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birthright citizenship 14th

see xenophobia, racism, climate refugees BLOOD POISON

SEE 14TH AMEND

SEE XO TRUMP --> EMERGENCY --> STEAL ELECTION

SEE PETER S

SEE KBJ SCOTUS ~ CLARENCE GORSUCH ALITO KAVA FLIPABLE?

SEE SAUER

see trump miller

see john eastman claremonsters

SEE KRIS MAYES ARIZ SOS

“person” in 14th key to lots of groups?

BIRTH TOURISM // ANCHOR BABY CAIN MIGRATION SINO REBOOT // GT REPLACEMENT RACISM

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AN 826

A self-described Libertarian is sounding the alarm that President Donald Trump's new effort to rewrite the 14th Amendment is "more bizarre" than most realize.

David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, walked through the specifics of the new executive orders that President Donald Trump signed to challenge

"The new birthright citizenship order is way more bizarre than anyone is saying," he wrote in a thread on X Friday. "1) The text requires agencies to deny CURRENT US CITIZENS citizenship docs if either parent 'IS' an alien enemy, foreign govt employee, regardless of their status at birth..."

"Contrast with the first birthright order: they deleted the timing phrase to open the citizenship claims of current US citizens whose parents did not even fall into the excluded category at birth," he continued.

It prompted him to pose the question: "Do they think they can take away people's citizenship?"

"Strangely, this means that the order doesn't apply to kids of parents who fell into the category at birth, but don't when the kid requests a passport," he said.

The second point he noticed is that Trump deleted the same thing from his first order. It "means that this new order applies retroactively to pre-order births!" he said.

The key line reads that it "shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order."

Third, Bier continued, Trump's order will apply if "either" one of the parents fits into the category as well as if both parents are noncitizens. The first order, he pointed out, gave options for the father's status being able to "save" the child's citizenship. If, for example, the mother had an H-1B visa and the father was a foreign bureaucrat visiting during the World Cup the child still couldn't be considered a citizen if their parent is a so-called "alien enemy."

"Trump also deleted the first order's clause protecting the children of lawful permanent residents. This means if you work for a foreign government as a Lawful Permanent Resident, your baby isn't a citizen.

Bier also pointed out how "incredibly vague" the language in the order is. So, while the order gets very specific about who it applies to, it doesn't even define what some of the categories mean.

There's also a caveat that requires children to know their parents' "intent" when they were giving birth, he pointed out. While conservatives are calling these folks "birth tourism" travelers, Bier explained that, according to these details, it includes Lawful Permanent Residents.

"If your parent was an immigrant visa holder who rushed to buy a plane ticket so you were born in the USA? Sorry!" said Bier.

He closed by calling the justification for Trump's new order "INSANE."

"He's saying he can deem whoever he wants to be 'outside of the USA.' The extraterritorial fiction means that these people wouldn't be subject to US law. No, the president can't just decide that certain people are outside of US law!" Bier wrote. "Remember, the only exception to birthright citizenship is for people not 'subject to the jurisdiction of the USA.' That's everyone except ambassadors, because everyone else has to follow US law. That's not just my interpretation."

"So, we have this bizarre, incoherent order backed up by the most insane legal theory imaginable. No, President Trump can't decide that people aren't subject to U.S. law, and of course, he's not actually going to give immunity to foreign terrorists and visa fraudsters. But he might give out immunity cards to anyone who gives him $1 million.... remember 'not subject to US jurisdiction' here applies even to state and local laws," Bier said.

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rww--> 8 26

John Eastman's name doesn't appear in Donald Trump's latest executive orders, but his fingerprints are all over them.

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AN 8 26

More often than not, the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 right-wing supermajority has been favorable to President Donald Trump's positions — from presidential immunity in Trump v. the United States to overturning Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. But Trump remains bitter over High Court decisions that weren't favorable to him, angrily railing against rulings on tariffs and birthright citizenship and looking for ways to get around rulings he doesn't like. And according to Slate's Alex Romero, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — the second of three conservative justices Trump appointed during his first term — helped pave the way for the president's defiance of SCOTUS.

"Last week," Romero explains in analysis for Slate, "President Donald Trump continued his defiant stance against the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship decision from earlier this summer, firing off two new executive orders about which people born in the U.S. should be declared citizens. Despite losing at the Supreme Court on the legal issue in late June, the Trump administration remains committed to twisting a long-settled constitutional question into a tool to keep Black and brown people out of American life. The conservative legal movement, at first skeptical of Trump's original executive order attacking birthright citizenship, has now fully embraced the cause. And the cause's survival can all be traced back to our Supreme Court's unwillingness to give the Trump administration the overwhelming legal defeats it deserves."

In Trump v. Barbara, the High Court struck down the president's executive order on birthright citizenship, which most of the justices said was protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. But many liberals and progressives, along with some right-wing Never Trump conservatives and libertarians, argued that the ruling could have been much more emphatic — and that it was way too close for comfort.

"It's not unusual for President Trump to try to ignore or twist a legal ruling on an issue he lost on," Romero observes. "The better question is why he thinks the effort will succeed. After all, there are other areas where Trump has quietly retreated after a court loss or public outcry. The reason the president persists is that despite all this history, text, and precedent, only five of the nine justices read the 14th Amendment as protecting birthright citizenship in Barbara. The narrowness of that margin was and continues to be a scandal. Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito in saying they would rule that the Constitution does not protect birthright citizenship for children of immigrants who don't have permanent legal status or are temporary visitors."

Romero continues, "Kavanaugh, in a separate opinion joined by nobody, thought the executive order only contradicted a federal statute that Congress could change. Let's be clear: This Court was one vote away from doing Dred Scott for yet a new group of people who lack political power. All in defense of an order that has been rightly condemned as 'blatantly unconstitutional.' Barbara…. is also a symptom of a Court that operates in a lopsided manner that favors the administration. This is especially true in the immigration context."

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MMA

Tudor Dixon tells Sean Hannity that Hasan Piker is “a birthright citizenship baby”: “People mistakenly believe that he is also an American”

  1. 08/07/26

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AN 7 26

Trump, who has been livid when the Supreme Court rules against him and was particularly incensed by losing a decision over birthright citizenship, just received a decisive blow on one of the key issues of his presidency.

"The Supreme Court has put a decisive end to one of President Donald Trump’s signature crusades after he missed the deadline to seek a rehearing," wrote The Daily Beast's Erkki Forster on Monday. "When the court struck down Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship for millions of Americans in a 6-3 ruling at the end of June, it started a 25-day clock for the president to seek a reversal of the decision, which he vowed to do."

They reported on Trump saying last month on his Truth Social platform that "I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”

They added, "Still, the Supreme Court was not united in its opposition to Trump’s efforts to gut the citizenship protections guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States 'are citizens of the United States.' The court’s ultra-conservative wing of Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented, signaling they would have overturned a century and a half of citizenship rights. And while Kavanaugh voted with the majority, he took the unusual step of filing a partial dissent, saying Trump’s executive order did not violate the Constitution but that it did 'contravene a federal statute.'"

