How many times are you gonna get played by Trump and gop on this? He said it for years while president and didn't do anything about it except tweet. It was clockwork, before 2018 and 2020 he would bring it up, and nothing happened.
Posted on 06/28/2023 8:32:17 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
President Trump pledged to end birthright citizenship in a recent policy announcement, promising to sign an executive order on his first day in office to prevent “the future children of illegal aliens” from receiving automatic citizenship. The proposal was significant for at least two reasons. Not only does it decisively put the 45th President further to the right on immigration policy than any of his declared or unofficial primary challengers, but furthermore, it clarifies at least a century of constitutional ambiguity on the subject. Immigration has emerged as the most important domestic issue in the 2024 election cycle, with estimates of upwards of ten million illegal aliens flooding the country under the Biden regime. The magnitude of the ongoing crisis far surpasses the number of illegal border crossings in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, when then-candidate Trump first proposed the idea in response to a crisis whose scale was itself unprecedented for the time. Nearly a decade later, the problem has only worsened. The need for dramatic action—even more than in Trump’s first term—is palpable.
Now, nearly a decade later, Trump is in possession of more political capital than he had in 2016, when the legal particulars had yet to be completely fleshed out, and the urgency for dramatic action was less acceptable to Republican Party leaders on the Hill. Things have changed considerably, with even Democratic leaders, from Joe Biden to Eric Adams, in increasing alignment over the need to tighten our southern border, presenting the opportunity to take decisive action possibly more than ever before.
The idea that the Fourteenth Amendment does not license birthright citizenship based on its proper, constitutional interpretation has found support from both legal scholars and political historians. The text of the amendment itself reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Of controversy is whether the phrase “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” should be read in conjunction with—“and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” As scholars John Eastman and Michael Anton, as well as others, have persuasively argued, the plain meaning of the text itself requires that both elements of that constructive phrase be satisfied in order to qualify for the fruits of citizenship. In other words, a person must not only be born “in the United States”—i.e., the geographical region over which the laws of the United States apply—but also be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” To fully qualify for citizenship, a person born within the United States must owe no allegiance to any other sovereign—he or she must, in other words, exclusively qualify under the laws of the United States alone.
Under the common law, the concept of ligealty provided a necessary condition for citizenship. This was elaborated at great length by Chancellor James Kent, who has been hailed as the American Blackstone. Indeed, Kent’s Commentaries on American Law were cited in the controversial Supreme Court decision United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), a patently erroneous decision that has nonetheless deeply influenced the Fourteenth Amendment’s construction to require so-called “birthright citizenship.” In Wong, the Supreme Court established that persons born of permanent domiciles under the laws of the United States would be automatically granted citizenship. The outcome is quite odd, and not only for its constitutional construction. But also because the Court decided to cite—and then ignore—Kent’s own words, “to create allegiance by birth, the party must be born not only within the territory, but within the ligeance of the government” (emphasis added). Thus, the two-part requirement of the amendment’s construction that Eastman delineated well over a century later has a longstanding precedent in American legal scholarship, and enjoys the blessing of some of the most foremost authorities in the history of American law, no less.
Even if, irrespective of Chancellor Kent’s learned interpretation, Wong’s outcome stood, there are several other major complications with the preferred construction. First, Wong itself only licenses citizenship to persons born of permanent residents or domiciles—in other words, those who have been sufficiently vetted and have gone through the arduous logistical process already to meet those requirements. Second, the policy considerations have changed significantly since the late nineteenth century. America today is overcrowded and increasingly unable to meet the basic needs of its native population—food, water, public transportation, basic infrastructure—as is. Thus, the prerogative to end birthright citizenship on the basis of more pragmatic concerns obtains currency.
The undesirable and unsustainable practical consequences of birthright citizenship flow from an absurd principle. The prevailing doctrine declares that foreigners have a right to become American just by having a pulse, that citizenship is an entitlement rather than a privilege of those already belonging to the political community. But to argue this is to negate the right of the people to political independence. What could be more perverse than to reward those who trespass America’s borders by welcoming their descendants with the privilege of citizenship, and all the entitlements attached to it? A sane country does not confer citizenship on just anyone who sets one dry foot on its territory.
To continue the present course would be to allow an egregious constitutional error to defraud the American people of their patrimony. In The Political Theory of the American Founding, Thomas G. West notes that the Founders upheld the right to exclude from the fledgling nation those unfit to receive its blessings. An immigration policy that made citizenship available to non-Europeans, West writes, “would have been rejected by all.” The very first naturalization law made citizenship available only to people of European descent with “good character.” In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson warned that immigrants from the kingdoms of Europe “will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth” and “warp and bias” the law to reflect their alien principles.
