Writes Trump, this morning, on Truth Social.
And let me just point you to yesterday's post — "Trump Might Have a Case on Birthright Citizenship" — about a NYT column by Randy E. Barnett and Ilan Wurman (in the NYT), which has an update I put up this morning linking to Ilya Somin's response (in Reason) — "Birthright Citizenship - A Response to Barnett and Wurman" (Reason).
Posts
65 comments:
If nothing else, it’s a good ploy to discourage illegal immigration.
Maga Republicans are the common sense party.
Ilya Somin Has two hobby horses. Completely open borders with no restrictions on who can enter or stay, and Donald Trump's responsibility for every bad thing happening in the world today. If he could, he would put Trump in prison simply for existing.
As for birthright citizenship, that's a problem for the Supreme Court.
TOUGH = grow a spine.
Somin is a Russian who should be stripped of his citizenship and sent back to Mother Russia.
One foot only sounds remarkably similar to the apology offered by human rites advocates similar to the apology offered by the politically congruent similar to the apology offered by Diversitists (i.e. racists, sexists, etc.), Levine Dreamers, Obama redistributive changers, etc.
No no no no no. So what if it doesn't count those in th country illegally.. There have been, for decades, birthright flights from the far east to California and other border cities. A woman flies here , gives birth to a baby (an American citizen) and the flies back to her home country. Where was the outrage then? The challagne to the 14th amendment is stupid.
The main issue is whether Democrats can have a "come to Jesus" moment and admit to a generation of duplicity and dirty tricks. This applies to citizenship, voting laws, migrant driver's licenses, anti-Trump lawfare, and all the stuff the've done to achieve a permanent electoral majority. Only with the fading of TDS and Biden's admission of corruption per his pardons is there a chance for reform or truth telling.
I've been saying this for years. Just, ask my wife. I also believe organized sports, in general, below high school level is also to blame. I grew up with recess sports and after school parks and rec with some 14 year old handing out sports equipment and maybe weekend games. We didn't have any parent interference in our squabbles. We learned to work (sometimes fight) it out amongst ourselves. But, my prejudice is against anything organized by others. I rode a bike, built box scooters and wooden go carts. I roller skated with steel skates and had the first skateboard in my neighborhood built out of those skates. I surfed. I'm not a team player. I never earned a trophy. I was never coached. I learned on my own and had a blast doing it. Consequently, I'm a poor carpenter, painter, plumber, electrician, mechanic and gardener. So was my dad.
No, Victoria, the half-baked, look-the-other-way interpretation of the 14th Amendment is, and was, stupid. DJT will prevail.
The issue of birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants has, as discussed above, a constitutional argument for and against. But it also has a legislative component about 20x larger than itself: "anchor babies" are used, under current immigration permissions, to aid entire extended families of those children, real or just claimed, to enter the US permanently and obtain citizenship in an expedited fashion compared to green card applicants.
Trump should call on Congress to revoke "anchor baby" legislation that allows so many more people to immigrate based on that one initial visit for childbirth by a noncitizen. This is well within legislative authority, and can be done immediately without judicial involvement at all.
Similar to the carved exception for a Green Blight spread over land and sea under a Blue Sky.
I find myself torn on this. I certainly agree that birth right citizenship is being horribly abused and should be ended. However, my good friends on the Left are skilled at ignoring the clear meaning for an Ammendment based on an unclear clause. The 2nd Amendment in particular. Throwing out the clear text of the 14th amendment in a similar fashion opens us up for much harm in the future.
Birthright citizenship rewards illegal behavior.
Give me one instance where criminals retain their illegal gains.
My youngest daughter is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota. I was shocked to learn that Professor Wurman teaches there.
I follow the University of Minnesota Law School on LinkedIn. The PR people frequently post on LinkedIn when law faculty are in the news. No way will Wurman's piece be discussed.
Somin has a bad case of TDS. I don't think he can be saved.
Give me one instance where criminals retain their illegal gains.
Well, there is the Biden family...
I like my Reason watered down with a little empiricism and common sense, thank you very much.
@victoria There has been plenty of outrage, we just never had anyone with the courage to confront it. You cannot have open borders and a welfare state!
Hold a vote on this one topic: Birthright citizenship, for or against. Those voting in favor will be responsible for paying any/all expenses associated with the adoption of the policy, while those voting against will be excused from any financial obligation related to the policy.