Overall The Daily Beast concluded, "After the court issued its ruling in June, Trump suggested that Congress 'can easily make it up' with legislation to end birthright citizenship, saying, 'No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!' He was wrong: the court’s majority decision rests on constitutional grounds, meaning that it would indeed take a constitutional amendment to undo it, according to the Associated Press."

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an 7 26

President Donald Trump has run out of time, and he doesn't appear to know it yet.

The president took to Truth Social earlier this month after his failed ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court over birthright citizenship.

"Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising birthright citizenship, with 'deliveries starting at $4,000.' Likewise, similar signs are going up all over our country. Billions of dollars will be illegally made by this scam, with citizenship going to anyone willing to pay," Trump said with his random capitalizations.

"It will be by far, the number one way of becoming a citizen, and then the entire family will be allowed to follow. Not sustainable ... In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court's ruling is wrong. I will be asking for rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, immediately. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don't change their absolutely insane decision. Thank you for your attention to this matter," the message read.

As William and Mary law professor Jonathan H. Adler explained, Trump's demand hit a brick wall.

"The deadline has passed, and the Docket does not indicate any petition was filed," he wrote on X.com.

SCOTUS Wire explained, "Rule 44 allows 25 days to seek rehearing. It requires the support of at least one Justice from the majority, and is rarely granted."

The Supreme Court decision was handed down on June 30 and Tuesday marks 28 days since the ruling. Trump is officially outside the rule.

Trump and his allies continue to make claims about birth tourism, saying that women who are eight months pregnant either fly or walk across the U.S. border to give birth. That claim was cited by Solicitor General John Sauer in oral arguments in April. Chief Justice John Roberts asked Sauer how often this is happening.

Sauer responded, "No one knows for sure."

Trump alleged that there are hundreds of thousands of people doing this each year.

"In 2020, the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that advocates low immigration, estimated the possible number of birth tourism cases at 20,000 to 26,000 per year. For context, there were 3.61 million births in the U.S. that year," explained FactCheck.org.

MMA

July 9, 2026, edition of The Tenpenny Files, streamed on Rumble

EMMA WATERS (HERITAGE FOUNDATION SENIOR POLICY ANALYST): In the course of my research on national and international surrogacy, I came across a few academic reports that noted that cross-border surrogacy — where a foreign national comes to another country to access their surrogates, their agencies, and their health services — was growing in popularity. And in fact, the biggest area that we were seeing grow was actually Chinese nationals from mainland China coming to the United States to rent the womb of American women. And it noted that one of the key drivers or motivations for this was birthright citizenship because, when that child was born, they would gain and maintain the full rights of U.S. citizenship — even though their parents were foreign nationals, and even though that child would actually be raised fully abroad. And when I read that, I thought, oh my goodness. We have a massive case of immigration fraud, national security risk, and a violation of the well-being of children and the women serving as surrogates.

...

SHERRI TENPENNY (HOST): What sort of national security implications does this sort of process add? And what does this — why did the Supreme Court support this?

WATERS: Such a great question. So, speaking to the national security risks of birth tourism, and particularly of surrogacy birth tourism — because the child is simply being born here and being raised abroad, you have cases where there are thousands, even hundreds of thousands of individuals, who have full U.S. citizenship, and in the eyes of the law would be viewed as a natural-born citizen like you and I, who were born and raised here, and yet are being raised in a foreign country, predominantly China, who has a vested interest in undermining and defeating the United States.

We're in a cold war with China. And so you have these children who are being raised culturally, ethnically, geographically in China, who then have all access to sensitive research jobs in government positions or research positions. These children, when they turn 21, can actually apply for a visa to sponsor their extended family to becoming citizens. And so there are cases of surrogacy agencies openly advertising commercial surrogacy as a cheaper option than an EB-5 visa, which would be the proper immigration steps you should take. So sidestep immigration laws in the United States by citizenship through surrogacy.

But you also have to keep in mind that when that surrogate-born child — even though they're ethnically, geographically, and culturally raised in China — turns 35, he could run for president.

TENPENNY: Oh my goodness.

WATERS: He could hold office. He has — there are no restrictions on what these surrogate-born children could or couldn't do because they are full citizens, regardless of the fact that they are not raised here. They don't love America. They don't view America as their home. Right? They're not patriotic in any sense.

And so it's a massive national security risk because now the United States doesn't know who these children are. We have no idea at what point do they start reemigrating. And there are various reports on this where some will say, well, we know the CCP does have a vested interest. Others would say the CCP doesn't have a vested interest. But what we do know regardless is that the Communist Party of China will take any opportunity to subvert the United States. And if they have thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women growing up with full U.S. citizenship, I think that it is very likely they will use that to the best of their advantage to undermine the United States in coming years, whether that's stealing research, stealing intelligence, or running for office or secretive or select positions because of that.

MMA

Fox host Lawrence Jones says birthright citizenship allows Democrats to “import a whole new population. I mean that's exactly what it is, everything is to benefit votes in the end.”

07/08/26 3:50 PM EDT

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RWW 7 26

The Supreme Court’s affirmation of birthright citizenship renews right-wing media’s accusations of Chinese election interference.

Back in 2018, a 19-year-old neo-Nazi going by the name “ThomasRyan” wrote in a private Discord server that a “vast remigration program” in the United States was the “best outcome we can stand to look at.” There was no mistaking what ThomasRyan meant by “remigration,” a term only he and his ilk were using at the time. It meant the forced removal of non-white people from the U.S., a process ThomasRyan imagined would begin with the U.S. government escorting “willing” non-white people to their “ethnic homelands.” The “unwilling” — that is, immigrants and U.S. citizens who refused to leave the country that is their home — would be rounded up in chains so the government could “dump them” somewhere abroad.

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MMA

  1. ### Right-wing media target pregnant and female travelers following SCOTUS birthright citizenship ruling

07/02/26 12:43 PM EDT

  1. ### Laura Ingraham: “Chinese birth tourism recipients in the United States. They're Chinese citizens. That means they can run for office. They get all of our benefits, get to go to our, schools, scholarships. This has got to stop.”

07/02/26 12:25 PM EDT

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mma

OMFG PRETEXT FOR STEAL ELECTION?!

The plot to subvert the midterms is getting stranger and more dangerous

Right-wing media figures including Steve Bannon, John Solomon, and Cleta Mitchell appear to be weaving together a narrative about interference by China in US elections to justify a national emergency to curtail voting rights

Written by John Knefel

Published 07/02/26

Over the last several weeks, the outlines of a plot have begun to emerge that could signal how President Donald Trump, along with MAGA media figures and activists, could attempt to severely curtail voting rights under the pretext of declaring a national emergency posed by China.

The details of the scheme remain publicly vague, and may not yet come to pass, but the short version looks something like this: First, the White House would declassify and release documents purporting to show foreign interference in U.S. elections, especially by the Chinese Communist Party.

Next, Trump would use that supposed “proof” of a stolen election to declare a national emergency, thereby — according to those pushing this idea — giving him extraordinary powers over the upcoming midterms. That move would serve as a way to advance the anti-voting rights measures in the SAVE America Act, like forcing voters to prove their citizenship, without having to actually pass the law — which Congress, so far at least, appears reluctant to do.

