Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. Trump hates this, saying it’s “ridiculous,” and no other country has it. (In fact many do.) What really burns him is citizenship for children of the undocumented. He declares he’ll end that by some kind of executive action. Whose legality, a news report said, will be up to the courts.
And I was like, WTF are they talking about? Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. In the 14th Amendment, in unambiguous absolute language. Trumpists argue it shouldn’t apply to children of non-citizens. The text itself refutes that.
How could any court consider okaying executive action so plainly unconstitutional? That it’s even a question shows how far our rule of law has already been eroded. And if the Supreme Court can declare presidents immune from criminal law, why not also permit illegal presidential orders? Or let’s just call them royal decrees.
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, mainly to confer citizenship on ex-slaves. Breathtakingly generous and noble, given their previous degrading status. You might think another 156 years would see further moral progress. Trump will take us in the opposite direction.
And if you agree with him, think about this: what makes you a citizen? Your parents were? Can you prove that? And even if so, why does that transfer to you? Without birthright citizenship, it’s all up for grabs.
This concern is not fanciful. Republicans also push to require proof of citizenship for voting.* Are you sure you can comply? And India has been moving toward demanding that everyone prove their citizenship — well, in truth just minority Muslims, whom Hindu chauvinists would like gone. Documenting citizenship turns out to be problematic, and already huge numbers in one region who couldn’t do it have been declared stateless and thrown in concentration camps.
Birthright citizenship is not some bizarre policy but actually highly sensible, eliminating any messy arguments about who is or is not a citizen.
Recently we heard about a Honduran teenager (a rape victim) going into labor while wading across the Rio Grande in 2021. Taken to a Texas hospital, she gave birth there. Then was promptly tossed out, to Mexico, with her baby — and nothing but the clothes on their backs — given no birth certificate to document the child’s U.S. citizenship. (And that was under the Biden administration.)**
A news story drily noted, “U.S. immigration law does not authorize the expulsion of people born in the United States.” But law shmaw. Again — how safe are you in today’s America?
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist . . . .”
* Even while all their phony screaming about vote fraud vanished when Trump won.
** I never got round to writing a fictional story featuring a pregnant gal being deported. On the bus she pushes desperately hard to make the birth on U.S. soil. Just before the border, she does it! So the bus has to turn back, now having a citizen on board. Fiction indeed today.
