(CNN) -- CNN Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos recently highlighted a fact that few in the United States are even aware of: Tens of thousands of Americans who hold U.S. passports are denied legal recognition as U.S. citizens. The reason? They happen to be born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa instead of somewhere else in the United States. Cevallos gets the basic unfairness of it all right: "The United States laid claim to these eastern islands of a South Pacific archipelago in 1900, and since that time, American Samoans have served in the U.S. military, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." But his conclusion that "citizenship for them is not a constitutional right" because "only Congress can choose to grant citizenship to territorial inhabitants" rests on an assumption that has no basis in the Constitution or any decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Neil Weare: There's a compelling legal case for citizenship for American Samoa residents
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He says the 14th Amendment provides citizenship for all people subject to the U.S.
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Courts have disagreed on the matter, but Weare's lawsuit is pending in federal court
Although his opinion was not joined by a single other justice, it was good enough for those in @placeholder who thought birthright citizenship was not such a great idea for the inhabitants of these areas, who did not look like or speak like them.