The main players here come not only from the fever swamp backwaters of MAGA media, but also from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is a central node, attempting to advance the operation on his War Room podcast, aired on right-wing network Real America’s Voice, long a major source of misinformation about the 2020 election.

The main players here come not only from the fever swamp backwaters of MAGA media, but also from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House

Bannon’s RAV colleague John Solomon, whose role in the plot appears to be running the declassification effort, was recently appointed to a White House “task force” into supposed election integrity. Solomon was Media Matters’ Misinformer of the Year in 2019 for his role in laundering misinformation about the Bidens and Ukraine through his opinion columns.

Also in the mix is Peter Schweizer, who founded the Government Accountability Institute with Bannon and has moved from spreading misinformation about the Clintons to claiming that China is taking over the United States by exploiting birthright citizenship.

Then there’s Cleta Mitchell, a right-wing lawyer who was on the January 2021 call when Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough ballots to tip the state his way. She referenced Schweizer in a June 20 appearance on War Room, positively paraphrasing an argument he made on his podcast acknowledging that much of the voting activity he wants to suppress is actually legal.

“Peter Schweizer put it pretty well last week in a podcast that he does with Eric Eggers, and the question they posed is: If fraud is made — if election fraud is made legal, is it still fraud?” Mitchell asked. “Because what's happened in California over the last decade is that the far-left Democrat, socialist, Marxists, communists have completely upended every vestige of election integrity.” (Bannon had teed her up by referencing the Los Angeles mayoral primary, claiming without evidence: “They stole it right in front of our face and laughed at us the entire time.")

Video

Citation

From the June 20, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

Mitchell is supported by a loose array of election deniers who have called on Trump to issue an executive order to seize “king-like powers” over voting systems, supported by the national emergency decree.

Bill Pulte, the newly installed acting DNI, and his recently appointed chief of staff, former Republican National Committee official Christina Norton, also appear to figure heavily into the plan. On June 20, Bannon said Pulte’s role at DNI is “to get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election.” Ten days later, Bannon described Norton as “one of the top election fraud people in all of the RNC” and said Pulte is “signaling where he's going on this” with her hiring, adding that “my understanding is that there is going to be real revelations about the stealing of the 2020 election."

The same day, NBC News reported that Solomon’s task force “is gathering thousands of pages of documents from U.S. intelligence agencies, with plans to declassify some of them, so President Donald Trump can amplify new accusations about past elections.” In describing his unpaid role at the White House, Solomon said he will be releasing “some documents, some secrets you should know about when it comes to weaponization, election integrity, other things."

Solomon’s recent media footprint offers clues about what he is likely looking to find, declassify, and present — possibly out of context. The subhead of a May 6 article of Solomon’s states: “The evidence continues to stack up that the U.S. intel community sought to downplay China's actions in 2020 as Trump sought reelection.” Then, during a May 19 interview, he said: “We do know the FBI had grave suspicions that China was trying to rig the election, probably with help from people on the ground, to help Joe Biden specifically."

The Supreme Court’s narrow June 30 decision to protect birthright citizenship could turbocharge the Bannon-Solomon-Pulte scheme, in part by providing fodder for anti-Chinese sentiment on the right. On Solomon’s website, Just The News, an article about the birthright citizenship case referenced Schweizer’s book and hyped the supposed China menace.

Birthright citizenship abuse via birth tourism, when foreign nationals travel to the United States on temporary visas specifically to give birth, is an issue that Trump addressed early in his second term.

Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer detailed this practice extensively in his 2026 book, “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” in which he described how China has industrialized the practice on a large scale through an organized industry.

Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute told FactCheck.org that “birth tourism is a very small occurrence – of the 3.6 million U.S. births annually, a tiny fraction is due to foreign women who are not regularly domiciled in the U.S. coming here for the purpose of giving birth to secure U.S. citizenship for their child.”

And as the American Immigration Council’s Dara Lind noted: “Consulates have a ton of discretion under existing law to deny someone a visa. And suspicion of birth tourism _has_ served as a reason to deny visas in the past. If the problem is insufficient enforcement, good news, you can solve that problem without changing the law or Constitution!”

Bannon stated plainly on June 29 that Solomon’s “task force” and “also Pulte” would be central to creating a “predicate” for the declaration of a national emergency and subsequent executive order achieving the anti-voting rights goals of the SAVE America Act.

On June 30, Bannon interviewed another of his RAV colleagues, Wayne Allyn Root, who further elaborated what a national emergency declaration could look like.

“Stop talking about the SAVE Act and do a national security emergency for elections, which is the SAVE Act, which contains everything that's in the SAVE Act, Steve, and more and more,” Root said.

Just days earlier, on June 24, Trump canceled a signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill to pressure Congress to pass the stalled out SAVE America Act, which he referred to as a “National Emergency."

The “predicate” Bannon is hoping to manufacture could also be for other election initiatives the administration is working on — such as trying to force courts to give the administration access to various state voter rolls — an issue the administration is facing significant resistance to.

Whether this harebrained plot congeals into an active conspiracy to subvert the midterms remains to be seen, but given that Trump has already tried to overturn one election it would be a mistake not to take these rumblings seriously. There may indeed be an emergency — it’s just not the one that Bannon and company are talking about.

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AN 7 26

Democratic Arizona AG Kris Mayes walked into office all but declaring war on President Donald Trump and his policies. But apparently, she’s done more than declare war — she’s killing it.

“The Democrat has filed 43 lawsuits against the Trump administration since he took office one year ago,” reports the Phoenix New Times. “She’s been a frequent filer since … Trump took office in January, pushing back on his attempts to systematically change the entire U.S. government.”

The Times reports Trump used the Department of Government Efficiency as a “machete” to slash grants, lay-off thousands of employees and dismantled entire government agencies. And while “a Republican-controlled Congress has essentially stood by and let it happen,” Democratic state attorneys general — including Mayes — have picked up the slack.

“Arizona has filed several lawsuits over the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze federal funding, much of which is previously allocated in Arizona. [Mayes] has also filed suit to protect the personal data of Arizona residents and successfully sued to stop the Trump administration’s attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Constitution,” the Times reports.

And “every other day, it seems, Mayes is announcing another lawsuit against Trump,” said the Times, with Mayes claiming her office’s “success rate is 80 percent, with wins, temporary restraining orders, permanent injunctions or the government dropping the change entirely.”

Most recently, Mayes helped beat back Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship, having joined four other blue states in trouncing his plan this week.

In a separate case involving Trump’s attempt to block federal funding, on March 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals largely affirmed a lower court’s decision to grant Mayes’ preliminary injunction to block the administration’s policy to freeze funding while the case plays out. As of now, nearly $1.4 billion in federal funding remains unfrozen for several Arizona state agencies.

In a separate bid to protect Social Security numbers and veteran benefits from DOGE snoops, a district judge granted a preliminary injunction in February to block Musk and employees from accessing sensitive personal information.

