Yesterday, Donald Trump said he was going to end birthright citizenship, which is the right of people born on US soil to become US citizens. Trump claims he can do this with an executive order.
Most of the response to this concentrated on pointing out that you can’t just overrule the 14th amendment to the US constitution with an executive order. For example, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded “You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.”
And of course, these days Trump does not seem to be able to open his mouth without a lie coming out, and an easily disproved lie at that. Trump claimed that the US was the only country that has birthright citizenship. Turns out that our two nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, both have it. As do many other countries in the western hemisphere. In fact, there are three dozen countries that have it. Here’s a map:
3 Comments
The whole point of ending birthright citizenship would be to make statelessness intergenerational. Trump doesn’t solve problems, he makes them permanent.
Actually he does not have to issue executive order. If any state denies birth certificate to children of illegal immigrant, the parents can sue to get it, and it can make its way to supreme court. Trump can just tell (tweet?) publicly, and some state may start denying.
As https://electoral-vote.com/ points out
“That was in 1898, in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, in which it declared that the child born on U.S. soil of noncitizen parents is indeed a citizen. Most lawyers regard this as settled law, but Vice President Mike Pence supported Trump yesterday by noting (correctly) that the Supreme Court has never specifically addressed the issue of children born of parents illegally in the country”
I am not sure how courts will rule it (most likely against Trump), but personally I believe it is extremely stupid to give any benefit including citizenship to illegals. The only way to stop illegal immigration is to limit any incentive for illegally immigrating.
(I do know Trump, and right wingers are against illegal or now legal immigration based on race, but that does not mean they are not right on illegal immigration)
As a descendent of an American Indian I think we can make this retroactive and send all the Europeans, Africans and any other non native of the American continent back to their origin countries. this includes the Drumpfs. I doubt that they would be welcomed with open arms though back in their native countries.
Once this is dismissed as not being a viable possibility, we can discuss other options that might be more feasible, but probably not until we get a congress that is grown up/more mature not bowing to hatred in a power play.