Want to bet how that would go?
I think the Althouse link is to the wrong Reason article.
Somin says...
Slaves born in the United States (and their parents, who were also usually slaves) obviously weren't part of any social compact under which they traded allegiance for protection. Far from protecting them, state and federal governments facilitated their brutal oppression at the hands of their masters...
Um, am I missing something? What does Somin call the 13th and the 14th Amendment itself? Isn't that the "compact under which they traded allegiance for protection"?
From Wince's excerpt it seems to me that Somin has the 14th exactly backwards. Quite obviously enslaved Africans could not have consented to any social compact among US citizens because they were forcibly brought here. That's why "under the jurisdiction" is so important in the amendment. They were brought and kept here, and their descendants kept in bondage, by the legal structures created by the slaveholding states. The whole point of the 14th, and the Civil Rights act preceding it with the same language, was to ensure the status of non-consent could not be used to deny citizenship to them and their descendants. It should not apply to the descendants of people who come here of their own accord in violation of our immigration laws.
That's quite an argument, Christopher B. But United Stats v. Wong Kim Ark kind of throws a wrench into it.
I would like to see our citizenship rules updated to meet our current needs, but it requires new legislation. Pretending that everyone has interpreted it incorrectly for 150+ years is not going to win.
Good luck getting congressional amendment!Qiut whining get er done!
Lilly, a dog said...
That's quite an argument, Christopher B. But United Stats v. Wong Kim Ark kind of throws a wrench into it.
************
A few weeks ago Mark Levin said he believed that case was wrongfully decided, by an activist court expressing their displeasure over the Chinese Exclusion Act.
I expect Trump's people will say the same, drawing from the historical antecedents that led to the 13th-15th Amendment, the legislative colloquies about what "under the jurisdiction thereof" meant to the framers of the 14th' language, and the fact that Indians, no matter if they were born on tribal lands or in the territory of the United States, were NOT considered citizens until passage of the Snyder Act in 1924.
(Yes, there were some exceptions before then, but they were not made by referencing the 14th Amendment.)
Remember Plessey? How it got overturned? Same thing might happen here. But like the Snyder law, Congress could act to remedy the situation.
If today's Congress can't pass legislation to end the "suicide pact" theory of the 14th, we are in big trouble.
"Pretending that everyone has interpreted it incorrectly for 150+ years is not going to win."
That's the nub of the issue - the specific questions being asked now (mostly illegal immigrants and temporary visitors giving birth in the USA) have not specifically been litigated.
People can pretend that previous USSC decisions have answered the questions or that "the 14th Amendment's meaning is clear" but that's clearly not the case.
I hate to defend Somin (he misrepresents Barnett's op ed) but his point is that if the allegiance/protection argument holds then the slaves freed after the war did not have the "protection" of the government *at the time of their birth* thus would not have become citizens.
You know it is Sunday and there's no football. Plenty of time to re-read Harlan's dissent in Wong Kim Ark, I say.
Waste of time. No understanding of the legislative process. This’ll be the hallmark of his presidency — make empty —promises followed by half-hearted attempts which will inevitably fail, then blame everyone else.
It’s all ploys to control headlines and media will take the bait every time.
Just by mentioning it, this is a winning issue for Trump politically, even if it goes nowhere in the courts.
Trump the historian enters the chat.☺️
"A woman flies here , gives birth to a baby (an American citizen) and the flies back to her home country."
If it is an American citizen, why is it allowed into her home country without a visa? I certainly wouldn't be.
1: SCOTUS has ruled that its' what happened in teh first ~25 years post 14th being ratified. That's 1893. Wong Kim Ark is 1898. So the case itself has no more presidential value than does Plessy v Ferguson
2: I've repeatedly challenged Volokh people in Illya posts to come up with a case where a baby was born to tourists visiting the US in those 25 years, who received a passport or other signs of US citizenship as a result of being born here.
Not one case has been offered up.
So that's strong evidence against anchor babies
3: Until 1925, when Congress passed a law changing the situation, Native Americans born in the US did not automatically get US citizenship, even when they were born off the Reservation to parents living off the Reservation.
The idea that the child of illegal aliens is MORE entitled to US citizenship than the child of Native Americans living and working in the US, is, sorry, insane.
I no this makes the open borders fanatics like Illya unhappy, but "anchor babies" are BS, and if your'e not a US Citizen or green card holder, then your children should not automatically become US Citizens, regardless of where they're born
A woman flies here , gives birth to a baby (an American citizen) and the flies back to her home country. Where was the outrage then?