Trump also moved to cut “indirect cost” reimbursements that cover medical and public health research at universities and research institutions. But Mayes argued in court that the cuts would cause Arizona students and universities to “miss out on millions of dollars in critical funding and research support” that is “owed to Arizonans by law.” In January, the Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling to permanently prevent the Trump administration from cutting NIH grants, preventing Trump from slicing $35 million in NIH grants in Arizona.

Trump and his cohorts also worked to dismantle the federal Department of Education, but guess who jumped up to be a nuisance? Mayes filed her lawsuit to stop the dismantling in March of 2025, and In May 2025, the district judge hearing the case granted Mayes and other plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. That decision alone prevents the government from firing department staff while the case plays out.

The administration must also reinstate employees and “restore the Department to the status quo,” reports the Times. That case is still moving toward trial.

One of Mayes’ cases that infuriated Trump the most was a Supreme Court order upholding a lower court’s decision to strike down Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his widely panned tariffs.

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rww 7 26

Federalist boss Sean Davis reacted to the birthright citizenship ruling with an unhinged list of “ways forward” that alarmed even conservatives.

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14TH AMEND

AN 6 26

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision striking down President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive orderin an opinion that was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. However, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued her own concurrence that targeted Justice Clarence Thomas by name.

After 31 pages of Roberts walking through the long history of birthright citizenship in the law, Jackson wrote a response to the dissent that Thomas penned along with Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.

"Despite his longstanding endorsement of a 'colorblind' Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to 'freed slaves such as Dred Scott,' post, at 56, and those who shared with them certain characteristics ... It is for this reason, he says, that 'children who were born in the United States but [to parents] not domiciled here' are not entitled to claim birthright citizenship. ... But that narrow vision of the Fourteenth Amendment bears little relationship to the history of its ratification. Even worse, Justice Thomas’ telling elides the entire point of the Second Founding: The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery."

She goes on to allege that Thomas has a "myopic treatment" of the 14th Amendment.

"The Amendment caused a paradigm shift in the trajectory of our Nation; the teacher who scolds a student for bullying a classmate hopes the student learns the broader lesson of treating everyone with kindness, not just that one kid," she says.

She even went so far as to add an extensive footnote of cases "denied by this court" that refers back to Thomas' slavery argument.

"It is common ground that the Fourteenth Amendment was 'enacted ... with the one pervading purpose of securing equal citizenship for the freed slaves.' Also true is the fact that this Court 'has time and again denied Americans that promise.'"

Her footnote for that comment reads: "I suspect, though, that Justice Thomas and I disagree about when and how that promise has been denied by this Court. My list is long (and sadly only getting longer)." She cited 11 separate cases, the most recent of which refers back to a decision earlier this term in *Louisiana v. Callais.*

Jackson closes by saying, "Thankfully, a majority of the Court remembered this today, and has dutifully preserved the most basic animating principle of our Nation’s founding — that all human beings are created equal — once more."

Bill Shein called it a "blistering concurring opinion/takedown of Clarence Thomas's dissent."

Northwestern University School of Law Professor Paul Gowder said, "Justice Jackson knows what's up." He later added, "God bless Justice Jackson actually talking about what the Black folks who won the clause had said and done."

Loyola University School of Law Professor Justin Levitt wrote, "Justice Jackson is absolutely on fire in her birthright concurrence, unloading on the dissent not only for their votes in this case, but its apparent inconsistency with most of the 'colorblindness' jurisprudence of the past few terms."

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AN 5 26

Nancy Mace goes all-in on 'natural born' citizen requirement - Alternet.org

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an 4 26

A Politico Senior Affairs writer reports that the California Supreme Court has declined to reverse the disbarment of conservative attorney John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators in President Donald Trump‘s plan to overturn the 2020 election.

The decision came weeks after Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland ruled Eastman should be removed. Last year, A California appellate court, charged with reviewing recommendations to discipline lawyers in that state, affirmed the findings of a trial judge and recommended that Eastman 'be disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Eastman's name be stricken from the roll of attorneys.'"

Eastman was one of Trump’s lawyers in 2020, and he played a big part in helping Trump try to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, which the former president falsely claims was “stolen” by Joe Biden and Democratic officials. Eastman helped devise a false elector’s scheme involving former Vice President Mike Pence invalidating the 2020 results during a joint session of Congress as it convened to count the electoral votes.

Additionally, Eastman is the attorney behind Trump’s ongoing push to end birthright citizenship in America,

“The idea that birthright citizenship is a false interpretation or recent innovation that warps the intended meaning of the 14th Amendment has been pushed into mainstream Republican circles by the tireless work of John Eastman and the Claremont Institute,” said Bulwark writer Phillip Jaffa last year.

Eastman faced 11 disciplinary charges including violations of California’s business and professions code by making false statements that constitute acts of “moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption,” the California State Bar wrote in a filing.

Eastman testified in his defense and asked the state Supreme Court to review the Bar’s decision.

The court disagreed with him.

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an 4 26

A Politico Senior Affairs writer reports that the California Supreme Court has declined to reverse the disbarment of conservative attorney John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators in President Donald Trump‘s plan to overturn the 2020 election.

The decision came weeks after Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland ruled Eastman should be removed. Last year, A California appellate court, charged with reviewing recommendations to discipline lawyers in that state, affirmed the findings of a trial judge and recommended that Eastman 'be disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Eastman's name be stricken from the roll of attorneys.'"

Eastman was one of Trump’s lawyers in 2020, and he played a big part in helping Trump try to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, which the former president falsely claims was “stolen” by Joe Biden and Democratic officials. Eastman helped devise a false elector’s scheme involving former Vice President Mike Pence invalidating the 2020 results during a joint session of Congress as it convened to count the electoral votes.

Additionally, Eastman is the attorney behind Trump’s ongoing push to end birthright citizenship in America,

“The idea that birthright citizenship is a false interpretation or recent innovation that warps the intended meaning of the 14th Amendment has been pushed into mainstream Republican circles by the tireless work of John Eastman and the Claremont Institute,” said Bulwark writer Phillip Jaffa last year.

Eastman faced 11 disciplinary charges including violations of California’s business and professions code by making false statements that constitute acts of “moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption,” the California State Bar wrote in a filing.

Eastman testified in his defense and asked the state Supreme Court to review the Bar’s decision.

The court disagreed with him.

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MMA

GET THE BLK GUY? KNS

  1. ### Fox News co-host Harold Ford Jr: “If you want to change birthright citizenship, I would argue there's some people who are Americans who shouldn't have — be able to have kids here either”

04/02/26

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AN 4 26

President Donald Trump is facing off against the U.S. Supreme Court as part of his ongoing effort to bully his way into remaking the country in his image. It could also be only the first example.

Speaking about his trip to the Court this week, Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The Times Magazine, chatted with opinion columnist David French about the proceedings that legal analysts agree did not go well, with Trump looming in the audience.

Bazelon called Trump's flex a provocative political stunt, doubting its legal merit against the 14th Amendment, the Wong Kim Ark case (1898) and longstanding statutes.

"To me, this is the headline: Trump Trolls America. Because I don’t think the administration is making a serious legal argument," she said.

