\/p>\n

As she tells it, couples will meet and date, and then months into a relationship, the man is revealed to be in the country with less-than-firm legal status.<\/p>\n

One friend met an immigrant at church, and they dated for several months, even going to Thanksgiving dinner together.<\/p>\n

Someone at the dinner told the woman something seemed off: the man had little social media activity after 2021, had not traveled back home to Guyana in three years and had no close family in America.<\/p>\n

Local court filings confirmed that the man had been married twice before, using different variations of his name \u2014 but each marriage lasted less than a year, falling short of the time needed to obtain a green card.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are there to attract a woman who is in the position to desire a serious relationship, and they are on the dating apps, they are all on the Facebook chats, and they are at every party,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n

She said dating apps don\u2019t require proof of legal status, and states that allow unauthorized immigrants to get driver\u2019s licenses make it easier for them to blend in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegals can cheat the system and do whatever it takes to stay in this country, even go to great lengths to prove their love and marry an American citizen,\u201d she said.<\/p>

Read more Iran dig outs from U.S. strikes, sprays missiles across Gulf region as the peace process teeters<\/a><\/p>\n

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A newly surfaced Scalia letter defends his landmark religious-liberty ruling, conservatives vow to fight the birthright citizenship decision, and South Florida women warn of illegal immigrants using dating apps to secure green cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,158],"tags":[2286,2288,2287],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-seen-heard-and-whispered","tag-antonin-scalia","tag-employment-division-v-smith","tag-first-amendment"],"yoast_head":"\nSeen, Heard & Whispered: A Scalia letter, birthright citizenship\u2019s long game and illegal dating woes - Home Buyer Relocation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=3818\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seen, Heard & Whispered: A Scalia letter, birthright citizenship\u2019s long game and illegal dating woes - Home Buyer Relocation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A newly surfaced Scalia letter defends his landmark religious-liberty ruling, conservatives vow to fight the birthright citizenship decision, and South Florida women warn of illegal immigrants using dating apps to secure green cards.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=3818\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Home Buyer Relocation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-09T22:08:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/27f581aea8428bbbd8aa6fc1df604918.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"375\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=3818#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=3818\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b2ac56955b020950324cad4c6c27b42a\"},\"headline\":\"Seen, Heard & Whispered: A Scalia letter, birthright citizenship\u2019s long game and illegal dating woes\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-09T22:08:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=3818\"},\"wordCount\":1025,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=3818#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/484a45d137ac9238770660205e48fbd9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Antonin Scalia\",\"Employment Division v. 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