Trump plans to sign EO ending birthright citizenship: Axios

[Guest shiloh357]

22 hours ago, one.opinion said:

The 1898 case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649) interpreted the 14th Amendment to determine that the gentleman in question was indeed a US citizen because of his birth in the country. ANY interpretation other than this would, by definition, be "reinterpretation". People will certainly debate about whether or not the Amendment should be reinterpreted, but claiming it wouldn't be a reinterpretation would require ignoring the legal fact of the case.

That case was not dealing with illegal aliens.  That was about someone who was born to legal residents of the US. 

The 14th Amendment  applies to those who living here legally, who  applied for citizenship and are here on a green card, or something like that.   If  someone who is a legal immigrant seeking citizenship gets pregnant, the child would be a legal citizen on the grounds that the parents are already in the process of becoming legal citizens, as well. 

It was originally for the children of African slaves who were here legally because they were brought here as slaves, so their children were descended from legal residents and were made citizens by birth under the 14th amendment. Their parents would have been naturalized citizens after slavery had ended and the children born to them would be, as well.  That is at least part of the original intent.

The notion that you can just set your foot on American soil, drop a baby and suddenly that baby is an American citizen in order to skirt around the immigration laws, is NOT what the 14th Amendment is for. 

Let's say a couple from Japan decided they wanted to tour the US.  She got pregnant but they had planned for the vacation all year and had already paid for it and decided to chance it and she ends up going into labor while they are in New York.   We do not consider that baby to be an American citizen.  Just because they are on American soil, it would not confer citizenship on that baby.  

The "reinterpretation" belongs to those who think the 14th Amendment applies to illegals who are trying to get around our immigration laws.

[Guest shiloh357]

21 hours ago, LadyKay said:

If I may speak frankly for a moment. I am somewhat taken back that so many conservatives here are okay with our Constitution being messed with.  One thing I know about the Republican party is that they uphold the Constitution. Which leads me to be believe that many Republicans are no longer Republicans. They have now join the Party of Trump. 

 

Trump isn't messing with the Constitution.   He is going by the very wording of the 14th Amendment and using the 14th Amendments wording to end the abuse of it by illegal aliens, as well as those political leaders in our country who favor illegal immigration and any means they can think of to skirt our immigration laws in order to get vote. 

Trump is not changing the Constitution.   He is returning to the original intent of the amendment and what it was designed protect.   The 4th amendment only applies to children of legal residents of the US, not to children of illegals who break our immigration laws by coming here illegally.

Anyone who tells you that Trump is trying change the Constitution by Executive Order doesn't understand the difference between what the amendment says and how it is being applied.   It is the illegal application of the amendment, not the wording of the Amendment that Trump is trying to change/end.

[Guest shiloh357]

21 hours ago, LadyKay said:

But losing a job over something you said is not a violation of freedom of speech.

It is a violation of freedom of speech if you lose your job over constitutionally protected speech that everyone else enjoys in the workplace.  

Quote

Could I come on to Worth and start calling people names? No way. I would be reported and ban from the thread. In fact you can not even post in this thread without it being approved. But is that a violation of my free speech? No it is not.

But that isn't the same thing.   You agreed to certain rules when you signed up.   It is one thing to violate the house rules.   

Quote

Because message forums like work places are allowed to make rules that state you will be kicked out or fire for making rude statements. Or even talking about a certain topic. 

Yes, a workplace can make rules that state that there is to be NO discussion of political views and you can be reprimanded for violating that rule.   But that is not the same thing as being fired for constitutionally protected speech on the grounds that the employer didn't like your view point.

[Guest shiloh357]

15 hours ago, LadyKay said:

Just for interesting discussion will all my silliness aside. . Lets just say that Trump dose sign away and ends birthright citizenship.   What would happen to those who are already here. Who have been born here and never lived any place else? Like say it is someone in there 30's who has a house, a good job, a family with kids? They just so happen to be born here to a undocumented mother. Are we going to strip these people of their citizenship? Send them off to a country the have never even been to before? Will they even been accepted as citizens in that country seeing as they were not born there?  I think this is something to consider. 

I think it is obvious to anyone that it is only being applied to those born here after the EO is signed.

 

[Guest PinkBelt]

Article V is perfectly clear on changing the constitution:

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

There are also numerous cases that have already set precedent on illegals, which the current courts are obligated to abide by.

 

It is highly amusing to see certain people are such strict constitutionalists until they decide they don't like something, then they suddenly become highly malleable. It makes one wonder if they have any consistent values whatsoever.

[LadyKay]

4 hours ago, PinkBelt said:

Article V is perfectly clear on changing the constitution:

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

There are also numerous cases that have already set precedent on illegals, which the current courts are obligated to abide by.

 

It is highly amusing to see certain people are such strict constitutionalists until they decide they don't like something, then they suddenly become highly malleable. It makes one wonder if they have any consistent values whatsoever.

Yes. Interesting. 

[LadyKay]

6 hours ago, Sojourner414 said:

Actually, it is.