Criticizing Solicitor General D. John Sauer's "revisionist" history, Bazelon pointed to a moment in which the Trump lawyer outright misrepresented a 1921 law review article. Normally, lawyers trying to make a case before the Supreme Court cite the law itself, or conversations around making the law.

"Evan Bernick, a law professor, posted excerpts from that article to show that the solicitor general got it wrong," said Bazelon. While Sauer cited part of the review to justify those who thought the 14th Amendment to have a "domicile requirement." Meaning, if a family has a child in the U.S. they have to be established in the U.S. They can't simply come to the U.S. as part of "birth tourism," he called it.

"Too easy,"Evan Bernick said, chipping away at Sauer's argument. "He literally goes on to say that WKA follows the common law and the common law has no domicile requirement."

"Here’s the transcript. Sauer is just… lying," he added.

At one point, responding to Sauer's claim that it was a "new world," Chief Justice Roberts retorted, "It's a new world, but it's the same Constitution." It indicated skepticism on his part, but it was only the beginning of a very "bad" legal argument, CNN analysts agreed.

French focused on MAGA's outcome-driven approach with the textualists crowd, who believe the law applies to exactly what the text says and means at the time it was written.

Both note Trump's courtroom attendance was outright bullying, akin to his attacks on "rogue judges."

French added that Trump has started to treat the Supreme Court the same way he does with Republicans in Congress.

"He’s trying to insult, mock and bully them into compliance, but it’s not going to work. With precious few exceptions, the judiciary from top to bottom is unmoved. Judges are not so easily intimidated," said French.

Bazelon has another concern, however.

Another piece of "law as politics maneuvering that is eating at me," she said," is Stephen Miller. He "has been suggesting that Texas end public school funding for undocumented kids. A 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, requires states to pay for the education of all students, no matter their immigration status. But Miller and his allies would like nothing better than to set up a court challenge that could lead to the reversal of Plyler. It’s all in the service of immiserating immigrants to induce them to leave. I hope this is obvious, but taking away school from children — that is a real betrayal."

It's only one of the many cases that Republicans have their eyes on.

French said that it's time that Congress take the next steps to clarify the vague laws.

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an 3 26

The Trump administration is turning to Civil War-era white supremacists in its challenge to a more than one century-old ruling, based on the 14th Amendment, that states that most children born in the United States are U.S. citizens.

Over a century ago, Confederate officer and Louisiana attorney Alexander Porter Morse “was among a trio of thinkers who spearheaded a failed effort — steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism — to erase birthright citizenship,” The Washington Post reported. “The Trump administration is reviving their arguments to make its case today, some legal scholars say.”

University of New Hampshire history professor Lucy Salyer told the Post “she was struck that the Trump administration had chosen to elevate those figures and their ideas.”

“If you know the history and the broader context of what they were trying to achieve,” Salyer said, “it does ring alarm bells.”

The Post adds that “Trump administration attorneys cite Morse in their Supreme Court brief to argue the disputed idea that commentators in the 19th century widely agreed that the Constitution ‘exclude[s] the children of foreigners transiently within the United States’ from qualifying for citizenship.”

President Trump is making clear exactly where he stands on the issue of birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office Trump signed an executive order attempting to limit birthright citizenship for certain U.S.-born children of undocumented or temporary-status parents.

On Monday, the president went even further.

“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!”

“Look at the dates of this long ago legislation – THE EXACT END OF THE CIVIL WAR!” he continued. “The World is getting rich selling citizenships to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!). ‘Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!'”

The Post notes that the ACLU calls the administration’s argument “nothing less than a remaking of our Nation’s constitutional foundations.” They say it would apply to tens of thousands of children born in the U.S. every month, and would be “devastating” to families around the country.

“But worse yet, the government’s baseless arguments — if accepted — would cast a shadow over the citizenship of millions upon millions of Americans, going back generations.”

According to the Post, the 1800s campaign against birthright citizenship also relied on prominent legal scholar Francis Wharton, who posited the idea that citizenship be granted to children of European immigrants but not to children of Chinese immigrants.

“Like Wharton, the Trump administration says in its brief a child’s citizenship is dependent on the parents’ nationality, not birth in the United States.”

The Trump administration, also like Wharton, “highlights the 14th Amendment phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof ,’ saying it disqualifies children of illegal migrants and temporary visitors from becoming citizens because they can’t demonstrate the necessary political allegiance to the United States the phrase evokes.”

The case, which will consider the legality of Trump’s executive order, will be argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

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rww

07/16/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by President Trump and confirmed by Senate Republicans while voters were in the process of removing Trump from office in 2020. Barrett cemented the right-wing majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, gave Trump virtually complete immunity for lawbreaking he commits as president, and has generally backed Trump’s assault on the rule of law and the federal government. But all that hasn’t been enough for MAGA hardliners.

Earlier this year, far-right commentators were furious that Barrett did not back Trump 100 percent of the time. On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast in January, right-wing judicial activist Mike Davis viciously attacked Barrett, repeatedly saying she had her “head up her ass” and calling on her to resign.

After Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts voted in March not to immediately overturn a judge’s ruling overturning Trump’s freeze on nearly $2 billion in foreign aid work that had been approved by Congress and already performed, MAGA activist Mike Cernovich denounced her as “evil” and a “DEI hire,” the latter charge echoed by MAGA influencers Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. Davis went back on Bannon’s show to repeat his vulgar “head up her ass” comment.

In April, when Barrett partially joined more liberal justices’ dissent over Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants to a gulag in El Salvador, the right-wing hate poured in, with Trump’s online pal “catturd” calling her a “commie” and “an ungrateful POS.”

In recent high-profile cases, Barrett has sided with the rest of the MAGA justices to allow mass firings of federal employees and limit federal judges’ ability to halt lawbreaking policies, including Trump’s assertion that he can by executive order overturn the 150-year-old doctrine of birthright citizenship.

Those votes encouraged right-wing radio host John Frederick to ask MAGA lawyer John Eastman this week whether Barrett is “finally coming around.”

“Well, I think there are a lot of plays going on here,” Eastman responded. “One,” he said with a chuckle, “I think she and her family were being threatened. That was serious. I think as a new justice she’s wanting to make sure that everybody knows she’s her own person, so that was serious.”

Eastman said Barrett has “come around” because “the left has gone so far off the rails” with injunctions against Trump administration actions. He said “the greater the absurdity the more she realized that she needed to join” the MAGA majority.

“These judges who disagree with the agenda that the American people voted for don’t have any authority to block the agenda that the American people voted for unless it’s clearly unconstitutional, and it is not.”

Of course, right-wing legal groups had no issue with nationwide injunctions against Biden administration policies, and in fact actively pursued them. Eastman and the Court’s MAGA justices seem to have discovered a new constitutional doctrine now that judges are ruling against Trump’s policies.

Eastman complained that Democrats in the Senate would block any effort to strip federal courts of their jurisdiction over whole classes of cases and that therefore “it’s up to the Supreme Court to get control of the lower courts under its authority.”

Eastman went further in his criticism of the Court’s liberal justices. When Fredericks asked if Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has written powerful dissents, is “becoming a clown,” Eastman suggested that she has been a clown since her confirmation hearing. Even worse, he accused the dissenting justices who defended the constitutional doctrine of birthright citizenship of using “an old Nazi propaganda tactic” by repeatedly noting that it is long-established law.

