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President Trump is vowing to sign an executive order that would seek to end the right to U.S. citizenship for children born in the United States to noncitizens, a move most legal experts say runs afoul of the Constitution.
The action, which Trump previewed in a television clip broadcast Tuesday, would be the most aggressive by a president elected to office pledging to take a hard line on immigration, an issue he has revived in advance of next week’s midterm elections.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump said during an interview with Axios scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
Uh....yeah. Good luck with all that.
It is true that birthright citizenship is rather unusual - no European country has it, and almost no Western nations outside of the US and Canada have it either. But given that it's pretty much baked into the 14th Amendment, changing it is not something the President can do. At most, he could attempt to tinker with the interpretation of 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' bit, but I don't think that's going to work and I don't think anyone would like the result if it did.
I can only assume this is more red meat for the base just before the elections.
I actually have Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship right here:
1) Declare the end of birthright citizenship
2) ??????
3) PROFIT!
"I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking 'Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!'" When I am writing in this font, I am writing in my moderator voice.
Spam-desu
I like the idea of making the children of illegal aliens non-citizens (but not retroactively), but I think it should require a constitutional amendment. An originalist reading of the constitution is more important to me than illegal immigration at current levels.
Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 5:06 pmI like the idea of making the children of illegal aliens non-citizens (but not retroactively), but I think it should require a constitutional amendment.
This is a very dangerous idea. It would almost certainly end up creating a large number of stateless people inside our country. That...does not end well for anyone involved.
If they're here, they should be Americans, and have skin in the game.
I'm no big fan of Trump's rhetoric, but most of it is just Trump being a provocateur. Trump could just say he's a patriot, but he says he's a nationalist because it will obviously get a rise out of certain crowds and then he can point out how unfair they are. Not really pleasant, but not actually that big of a deal.
This is the stuff that actually worries me. This is obviously outside the purview of an EO, but Trump is both ignorant of and indifferent to U.S. legal history, in my opinion. Going to the courts would be an inevitability, and that may very well be the ultimate goal, but it's a horrible precedent.
The issue of birthright citizenship itself isn't all that simple and is something that could be discussed and debated, but that's immaterial to Trump misunderstanding/misusing his position as president. He's far from the first president to do so, but those Republicans who blindly support the way he's planning to go about this may very well have some major regrets when the shoe is on the other foot.
With all that said, if this did end up becoming a supreme court matter at some point, it would be interesting to see what those who sell themselves as originalists and textualists have to say about it.
ChiggyvonRichthofen wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 5:58 pmWith all that said, if this did end up becoming a supreme court matter at some point, it would be interesting to see what those who sell themselves as originalists and textualists have to say about it.
I think Trump would get slaughtered in the courts. I don't think even Kavanaugh would have his back on this, although we haven't really seen enough of him to say.
He's might get Alito. And god knows Thomas never saw an awful ruling he didn't applaud, although this might be a bridge too far even for him. But there's no way Roberts bites, and I don't even think Gorsuch would be interested.
Of course, depending on just how insane you believe Trump to be, he always has the Andrew Jackson precedent to fall back on. Then things would get really interesting.
Gorsuch is Budget Scalia, which means the Constitution is holy and inviolate, which includes Amendment 14.
Best-case for Trump, Kavanaugh and Thomas go for him and the others tell him to fuck off, but even that's iffy because Kavanaugh and Thomas, though undoubtedly stupid people, are not stupid ENOUGH to give that one to Trump without backup.
If Trump falls back on the Jackson precedent, AND Congress fails to throw him out on his ass, I think that's when you start to see the possibility of an actual coup.
Trump really just wants to be a dictator along the same line as Putin. He may not have this authority, but it's still upsetting to me nonetheless.
Raven, how would that create stateless people? Wouldn't they just round them up and deport them again? And thus, that goes back to all the problems related to ICE?
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