So because people looked the other way then, we shouldn't try to do something about it now? Is that what you're saying?
Talk about stupid ....
When I was in law school, they taught us that in interpreting a statute, or the constitution, we must consider its purpose. Clearly the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to overrule Dred Scott, in which the Supreme Court had ruled that NO BLACK PERSON, slave or free, could ever be a US citizen -- in fact was not a "person" with standing to bring suit in federal court.
But at that time, no one was concerned about the "rights" of illegal immigrants. So far as I know, Congress had passed no legislation remotely like our current immigration laws, so "illegal immigrants" as such didn't exist, and thus there were no "children of illegal immigrants".
Now of course you could still argue that because the 14th Amendment used the language that it did, the principle that it imposes should be applied even to situations that no one at that time anticipated. While you're at it, you could also argue that the First Amendment doesn't apply to the internet. which is neither "speech" or "press".
You cannot confer citizenship on a person who is already rightfully entitled to citizenship in another country.
In this case it would be the nation to which the parents are already citizens. It would indeed be wrong to deny citizenship to a child to whom no legitimate citizenship existed.
Please show me this child.
Take it to court. But, should Trump's position fail, I'd be happy to just exclude the other family members. Let the kid be a citizen. But his/her parents can not stay. Take the kid back home. At age 18 the kid can return. 99% of the problem would be solved. Very few would come to create anchor babies and many fewer would remain.
Trump should call on Congress to revoke "anchor baby" legislation that allows so many more people to immigrate based on that one initial visit for childbirth by a noncitizen. This is well within legislative authority, and can be done immediately without judicial involvement at all.
The Truth Social post is the set-up for Congress to act.
"That fool Trump, doesn't he know the Supreme Court isn't going to take this up, and he will lose if they do?"
Yes. He does.
Grok has a sense of humor. I asked it earlier today how many children are born to aliens in the US annually.
It started by telling me that there is no evidence that aliens have ever visited the earth, we don't know how they would give birth if they did and a couple paragraphs of yadda-yadda.
Then it said "Perhaps you mean undocumented migrants rather than aliens..." And it gave me a couple paragraphs of reasonably good discussion. Anyway, the answer is 225-250m based on census records.
Somewhat more than I thought it would be never having looked it up before. Also enough, that I would agree it is too many and could be a potential problem.
John Henry
Sorry John Henry,
That number cannot be right. Suppose we have 20 million undocumented migrants, how do they pump out 225 million babies?
Up until 2-3 weeks ago I was under the impression that anchor babies were a legal thing. That having a citizen baby conferred rights on the mother and other family members to stay.
Even here some seem to be under that impression.
Based on a discussion in another venue with a person claiming to be an immigration lawyer I did some digging. He said, and turns out to be correct, that the citizen baby confers NO rights on the mother. She, and all the rest of the baby's family remain as subject to deportation as if the baby did not exist.
The only potential benefit is that at a deportation hearing, the mother can request a stay or waiver of deportation based on the citizen baby. These stays seem to be rarely granted.
At age 21, the citizen (former) baby can request a visa(?) for the mother to immigrate legally. But if she had been here illegally before, it is supposed to be denied.
So we don't, apparently, even need any legislation to stop the anchor babies. They already do not exist, legally.
What we do need to do is start enforcing the law. Enforcement, rather than a lack of law seems to be the problem.
We also need to start publicizing loudly and in hearing of anyone thinking to come to the US to take advantage of the anchor baby loophole that no such loophole exists.
There may still be women who want to come and drop the baby for the baby's sake as a US citizen. Probably not all that many. And some who want to come so that in 21 years the baby can sponsor them for US residency. Though if the baby has not lived and grown up in the US, that is unlikely to be granted.
In either case, probably not enough to be a problem.
John Henry
"Subject to the jurisdiction" seems to be the phrase everyone hangs their hat on. A hypothetical:
2 Chinese couples come to the US. One illegally, the other sponsored for a green card by a company and legal. Both couples intend to remain in the US indefinitely.
A year after arrival each has a baby. Neither baby is a Chinese citizen under current Chinese citizenship law. (This would also apply if Indian or of dozens of other nationalities).
As non-Chinese citizens, neither baby is subject to Chinese jurisdiction.