Eastman said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the Supreme Court will adopt his opposition to birthright citizenship—and overturn more than 150 years of precedent—when it takes up the substance of the issue during its next term.

Eastman, long associated with the hard-right Claremont Institute, was disbarred in California for what judges have deemed his unethical actions in helping Trump try to subvertthe 2020 election. Eastman helped challenge results in swing states and promoted a strategy to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Eastman helped Trump rile up the crowd at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.

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AN 5 25

During a hearing on Thursday morning, May 15, Solicitor General John Sauer was questioned by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court — including Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts. The hearing involved universal injunctions blocking President Donald Trump's executive order (EO) against birthright citizenship.

Attorneys who are challenging Trump's order stress that it is unconstitutional, as birthright citizenship is protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

During her questioning, Kagan asked Sauer, "Does every single person that is affected by this EO have to bring their own suit? Are there alternatives? How long does it take? How do we get to the result that there is a single rule of citizenship…. that is the rule that we've historically applied, rather than the rule that the EO would have us do?"

READ MORE: 'Very disappointed': Rhode Island man finds glaring typo on Trump watch he paid $600 for

After Sauer was questioned by Barrett, the conservative justice accused him of being evasive in his responses to Kagan's questions.

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Barrett told Sauer, "Are you really going to answer Justice Kagan by saying there's no way to do this expeditiously?"

The questioning is receiving a lot of responses on X, formerly Twitter — some from angry MAGA Republicans, others praising their questions.

Law professor Jonathan Turley tweeted, "are you really going to answer [J]ustice [K]agan by saying, there's no way to do this expeditiously?"

READ MORE:When the sleeping giant awakens, Trump will be toast

David W. Green, a self-described "MAGA patriot," told Turley, " If the conclusion reached is anything other than 'judicial overreach has gone too far,' then we have an unconstitutional judicial branch and a constitutional crisis."

Jim Devine, a self-described "conservative libertarian," said, " I believe we will be seeing some hypocrisy soon."

MAGA user Dave Harvilicz, @DaveHarvilicz posted, "Amy Coney Barrett on universal injunctions is currently showing her intellectual inadequacy. Better diligence on judicial appointments is warranted."

@GulfFLLinda posted, "The 14th amendment was meant to protect the children of slaves. That’s it. Which should have been done. Period. You’re right it will be Barrett and Roberts who choose to interpret the Constitution and make up their own rules."

Eric Daugherty wrote, "The Supreme Court must overturn Birthright Citizenship. Amy Coney Barrett and/or John Roberts will be required. It was not created so foreign nations could implant pregnant mothers into our country to "anchor" themselves here. Even thinking about the fact this is allowed is ludicrous."

X user Amanda Giancana wrote, " Solicitor Gen Sauer is gettin ANNIHILATED by #SCOTUS, he’s an embarrassment [and] so outta his depth. [Barrett] just called him out on his disgraceful response to Kagan — “did u really answer Justice Kagan with “there’s no way to do this expeditiously!"

Journalist Brian Cano Sr. tweeted, "@SCOTUSblog: Justice Kagan questioned the rationale behind bringing Trump v. CASA, Trump v. Washington, and Trump v. New Jersey to the Supreme Court, stating, 'There's no way that I would bring this before the court.' Is D. John Sauer taking one for the team?"

READ MORE:'Blissfully ignorant': Jen Psaki brutally mocks 'simple country lawyer' Mike Johnson

*Watch the full video below or at this link.

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mma

Right-wing media defend the Trump administration’s deportation of children with US citizenship

The families were reportedly not given a chance to make alternate arrangements for the children, but right-wing media are still claiming the mothers chose to take their kids and are attacking them as “anchor babies”

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Noah Dowe

Published 05/02/25

The Trump administration deported two women along with their U.S. citizen children to Honduras last week, including a 4-year-old who was “receiving treatment for metastatic cancer.” While the Trump administration claims the mothers took the children with them willingly, lawyers for the families noted that the mothers were not given meaningful access to lawyers or family members to make alternate arrangements.

Right-wing media have defended the administration’s actions by claiming migrants are using children as “anchor babies,” blaming the parents for their children being removed from the country, and calling it “a nonstory.”

The Trump administration deported two women alongside their U.S. citizen children, reportedly without giving them access to their lawyers

//

Fox News attacked due process at least 77 times in just over five weeks

04/17/25 2:47 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News anchor claims Trump has “great majority support” on immigration and deportations. Fox’s own polling says otherwise.

05/01/25 12:36 PM EDT

  1. ### YouTube content creators have earned more than 200 million views on videos of their visits to El Salvador’s CECOT prison

04/24/25

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new rep

4 25

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller gave an outrageous ultimatum during a rant attacking U.S. federal judges for upholding the rule of law in the face of Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

During an appearance on Fox News’s Hannity Wednesday, Miller railed against federal judges who told Trump that he couldn’t suspend due process in order to deport undocumented immigrants who the government alleged are members of foreign gangs.

“This is the choice facing every American: Either we all side, and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue, radical left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus,” Miller ranted.

Of course, the supposedly “rogue” judiciary is one that acts as a system of checks and balances on the executive branch, and the purported “radical left” lean simply refers to the courts’ independence from Trump’s abhorrent immigration agenda. Miller likes to pretend that he doesn’t understand what due process is, putting him at odds with the courts charged with upholding that, and other rights.

The Supreme Court has ordered the U.S. government to comply with a federal court order to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador due to an admitted “administrative error.” On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered the return of another immigrant whose deportation to El Salvador violated a previous court settlement.

Earlier this week, Miller argued that birthright citizenship also presented a threat to national security, claiming that it had been “used by foreign governments to conduct espionage against the United States.” He provided no evidence for this claim but used it to defend Trump’s executive order upending the right outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court is expected to weigh the president’s bid to curtail birthright citizenship in May.

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mma

Myths and facts about birthright citizenship

Right-wing media are supporting Trump's move to end birthright citizenship by misleading viewers about what birthright citizenship actually means

Written by Torri Lonergan

Published 02/14/25

When President Donald Trump announced his intention to end birthright citizenship, right-wing media figures immediately began spreading misinformation to make the move appear more palatable. Right-wing media amplified Trump’s false claim that the U.S. is the only country with birthright citizenship, inaccurately suggested that birthright citizenship makes it easy for undocumented parents to become citizens, and obscured the fact that Trump’s executive order applies to the children of some who are in the country legally.

* Trump’s executive order is already facing at least five lawsuits from 22 states and has been temporarily blocked by multiple federal judges. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a temporary restraining order to stop it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman later issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against Trump's executive order, saying it “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment." NPR, [1/21/25; AP News, 1/23/25; ABC News, 2/5/25]

* Having U.S. citizen children does not protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. According to the American Immigration Council, “From 2013 to 2018, ICE deported more than 231,000 people who reported having at least one U.S.-citizen child. In 2019, ICE deported 27,980 people with U.S.-born children.” This practice continues today, as Trump has explicitly stated that he intends to deport immigrants with U.S. citizen children as part of his mass deportation operation. American Immigration Council, [6/24/21; NBC News, 12/8/24; Department of Homeland Security, 10/4/21]

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2 25

Eighteen state attorneys general and a slew of immigrants' rights groups brought swift legal action against Trump after he signed his executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship for some children born in the U.S., arguing that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Obviously, clearly unconstitutional.

