Almost the entire Trump family, including Donald himself, are children of immigrants.
The case at issue, Trump v. Barbara, involves
birthright citizenship — the principle that you’re a citizen of the country
where you were born.
In the United States, birthright citizenship was written
into the Constitution after the Civil War. Following the end of slavery, the
amendment confirmed that the fundamental rights of citizenship do not depend on
white ancestry, but belong to everyone born in this country.
On Day One of his presidency, Trump issued an Executive
Order to overthrow that principle. He ordered that babies born in the
U.S. of undocumented immigrants should not be considered citizens.
If Trump’s order were deemed legal, he would have the power
to annul the citizenship of tens of millions of Americans, deny their right to
vote and other legal entitlements, and even deport them. Trump’s endorsement of
racial targeting in ICE arrests confirms that, in revoking citizenship, he
would focus on people of color.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” he
continued. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as
clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
Coughenour is no “radical liberal.” He was appointed to the
bench by conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan. But any reasonable
judge would reach the same conclusion — and many did, including judges of the
Ninth and First Circuits.
Disturbingly, however, the Supreme Court may validate this
“blatantly unconstitutional order.” Under Supreme Court rules, at least four
justices must vote to take up a lower court ruling. So at least four decided
Trump’s incredible claims were sound enough to put on the Supreme Court docket.
The decision is unsupportable. The Fourteenth Amendment
begins with this plain statement: “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.”
Trump’s lawyers assert that children born in the United
States of undocumented immigrants aren’t citizens because they aren’t subject
to U.S. jurisdiction. That’s nonsense — jurisdiction has nothing to do with
whether someone is legally in the United States.
“Jurisdiction” refers
to the lawful authority a government exercises over individuals within its
territory. If someone is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, that means U.S. laws
don’t apply to them.
It turns the law upside down to say that people aren’t subject to our law because they entered illegally — and absurd to claim their newborn babies aren’t subject to U.S. jurisdiction either.
Since everyone in the U.S. is subject to U.S. law, why does
the Fourteenth Amendment even mention jurisdiction? Because there’s an
exception to the citizenship grant: foreign diplomats.
Diplomats enjoy diplomatic immunity, so they’re not “subject
to the jurisdiction” of the United States and can’t be charged with crimes
under U.S. law. The same is true of their
children. Since they are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, their kids don’t
become U.S. citizens by being born here.
If those who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to put
the children of people not lawfully in the U.S. in the same category, they
would have said so. They didn’t.
America is one nation of many peoples, and most of our
ancestors came from other lands. When newcomers’ children are born here, they
are automatically and conclusively Americans — and citizens.
The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to resolve that
question with finality. It’s intolerable that the Supreme Court should consider
reopening an issue it took a Civil War to resolve.
Mitchell
Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author. His
writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell
Zimmerman. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org. Mitchell is a frequent contributor to Progressive Charlestown.