How is the jurisdiction of the US over the baby of the legal immigrants different than over the baby of the illegal immigrants?
It seems like an awful fine hair to split.
Would it make any difference if the couples were from a country like England that did grant citizenship at birth via the parents?
John Henry
Re Kim Wong Ark the court noted that the parents were legal residents of the US.
But as I read the case, they did not decide that Kim Wong Ark (the son) would have had any different citizenship status had they not been legal.
John Henry
Jupiter said...
"A woman flies here , gives birth to a baby (an American citizen) and the flies back to her home country."
If it is an American citizen, why is it allowed into her home country without a visa? I certainly wouldn't be.
Many countries recognize citizenship through the mother regardless of where the baby is born.
To continue with Chinese, since the woman had no intention of settling in the US, the baby would also have Chinese citizenship. China would have no problem admitting one of their own citizens. Assuming dual citizenship was not a problem.
10-15,000 Canadians are born in the US as Canadian and US citizens because Canada has such shitty healthcare. They are Canadian citizens, they got to come in freely. They are also Americans and there is no visa required for American citizens.
John Henry
Duty of Inquiry said...
Sorry John Henry,
That number cannot be right. Suppose we have 20 million undocumented migrants, how do they pump out 225 million babies?
I have no idea. I wrote 225m not 225 million.
I'm American, I use American notation. m='000 million would be mm.
John Henry
I said
They are Canadian citizens, they got to come in freely. They are also Americans and there is no visa required for American citizens.
I may have been unclear. I meant that either as Canadian or American citizens there is no visa or other barrier to entering Canada.
Though if coming to the US, as dual Canadian/US citizen, there is no barrier either way.
A benefit, I guess, is that you get to pick which customs line, citizen/non-citizen you get to stand on.
John Henry
Well Vickie from Pasadena may be wrong. But she correctly observed that a lot of women from the Far East fly into Southern California late in their pregnancy. I've seen groups of such young women entering the Huntington Museum in Pasadena (Vickie's apparent home town). But let's try this for an analogy so Vickie might understand. The Beach Boy's "Little Old Lady From Pasadena" drove a bright red super stock Dodge. She routinely broke the speed limit on Colorado Boulevard. And most of the time she didn't get a ticket for speeding. But that doesn't mean she didn't break the law; it also doesn't mean that when a Pasadena cop writes her a ticket for speeding, the court will convict her and make her pay a fine. So Vickie--slow down--and yes those young Chinese women were wrong.
"Re Kim Wong Ark the court noted that the parents were legal residents of the US.
But as I read the case, they did not decide that Kim Wong Ark (the son) would have had any different citizenship status had they not been legal."
Not the argument you think it is, because if it was, they wouldn't have looked at that issue in the first place.
John Henry,
"But as I read the case, they did not decide that Kim Wong Ark (the son) would have had any different citizenship status had they not been legal"
Good for them, because courts are not supposed to engage in that kind of speculative stuff - - they're supposed to decide the case or controversy actually before them.
I imagine that a number of the founding fathers, and not just the slave holding ones, were spinning in their graves that the 14th Amendment gave citizenship to former slaves.
"Neither baby is a Chinese citizen under current Chinese citizenship law."
Where are you finding that? I see a different rule.
At any rate, peoples futures are at stake here and this won't be decided until the SC rules on the meaning of the 14th.
They should get off their ass. If they can intervene instantly in a death row case they can intervene here.
Rabel
Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China
Adjust font size: ZoomIn ZoomOut
(Articles snipped)
Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China (Adopted at the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress, promulgated by Order No.8 of the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on and effective as of September 10, 1980)
Article 5
Any person born abroad whose parents are both Chinese nationals and one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person whose parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/LivinginChina/184710.htm
As I read it, a woman coming to LA just for the baby and returning to China would have a Chinese citizen baby. But, in my hypothetical I specified that they were staying indefinitely.
OTOH, Article 3 says "The People's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for Any Chinese national." So I am not sure what happens to that baby born in the US with US citizenship.
John Henry
I keep forgetting to mention the 14th amendment has two parts to it- which are very germane to John Henry's remarks before: "Re Kim Wong Ark the court noted that the parents were legal residents of the US." Now, why would they remark on that? The 14th's words: "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." The 2nd part, aside from being born here- "and of the state wherein they reside." Kim Wong Ark's parents resided here, hence he was a citizen of CA and of the US. And the residency here was required in order for him to be a citizen of either. same with former slaves- they met all the legal requirements for being a resident of a state that any other non-former slave met.
