Trump says he’ll use an executive order to terminate birthright citizenship. Dubious. thread/
1/ 14th Amendment:
"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."
"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."
2/ "... and subject to the jurisdiction thereof ..." appears to be the basis here. You COULD interpret that to mean, “lawful permanent residents”.
3/ ... but that would be crazy, because that narrows the definition of “jurisdiction” down to citizens and LPRs. Which would mean that the United States would have no right to regulate the actions of noncitizens on its own soil.
4/ If we define the jurisdiction of the U.S. to apply only to citizens and LPRs, we can’t make federal laws regarding noncitizens, since the government doesn’t have jurisdiction over them.
5/ So if we say that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to people without lawful status in the U.S., WE ELIMINATE THE ABILITY TO SAY WHO DOESN’T HAVE LAWFUL STATUS, BECAUSE WE HAVE NO JURISDICTION OVER THEM.
6/ Saying that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to ALL children born in the U.S. invalidates our entire system of immigration. We have no path to either granting or denying citizenship. We have no jurisdiction to state that a noncitizen can’t stay in the country.
7/ The fact that we are even talking about this for a minute means we are spending that minute distracted. Trump can’t do this, and somebody has probably told him this. Doesn’t mean he won’t try, but even Brett Kavanaugh has enough sense of the law to smack this down.
8/ This is a ploy, nothing more. Will it work? No. Will it fire up his base? Yes. Will it dominate the news cycle? Maybe, but there’s no loss if it doesn’t. Will it bring more Republicans to the polls? Maybe.
9/ This is the last attention I’ll give this, and its the last attention you should, too. #thisisnotanews This is a distraction. There’s nothing to DO about it except trust the Constitution. But there IS a lot to do before Nov 6th. Stay focused. /thread
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