Trump’s Déjà-Vu Moment on Birthright Citizenship

More political posturing and material for the courts:

…Yesterday, Trump attempted to do some of the same things via new executive orders. One is intended to deny automatic citizenship to children born to people living in the United States while working for a foreign government and children of people declared to be terrorists or adversaries of the U.S. It would also deny citizenship to people born in U.S. territories if Congress passes a proposed lawallowing that, creating a new group of stateless people. The second order is intended to prevent the practice of “birth tourism,” in which people visiting the United States on tourist visas give birth to babies who are then U.S. citizens.

Legal experts and advocates say the orders are unconstitutional, and they are certain to be challenged in court. Trump’s loss at the Supreme Court seems to make these orders a long shot. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion for the Court, “children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States” satisfy the relevant conditions and thus “under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.”

The language in the orders about “alien enemies” is another likely area for dispute, not because anyone is eager to welcome the children of bona fide adversaries but because this administration has made absurd claims about illegal immigration constituting an “invasion,” which makes no sense on its face and has been rejected by federal judges.

Trump’s announcement of the orders at the White House yesterday was full of fabrications, exaggerations, and lies. Trump claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment “was meant for the babies of slaves. It was—it was right after—one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.” In fact, it passed three years later, in 1868. The presidential adviser Stephen Miller echoed the same idea, saying that the amendment “had no other meaning and purpose outside of that, and that’s been clear, obviously, since the day that it was passed.” When a politician uses the word obviously—like frankly—that’s a good sign that what follows will be neither obvious nor true. If this had been obvious since 1868, the U.S. wouldn’t have acted otherwise for more than a century, and the Supreme Court would have ruled in favor of the administration….

Source: Trump’s Déjà-Vu Moment on Birthright Citizenship