The ability to earn a living is a manner of speaking freely, as it states through a person's efforts that rather than remain dependent upon the largess and good graces of a liberal "cradle to grave" mentality of handouts, they are stating unequivocally that they feel a responsibility to earn their keep and a right to provide not only for themselves, but their spouses and families. When someone loses their job through "political correctness", they are being financially silenced and forced into dependence upon unemployment, and thus enslaved to those who seek to thrust upon our nation a cruel, heavy and onerous yolk that they themselves do not keep, as evidenced by such entities as Antifa and their heinous actions.

But some forms of speech are protected in the workplace, such as employees discussing their wages, hours and working conditions. Those are protected by national labor laws.  Employers may indeed set the "culture" for the workplace and are able to enforce that, but if that "culture" violates these laws or any of the Federal Government's anti-discrimination laws, they are still subject to litigation and possible criminal charges (dependent upon what violation was committed, such as the attempted silencing of an employee for speaking out on safety/OSHA violations).

 

My whole point to my freedom of speech rant was to say if one of our rights can be taken away, then others may follow. So we should be cautions of these things.   That was what I meant. I never meant to get into a debate about what is and what is not a violation of free speech.  Isn't this the same argument  gun people give for not wanting   the  2 Amendment messed with?  I have heard them say you start taking away  one right, others can follow.  Oh and by the way.  I like guns. I think most people should own one. (Most I said not everyone)  I have enjoyed target shooting .I can't hit the target but I still enjoy shooting. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by LadyKay

[LadyKay]

6 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Trump isn't messing with the Constitution.   He is going by the very wording of the 14th Amendment and using the 14th Amendments wording to end the abuse of it by illegal aliens, as well as those political leaders in our country who favor illegal immigration and any means they can think of to skirt our immigration laws in order to get vote. 

Trump is not changing the Constitution.   He is returning to the original intent of the amendment and what it was designed protect.   The 4th amendment only applies to children of legal residents of the US, not to children of illegals who break our immigration laws by coming here illegally.

Anyone who tells you that Trump is trying change the Constitution by Executive Order doesn't understand the difference between what the amendment says and how it is being applied.   It is the illegal application of the amendment, not the wording of the Amendment that Trump is trying to change/end.

From my understanding this seems to be a matter for the Supreme Court to decide Not Trump. 

[one.opinion]

8 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

That case was not dealing with illegal aliens.  That was about someone who was born to legal residents of the US. 

Clearly some biased opinion in the article, but this is what a Constitutional Law Professor wrote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/birthright-citizenship-constitution/574381/

The Citizenship Clause Means What It Says

The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment were clear that the United States is one nation, with one class of citizens, and that citizenship extends to everyone born here.

Oct 30, 2018

Garrett Epps

Professor of constitutional law at the University of Baltimore

 “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties,” James Madison wrote in 1785. President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday that he plans to move from experimentation on liberty into widespread application of the tyrant’s playbook.  

In an interview with Axios on HBO, Trump confirmed what had been suspected since last summer: He is planning an executive order that would try to change the meaning of the Constitution as it has been applied for the past 150 years—and declare open season on millions of native-born Americans.

The order would apparently instruct federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States if their parents are not citizens. The Axios report was unclear on whether the order would target only American-born children of undocumented immigrants, children of foreigners visiting the U.S. on nonpermanent visas—or the children of any noncitizen.

No matter which of these options Trump pursues, the news is very somber. A nation that can rid itself of groups it dislikes has journeyed far down the road to authoritarian rule.

The idea behind the attack on birthright citizenship is often obscured by a wall of dubious originalist rhetoric and legalese. At its base, the claim is that children born in the U.S. are not citizens if they are born to noncitizen parents. The idea contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, it flies in the face of more than a century of practice, and it would create a shadow population of American-born people who have no state, no legal protection, and no real rights that the government is bound to respect.

It would set the stage for an internal witch hunt worse than almost anything since the anti-immigrant rage of the 1920s.

Birthright citizenship is a term that many Americans had not heard until recently. But it is a key to the egalitarian, democratic Constitution that emerged from the slaughter of the Civil War. In 1857, the pro-slavery majority of the Supreme Court held that citizenship was racial; in Dred Scott v. Sandford, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that people of African descent were not American citizens—and never could become citizens, even through an act of Congress. At the time the Constitution was written, he wrote, black people were “regarded [by whites] as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

The decision spurred a wave of revulsion throughout the free states and probably hastened the start of the Civil War. In fact, almost since the founding of the republic in 1789, opponents of slavery insisted that American citizenship had always been the birthright of all people born in the United States. After Appomattox, the 39th Congress met with the urgent purpose of undoing the constitutional damage wrought by Taney and what they called the “Slave Power.” The result was the Fourteenth Amendment. Here is the wording of Section 1:

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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is a fairly intricate piece of legal machinery, set in place after months of deliberation by some very acute legal minds. Its centerpiece is the idea that citizenship in the United States is universal—that we are one nation, with one class of citizens, and that citizenship extends to everyone born here. Citizens have rights that neither the federal government nor any state can revoke at will; even undocumented immigrants—“persons,” in the language of the amendment—have rights to due process and equal protection of the law.