Is this not the woeful state of America today? Those attached to the American way of life are facing political obsolescence as the citizenry grows ever more foreign and unpatriotic. There are large masses of unqualified people participating in the political process, bereft of any knowledge of American history or principles, supposing they aren’t actively hostile to them. Their ranks swell with each new generation of anchor babies, whose numbers are easily in the hundreds of thousands per annum. Trump’s proposal is a direct challenge to the regnant anti-American ethos, which serves to dilute the meaning of citizenship and alienates the people from their government, which increasingly operates like a Third-World banana republic.
Last, there is an increasing awareness within at least conservative legal circles to not overly dogmatize the Fourteenth Amendment. Considering that the amendment has been used for well over a century to justify a smorgasbord of horribles—from subversive policy outcomes, ranging from birthright citizenship, to abortion, to same-sex marriage, to removing prayer in schools, to transgenderism—to equally subversive jurisprudential tests—tiers of scrutiny, substantive due process, etc.—conservatives should heed the advice of Justices Thomas and Alito, especially in recent decisions, and not place the Fourteenth Amendment on a pedestal in light of its destructive weaponization by the Left over decades, whose effect has been to gut our Constitution root and branch.
A slightly modified version of this piece under a different title was first published at The American Mind, and can be found here.
Paul Ingrassia is an Associate at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022 and is a member of the New York Young Republican Club. He was also a two-time Claremont Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @PaulIngrassia, Substack, and Rumble.
DeSantis says he would seek to end birthright citizenship
He’s not the only one calling for an end to birthright citizenship. It’s how to accomplish it that makes a difference. Trump says via EO on day one. That’s a non-starter and he’s got to know a court will block it before the ink is dry. Does he take us for fools after this happened too often during his first term?
Then why did you just post an editorial that falsely claims Trump is the only one, right in he title?
“Yea, Ron “Trump Mini-Me” DeSantis copied President Trump on his policy.”
Copied? It’s a standard Conservative political stance...considering the leftist ongoing illegals invasion, for f’s sake... not a PR meme or “novel idea”. You’re being ridiculous.
“Then why did you just post an editorial that falsely claims Trump is the only one, right in he title?”
I think we know “why”....don’t we.
“Trump came out with his policy before June 6”
Yeah, before June 6 2019 (as President)
October 31, 2018
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday signaled that his belief he can legally end U.S. citizenship for children born here is based on the interpretation of five words written in 1868.
Democrats say the president is merely threatening to sign — as soon as this week — an executive order to end what’s called “birthright citizenship” as another way to energize his conservative base before Tuesday’s midterm elections.”
How many times are you gonna get played by Trump and gop on this? He said it for years while president and didn't do anything about it except tweet. It was clockwork, before 2018 and 2020 he would bring it up, and nothing happened.
How could anyone want More Ron
As an IMMIGRANT I like the term illegal alien
Illegal aliens are not IMMIGRANTS
They dont IMMIGRATE ...
Just another thing I like about President Trump ...
Where in the Constitution does it say that courts have a say-so in what's constitutional? The Supreme Court gave itself that "authority" with Marbury v Madison in 1803. We should quit playing along whenever a govt branch or dept just creates authority for itself out of thin air and tell them to take a hike.
Trump had LYIN RYAN at the helm of the congress, a Republican TRAITOR who would give Trump NOTHING can’t blame Trump for this, LYIN RYAN also fought EVERY damn inch of the wall!! It is on us we voted that bastard AND his ilk into office WE did this to Trump!!!
Even Ireland,a country that just recently had some of the most "liberal" citizenship laws in the First World,did away with it.
Today the only civilized countries on earth that have it are Canada and the United States.
And here in the US the same Party that insists that people shouldn't be asked their citizenship for the Census will fight any efforts to do away with it here.
The undesirable and unsustainable practical consequences of birthright citizenship flow from an absurd principle.
He started the wall however do to the rigged election he wasn’t allowed to follow through with the rest of his plans.
See my post
Years and years he tweeted. Now on day one a EO? That ship has sailed. You can never trust a politician.
While I think that what is called “birth right citizenship” should be ended and I think the courts have failed in their understanding of the intent of the Constitution as far as its alleged supoort of it, I think no president should think they have the power to unilaterally end it. That bespeaks power we do not want in the Presidents. It will take an arduous route via legislation and the courts, but that is where the question has to be anwered, not by presidential fiat.
>> President Trump pledged to end birthright citizenship in a recent policy announcement, promising to sign an executive order on his first day in office to prevent “the future children of illegal aliens” from receiving automatic citizenship. <<
And yet when he actually WAS president, he didn’t do jack squat. Sorry, when DeSantis says what he’d deny birthright citizenship, it’s a matter of how much confidence you have in his campaign promises. But when Trump does, well we have historical proof that he’s full of crap.
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