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an 2 25

“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.*“

– George Orwell, “1984”

Birthright citizenship in the United States is guaranteed by the first sentence of the 14^th Amendment. Known as the “citizenship clause,” the provision states:

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.}:

Measured against the text of the amendment, Donald Trump’s executive order terminating birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants is patently unconstitutional. But ultimately that may not matter. With Trump assuming near-dictatorial powers in his second term, we are entering an Orwellian post-constitutional era in which the law is whatever the president and his lackeys on the Supreme Court say that it is at any given moment.

In true Orwellian fashion, the executive order is titled, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” It makes no mention of the U.S.-born children it could disenfranchise. According to the Washington Post, more than 150,000 children born in the country each year would no longer qualify for citizenship under the order and could end up stateless.

The order, which takes effect on Feb. 19, begins with a proposition accepted by all constitutional scholars: that the 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to override the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 Dred Scott ruling, which denied citizenship to Black Americans, even those living in non-slave states. From there, however, the order veers sharply from the current academic and legal consensus, asserting, in highly misleading fashion, that “the 14th Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” and that the amendment “has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”

We are entering an Orwellian post-constitutional era.

Under the order, citizenship will no longer extend to U.S.-born children whose mothers were unlawfully present in the country at the time of birth if their fathers were not citizens or lawful permanent residents, nor to children whose mothers were lawfully present, but whose fathers were neither citizens nor lawful permanent residents. The latter category includes parents in the country on tourist or student visas, or work permits. Such children will not be issued any federal documents recognizing them as U.S. citizens, such as passports.

Trump has long vowed to end birthright citizenship, accusing the undocumented of “poisoning the blood of our country” and turning the U.S. into “the garbage can of the world.” In 2015, he opened his presidential campaign by accusing Mexico of “sending” drug smugglers and “rapists” into the U.S. Then, as now, he wasn’t simply bemoaning the presence of undocumented immigrants or tapping into our long and sorry traditions of nativist scapegoating; he was accusing Mexico — and later, other underdeveloped nations — of deliberately staging an invasion of the United States.

The invasion thesis operates at the heart of the MAGA movement and the legal theory behind the new executive order. Proponents of the theory, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, assert that the country is facing an “invasion” of illegal aliens akin to a state of war. Other proponents, such as Yale Law School professor Peter Schuck, Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky and Jan. 6 coup-plotter John Eastman, contend that undocumented immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” within the meaning of the 14th Amendment because they owe allegiance to foreign powers.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, or our actual history. In addition to contradicting the plain text of the 14th Amendment, the executive order departs from the original intent of the framers of the amendment, as well as the Supreme Court’s precedent decisions on birthright citizenship.

Debates on the 14th Amendment took place in 1866 in both the House and Senate, and were reported in the Congressional Globe, the precursor of today’s Congressional Record.

The citizenship clause was introduced in the Senate by Jacob Howard of Michigan on May 30, 1866, as an add-on to the initial draft of the 14th Amendment formulated by the House. The clause tracked similar language contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and followed the general principles of English common law and the ancient doctrine of jus solis (the “law of the soil’’) — the idea that all those born within the geographic boundaries of a nation are citizens at birth. (More than 30 countries today recognize the doctrine, including the United States, Canada and Mexico.)

In his introductory remarks, Howard noted the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant that the citizenship clause would not apply to the children of ambassadors or foreign ministers, the children of occupying foreign soldiers, or to the offspring of Native Americans who claimed allegiance to tribal governments, but that the clause would “include every other class of person,” regardless of race or descent.

The citizenship clause, Howard said, “settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.”

The Supreme Court has endorsed Howard’s reading of the citizenship clause in at least four decisions: United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), dealing with the readmission into the country of a Chinese-American man whom the government sought to exclude because he had been born in the U.S. to parents who were subjects of the Chinese emperor at the time of his birth; Plyer v. Doe (1982), concerning the right of undocumented children to attend public schools; INS v. Rios-Pineda (1985), a deportation proceeding; and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), in which the court’s plurality opinion noted that a Guantanamo Bay inmate held as an “enemy combatant” was still a citizen entitled to due process because he was born in Louisiana.

He is counting on the Supreme Court to come to his rescue again on the birthright issue.

Trump’s legal game plan is to get his executive order to the Supreme Court, which is now firmly in the hands of a six-member MAGA-friendly majority, including three justices nominated by Trump himself. Last year, the court came to Trump’s rescue in two landmark cases. In the first, it overturned Colorado’s decision to deny Trump a place on its 2024 presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist clause in Trump v. Anderson; the second accorded him unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecution in Trump v. United States. He is counting on the Supreme Court to come to his rescue again on the birthright issue, either by overruling its prior decisions or holding them inapplicable to the current immigration crisis.

Before the executive order reaches the Supreme Court, it will have to be reviewed by the lower federal courts. To date, six challenges to the order have been filed in federal district courts across the country. On Jan. 23, District Judge John C. Coughenour, who sits in Seattle and was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan in 1981, granted an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order filed by the attorneys general of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon. The order enjoins the Trump administration from enforcing the executive order for 14 days, pending another hearing set for Feb. 6 to determine if a preliminary injunction should be issued.

“I’ve been on the bench for four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is,” Coughenour said during the Jan. 23 hearing, describing Trump’s order as “blatantly unconstitutional,” and adding, “There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, ‘Where were the judges? Where were the lawyers?’ Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state that this is constitutional.”

Coughenour is an old-school jurist who still believes in the words of the Constitution and the past decisions of the Supreme Court. Apparently, he doesn’t realize that, as George Orwell warned, the past can be erased.

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AN 1 25

On Monday night, January 20 — his first night back in the White House — President Donald Trump signed an executive order designed to end birthright citizenship. And a long list of lawsuits quickly followed, including one from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and attorneys general in 22 different states.

The ACLU and others are arguing that Trump's executive order is blatantly unconstitutional, as birthright citizenship is protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, in an official statement on the lawsuit, stressed, "Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it's also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values. Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is. This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans."

READ MORE:['It’s a free country' — but some White House staffers are facing these new rules: report

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on January 22, writer Philip Jaffa describes the far-right Claremont Institute as a main influence on Trump and the MAGA movement's war on birthright citizenship.

Claremont, founded in 1979, was once a traditional conservative think tank greatly influenced by the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). But in recent years, it has taken an ultra-MAGA turn and aggressively promoted fringe conspiracy theories.

Jaffa explains, "Let's set aside for a moment the questions of the legality and constitutionality of Trump's action and ask instead: Where did he get this idea? How did eliminating birthright citizenship become a right-wing desideratum? There is no mystery as to where this is coming from. The idea that birthright citizenship is a false interpretation or recent innovation that warps the intended meaning of the 14th Amendment has been pushed into mainstream Republican circles by the tireless work of John Eastman and the Claremont Institute."

