WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. could count on being asked about Roe v. Wade even before it was disclosed that he had boasted in 1985 of defending the Reagan administration's view that there is no constitutional right to abortion. If the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. are any guide, the conversation on this subject will be unilluminating.

		Michael McGough is an editor at large in the PG's National Bureau (mmcgough@ nationalpress.com).

If -- and it's a big if -- it is legitimate to treat Supreme Court confirmations as a "teachable moment" about great issues in constitutional law, perhaps senators should deep-six those Roe v. Wade questions and ask Judge Alito about a much more obscure decision.

In 1967, in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of federal law under which a naturalized U.S. citizen was stripped of his U.S. passport for voting in an Israeli election.

Overruling a previous decision, Justice Hugo Black quoted the 14th Amendment that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States" and he added: "There is no indication in these words of a fleeting citizenship, good at the moment it is acquired but subject to destruction by the government at any time. Rather the amendment can most reasonably be read as defining a citizenship which a citizen keeps unless he voluntarily relinquishes it."

Is Afroyim v. Rush a super-duper precedent, as Sen. Arlen Specter might say? It's an interesting question because the nature of U.S. citizenship -- and the ability of Congress to redefine it -- is suddenly a hot topic in Washington and something of an embarrassment for conservatives who argue 1) that the Constitution should be applied as it is written but 2) that one way to deal with the problem of illegal immigration is to decree that children born on U.S. soil are not necessarily U.S. citizens.

Forty-nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed on as sponsors of a bill that would deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States of illegal alien parents.

The practical argument for the bill is that it would deter immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere from securing a status for their children that they are not entitled to themselves. More interesting is the legal justification offered for the legislation by some constitutional scholars.

Like Justice Black in the Afroyim decision -- which involved a naturalized citizen, not one born in the United States -- these scholars focus on the definition of citizenship in the 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution after the Civil War and primarily an attempt to secure the citizenship of recently emancipated slaves.

However, they focus on a phrase in the amendment Justice Black skimmed over in Afroyim: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. ..."

The "subject to the jurisdiction" language, they argue, indicates that more is involved in becoming a citizen than being born here. American Indians, they note, were not regarded as citizens by birth at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment, though Congress did grant them citizenship in 1924.

The proposal in Congress comes at a time when several developments have converged to create a perfect storm for a national debate about the nature of U.S. citizenship. One is illegal immigration. A second is the legal predicament created by the detention of two U.S. citizens -- one a child of Middle Eastern parents temporarily resident in Louisiana -- as enemy combatants in the war on terror. A third is the growing attractiveness of dual citizenship.

Stanley Renshon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York and fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, told CNN last year that about 40 million Americans are eligible for citizenship in another country.

Peter H. Schuck, a professor at Yale Law School and the author of "Citizens, Strangers and In-Betweens: Essays on Immigration and Citizenship," cites two reasons for the trend of dual citizenship: the Afroyim decision and the fact that foreign countries are increasingly willing to allow their citizens to hold U.S. passports as well.

It would be interesting to hear Judge Alito -- and some of his interrogators -- on the question of whether, as Justice Black seemed to indicate in Afroyim, the plain language of the 14th Amendment frustrates any attempt by Congress to make U.S. citizenship harder to acquire and easier to forfeit.

Even if the nominee and the senators punt on this constitutional question, it's worthy of a debate in other forums -- and not just on radio talk shows where xenophobia is likely to overpower reasoned debate.

What is a U.S. citizen? Would ending "birthright citizenship" for children of illegal immigrants -- even if that were constitutionally feasible -- radically change the character of a country that takes pride in the fact that "American-ness" is not defined by ancestry? Should dual citizenship weigh against a claim by suspected terrorists that they are entitled to certain legal rights because they are U.S. citizens? Can there be gradations of American citizenship?

They are important questions, and -- unlike the validity of Roe v. Wade -- they might even inspire a conversation that is not paralyzed by preconceived notions.