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"Birthright citizenship" may sound benign, but thanks to an overreaching Supreme Court decision 126 years ago, it's the biggest legal hole in our border.
Trump has the opportunity to seal it, but it won't be easy.
When the Supreme Court handed down its United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision, illegal immigration was nothing like the crisis it is now.
And the subject of that case, Wong Kim Ark, was the son of legal immigrants — permanent residents, in fact.
But in the 21st century, liberal legal experts insist the court's 1898 ruling today means any child born on American soil is automatically a citizen.
Convicts fleeing across our borders?
Tren de Aragua killers?
Terrorists sneaking into the country?
Their kids all become Americans if they're born on our soil.
It's an outrageous, absurd situation, and Trump has vowed to stop it.
He renewed that vow on "Meet the Press" Sunday. "We're going to end that because it's ridiculous," he told host Kristen Welker.
Birthright citizenship at present is so ridiculous it even gives children of illegal immigrants rights that naturalized citizens — and some Americans born to citizen parents — don't have.
For example, it allows them to be elected president.
"No Person except a natural born Citizen" can hold that office, according to the Constitution.
That excludes everyone who's come from another country and explicitly pledged his or her loyalty to this country, and it even excludes children of American citizens who are born outside the United States or its territories.
But according to the crackpot interpretation of birthright citizenship progressives have pressed into service in our day, the children of illegal aliens with no loyalty to this country — or worse, actual hostility to this country — are "natural born citizens."
If Mohamed Atta or another 9/11 hijacker had a son while in this country, that boy would have top-tier U.S. citizenship.
Foreign elites routinely take advantage of this loophole to acquire all the rights, privileges and immunities of being American for their offspring.
All an official of, say, Communist China has to do is fly his pregnant wife to the United States and have her give birth here.
A "birth tourism" industry caters to this scam in China and elsewhere.
It shows the dangers of birthright citizenship are about more than just illegal immigration: holders of valid tourist visas, who don't have any intention of becoming Americans, can arrive pregnant and depart with a newly minted U.S. citizen added to the family.
It's a threat to national security and sovereignty itself.
So what can Trump do about it?
His advisers are crafting language for an executive order to be implemented his first day back in office.
But the weakest version of such an order would only curtail birth tourism by restricting visas for travel to the states — which wouldn't do a thing about illegal immigrants who take advantage of birthright citizenship.
Trump said on the campaign trail he wants to issue an order that restricts automatic citizenship to people with at least one parent who's already a citizen or legal permanent resident — a test Wong Kim Ark, who set the Supreme Court's precedent, would have passed.
But does that mean the justices today will uphold the president's action?
The policy's supporters don't take it for granted.
Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, for one, tells the Wall Street Journal, "I think they'll probably uphold the current interpretation of the 14th amendment," yet he still wants the administration to make the effort.
After all, it's not as if the justices can hand down a ruling any more absurd than what Wong Kim Ark means now.
The dissenting justices 126 years ago looked to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 — passed just two months before Congress took up the 14th Amendment — to explain what the amendment meant by "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ..." (emphasis added).
Pointing to the statute's language, they argued that "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant, among other things, "not subject to any foreign power."
That was how Congress viewed birthright citizenship then — and it's a commonsense interpretation that would exclude illegal aliens and birth tourists today.
Trump is trying to restore us to the understanding of citizenship held by the framers of the amendment that guaranteed equal protection for all Americans.
Yet progressives say nothing less than another amendment can change the present policy, which awards citizenship even to the offspring of foreign criminals, so long as they're born here.
It's a battle Trump must fight, all the way to the Supreme Court, and America can't afford to lose.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 12/03/24: Identity Politics, Not Biden, Cost Dems the Election
• 11/19/24: Why Dems Are Losing Tomorrow's Elections Today
• 11/12/24: Dems Are at a Dead End, Unless They Learn From Trump
• 10/29/24: Harris Targets Married Women
• 10/22/24: Vibes Turn Bad for Kamala Harris
• 10/15/24: Why Veterans Are Voting for Trump
• 10/08/24: How Donald Trump Can Win the Popular Vote
• 10/01/24: Iran Targets America's Elections -- and Trump
• 09/24/24: Trump's Would-Be Assassin's Explanation
• 09/17/24: When Character Assassination Becomes the Real Thing
• 09/10/24: Kamala Harris Runs Like a Republican -- and Misleads
• 09/04/24: Where Trump Is Moderate -- While Kam Is Maximalist
• 08/27/24: Donald Trump Is Reagan's Heir
• 08/20/24: Will Voters Settle for Joe Biden's Wing(wo)man?
• 08/13/24: Trump Has to Run Like It's 2016 Again
• 08/07/24: Is Trump Running Against Harris -- or Donald Trump?
• 07/30/24: Kamala Harris' 'Mean Girls' Election
• 07/23/24: Kamala Harris Is the Opponent Donald Trump Wants
• 07/16/24: Ready for Biden's Counterattack?
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print