In an article published by Claremont's website **The American Thinker on January 22, Eastman — who was a major supporter of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — promotes the claim that birthright citizenship isn't really protected by the 14th Amendment. Eastman claims that "the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship for everyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances."

READ MORE:**Meet the far-right think tank chair spending millions to defeat 'the woke regime'**

But countless legal scholars disagree with Eastman's views on the 14th Amendment.

Jaffa notes that in his American Thinker article, "(Eastman) lists several of the Claremont scholars who have written on birthright citizenship, and says he hopes the 'Claremont Institute's long-standing view' of the issue will soon be vindicated by the Supreme Court.' Just one problem: All the claims from MAGA and the Trumpians that the 14th Amendment was not intended to extend citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants falter when confronted with the obvious truth that the 14th Amendment, upon its adoption, did extend citizenship to a very large number of children of illegal immigrants."

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an 125

Only one day into Donald Trump's second term, The Atlantic's David A. Graham is able to pinpoint the biggest factors that make this time around so "different" from the MAGA leader's first presidency.

Noting that, in 24 hours, the 47th president of the United States has already "pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 rioters, including some involved in violence," moved "to end birthright citizenship," removed the US from the "World Health Organization, attempted to turn large portions of the civil service into patronage jobs, and issued an executive order defining gender as a binary," Graham submits these actions "would have caused widespread outrage and mass demonstrations if he had taken them during his first day, week, or year as president, in 2017."

Furthermore, The Atlantic staff writer adds that these steps have "been met with muted response, including from a dazed left and press corps," when just eight years ago, "hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Washington, and Americans flocked to airports at midnight to try to thwart Trump’s travel ban."

READ MORE:**'Like a unicorn': Legal analysts demolish Trump’s 'lunatic fringe' arguments on key issue**

Graham submits,"The difference arises from three big factors. First, Trump has worked hard to desensitize the population to his most outrageous statements. As I wrote a year ago, forecasting how a second Trump presidency might unfold, the first time he says something, people are shocked. The second time, people notice that Trump is at it again. By the third time, it’s background noise."

He added, "Second, Trump has figured out the value of a shock-and-awe strategy. By signing so many controversial executive orders at once, he’s made it difficult for anyone to grasp the scale of the changes he’s made, and he’s splintered a coalition of interests that might otherwise be allied against whatever single thing he had done most recently."

Finally, "American society has changed," Graham emphasizes. "People aren’t just less outraged by things Trump is doing; almost a decade of the Trump era has shifted some aspects of American culture far to the right."

READ MORE:**Trump kept his promise — and made some Democrats look like fools**

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an 2 24

One of Donald Trump's promises for a potential second presidency, includes ending birthright citizenship — which would defy the US Constitution.

During a Senate hearing Thursday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) echoed the former president's sentiment.

"For those of you who've been at the border, you also probably saw what I saw," the Ohio lawmaker said. "There are so many pregnant women, I mean, in their 8th or 9th month. Of course, they come here, and that child is a US citizen. Which, personally, I believe we ought to do away with birthright citizenship."

READ MORE:'Done a lot of damage': McConnell unleashes on 'sleazeball' Trump and his supporters

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In a July 2024 report, NBC News noted:

*Birthright citizenship has long been understood to be required under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The language was included in the constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War to ensure that Black former slaves and their children were recognized as citizens.

*The phrase has been generally understood by legal scholars of all ideological stripes to be self-explanatory, but that has not stopped some anti-immigration advocates from pressing an alternative interpretation.

Trump floated the idea of ending birthright citizenship during his presidency, which then-Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (OH) said the MAGA hopeful "obviously" couldn't do, according to MPR News.

READ MORE:Here’s how a 'radicalized' Michael Flynn 'cashed in' on 'baseless conspiracy theories'

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mma

December 9, 2024, edition of Fox News'America's Newsroom

BILL HEMMER (FOX ANCHOR): Trump did a long interview on NBC, Meet The Press. Here is a question about birthright citizenship, something that hasn't come up a ton, but it has now. Watch.

[CLIP BEGINS]

KRISTEN WELKER (MEET THE PRESS ANCHOR): You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one. Is that still your plan?

DONALD TRUMP (PRESIDENT-ELECT): Yeah. Absolutely.

...

We're the only country that has it. Do you know, if somebody sets a foot just a foot, one foot, you don't need two, on our land. Congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America. Yes. We're gonna end that because it's ridiculous.

WELKER: Through executive action?

TRUMP: Well, if we can, through executive action. I was going to do it through executive action.

[CLIP ENDS]

HEMMER: Take it to Congress too.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (FOX CO-HOST): Yeah you heard him say if we can. That's because birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment. Not only that, in 1898 in a Supreme Court case called Wong Kim Ark they upheld birthright citizenship. In other words, there is constitutional precedent, there's Supreme Court precedent. You can try via executive action but I think there are going to be some very big court hang-ups that might not go the way of the administration on birthright citizenship.

HEMMER: It's been a loophole when it comes to immigration.

DANA PERINO (FOX ANCHOR): Yeah. Oh, it is. And I've gone back and forth because I love the Constitution! I'm an originalist. But then I also want — I would love to hear what this court thinks about that. Because they are originalists when it comes to the Constitution and see if that precedent would hold up.

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Long-standing American principle of birthright citizenship under attack from Trump allies

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an 10 24

one of Donald Trump's promises for a potential second presidency, includes ending birthright citizenship — which would defy the US Constitution.

During a Senate hearing Thursday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) echoed the former president's sentiment.

"For those of you who've been at the border, you also probably saw what I saw," the Ohio lawmaker said. "There are so many pregnant women, I mean, in their 8th or 9th month. Of course, they come here, and that child is a US citizen. Which, personally, I believe we ought to do away with birthright citizenship."

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Johnson continued, "We are in the minority of countries that grant that. And it's just another magnet to come here. I hope, under a serious administration, deporting criminals will be reasonably easy. But past that point, it's gonna be really difficult. Because of birthright citizenship, are you really gonna separate an infant from their mother and father?"

In a July 2024 report, NBC News noted:

*Birthright citizenship has long been understood to be required under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The language was included in the constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War to ensure that Black former slaves and their children were recognized as citizens.

*The phrase has been generally understood by legal scholars of all ideological stripes to be self-explanatory, but that has not stopped some anti-immigration advocates from pressing an alternative interpretation.

Trump floated the idea of ending birthright citizenship during his presidency, which then-Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (OH) said the MAGA hopeful "obviously" couldn't do, according to MPR News.

READ MORE:Here’s how a 'radicalized' Michael Flynn 'cashed in' on 'baseless conspiracy theories'

Watch the video below or at this link.

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https://www.alternet.org/msn/history-professor-why-it-s-so-dangerous-for-republicans-to-make-birthright-citizenship-a-weapon/

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https://www.alternet.org/desantis-vows-to-take-action-to**-end-birthright-citizenship**-if-elected-president/

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