Birth tourists do not reside in CA- or any other state in which they're touristing.
Canadian subjects giving birth in NY or other states because free healthcare in Canada sucks- are not residents of the state, and their children born here should not be US citizens.
A person who wanders over the border and drops her child here- the child and mother are not resident within any state. Every state has different rules for establishing residency. In general, most I'm familiar with are 30 days in the state already with a permanent address, or in the process of getting a permanent address. So a hotel room from which you're going to immediately depart from and return to your home country doesn't qualify.
There are several exceptions to "Birthright citizenship! It's there! Right in the words!" exist and have existed, and it took laws to change them. Notably American Indians. And even then as I pointed out in another post- there were and still could be exceptions to that in the 1952 citizenship act. And note that act uses the exact same words as the 14th amendment- without defining them, because apparently "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" held the same meaning in 1953 as when the 14th was adopted.
And there's still the curious case of American Samoans. I see the ACLY uses that for outrage- "How the U.S. Denies Citizenship to American Samoans". Yeah, no. The court rulings that have been made confirming they're nationals and not citizens have taken into account request by (then) Samoan elders who constituted the government requesting the court not force unwanted citizenship upon American Samoans. And apparently you can only be an American Samoan by ancestry- or by being a foundling of unknown ancestry discovered on Swain Island or one of the other islands.
A question I couldn't find a definitive, or any answer to. If an American Samoan drops a child while residing in another state- is that child a citizen or a national? Couldn't find anything in American Samoan or US law about that.
Oh- probably would be easier to separate out arguments with italics or bold- both of which seem to having frequent malfunctions here.
Gee, hasn't Ilya and his fellow Koch-funded dolt fellows moved to their utopian police-and-laws free-libertarian commune off Honduras yet?
He might also show some gratitude for the country that rescued his family.
Somin has been sucking the Koch teat since this ingrate and his parents were rescued by us from the Soviet Union when he was a child. I've had to deal with him. He despises Americans and conforms to the latest faddish legal theories using contemporary linguistics rather than Constitutional intent to poke holes in that document for his often ludicrous legal bugbears. There's no sunlight between "libertarians" like him and the hard Left.
He's the Judith Butler of leftitarian legal "theory."
I imagine that a number of the founding fathers, and not just the slave holding ones, were spinning in their graves that the 14th Amendment gave citizenship to former slaves.
Which is why an Amendment to the Constitution was necessary.
What does this have to do with anchor citizenship?
I'm British (English, actually), but it seems to me that it's not as cut and dried as many commentators (probably legal "experts") seem to think.
Trump is a dumb ass, and his tweets and other communiques to the world are consistently dumb. If the 14th Amendment was intended by Congress to be restricted to only children born of former slaves...that limitation would have been specified. That it was not tells us it was intended to be more comprehensive than just the children of former slaves.
Robert Cook is a dumbass. If the 14th Amendment was intended by Congress to be restricted to only children born of former slaves...that limitation would have been specified, and then languished in state legislatures and never added to the Constitution.
Regardless of it's intent, if you go to what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant historically, meant when it was ratified, and even means now if you look into it, it doesn't include birth tourists and people here unlawfully. "But they're ere- we can arrest and try them!" That's one meaning, but not the sole meaning of jurisdiction. We invaded Panama and arrested and tried Noriega. Apparently you can be outside the USA and be subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Words mean things, and the context in which they are used means things. All of Europe is in turmoil because our VP pointed out they don't have freedom of speech. Because- in their closed minds- they do- just not harmful or hate speech. Germany has freedom of religion- no Pastafrarians need apply- or Scientologists. Freedom of approved religions, and they're not on the list.
American Samoans are under US jurisdiction but aren't automatically citizens from birth. I suppose the same was true when we controlled the Philippines and the trusteeship in the Northern Pacific.
Darkisland said...
Based on a discussion in another venue with a person claiming to be an immigration lawyer I did some digging. He said, and turns out to be correct, that the citizen baby confers NO rights on the mother. She, and all the rest of the baby's family remain as subject to deportation as if the baby did not exist.
I have read a bunch of Indians in the US on H-1B visas who were very upset at the Trump change, because they believed that having an "anchor baby" would allow them to jump the "green card" queue.
So I believe you are incorrect in your understanding
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