The citizenship-denial lobby has focused on the words subject to the jurisdiction. Its members argue that citizens of foreign countries, even if they live in the U.S., are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and thus their children are not covered by the clause. To test this idea, ask yourself: If a foreign citizen rear-ends your car on your drive home today, will you, or the police, allow him to drive away on the grounds that a foreign citizen cannot be arrested, ticketed, or sued?

For those scoring at home, the answer is no.

Foreign citizens are “subject to the jurisdiction” of our police and courts when they are in the U.S., whether as tourists, legal residents, or undocumented immigrants. Only one group is not “subject to the jurisdiction”—accredited foreign diplomats and their families, who can be expelled by the federal government but not arrested or tried.

That’s who the framers of the clause were discussing in Section 1—along with one other group. In 1866, when the amendment was framed, Indians living under tribal rule were not U.S. citizens. Under the law as it was then, American police could not arrest them, and American citizens could not sue them. Relations with Indian tribes were handled government to government, like relations with foreign nations: If Native people left the reservation and harmed American citizens, those citizens had to apply to the U.S. government, which would officially protest and seek compensation from the tribal government. In that respect, Indians living under tribal government were as protected as foreign diplomats are today.

But over and over in the Fourteenth Amendment debates, the framers of the amendment made clear that there would be no other exclusions from the clause. Children of immigrants? They were citizens. Even children of Chinese immigrants, who themselves weren’t eligible to naturalize? Yes, them too. Mysterious foreign “Gypsies,” who supposedly spoke an unknown language and worshipped strange gods and observed no American laws? Yes, the sponsors explained, it covered them too.

The framers of the clause understood about immigration. The issue had been a divisive one throughout the 1850s, spawning the Know-Nothing movement and state attempts to bar immigrants from citizenship. The percentage of foreign-born residents of the U.S. in 1866 was just over 13 percent—roughly what it is today.

And in the ranks of the Union Army that saved the nation, roughly 20 percent of soldiers were foreign-born.

Three decades later, the government tried to meddle with the clause by denying citizenship to Wong Kim Ark, the child of Chinese immigrants who were themselves not eligible for citizenship. The Supreme Court reaffirmed that the clause meant what it said. No matter where their parents were born, no matter what their parents’ status, American-born children are Americans. And that’s how it should be.

The assault on birthright citizenship is an onslaught on civic equality for all of us. Nativists have grown more strident over the past decade or so. First, they advocated for a constitutional amendment to strip citizenship from the children of aliens; then they argued that citizenship could be stripped by statute; now, in the Trump era, they claim that it can be done with the stroke of a pen. It is an idea that has crawled slowly from the fever swamps of the far right into the center of our discourse, growing more outlandish with each step.

The executive-order idea was floated as a trial balloon in July in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post by former White House official Michael Anton. Anton’s sole book is The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style, which details a Florentine Renaissance approach to menswear on the job. In the Post piece, Anton inaccurately reproduced a quote from Senator Jacob Howard, the sponsor of the Fourteenth Amendment, in a manner that made Howard seem to support Anton’s position (the Post, under enormous criticism, eventually acknowledged the alteration). And in fact, every bit of the scant scholarship Anton relies on in that piece is as phony as a Confederate $100 bill. (I once debated the scholar who was the source of most of it, and pointed out that almost all his evidence was not just erroneous, but faked.)

That is one of the two takeaways from today’s news: Trump, Anton, and their enablers are relying on phony history and altered documents in an attempt to change the American constitutional order. (The facts are readily available; for my own contributions, see here, here, here, here, and here.) Those who don’t want to take my word for it can consult this essay by James C. Ho, a conservative “originalist” who was recently appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by Donald Trump. Ho and I agree on little except this: The citizenship clause means what it says.

If the administration attempts to strip citizenship from millions of Americans—millions of people who have never known any other country—the trapdoor to dictatorship will have fallen open. The executive order cannot be enforced without a huge apparatus of internal control. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will, of necessity, become the skeleton of a nationwide citizenship police. Each of us must be prepared to prove our membership in the nation at any moment. And the new population of stateless Americans will face persecution, detention, and abuse; Korematsu-style internment camps would be a logical next step.

Our Constitution is a gift to us from the generations that went before, and particularly the millions who died in the Civil War; the Fourteenth Amendment is the centerpiece of that Constitution. If we let Donald Trump destroy it, then history will regard both him and us with equal contempt.

[Guest shiloh357]

12 hours ago, PinkBelt said:

Article V is perfectly clear on changing the constitution:

Evidently, you missed the part about Trump using the wording of the 14th Amendment for his EO.   He is not seeking to change the Constitution.  It's really, really simple to understand.   He is interpreting and applying the Constitution the way it was originally written, not the way it is being applied to illegals in a manner never intended when it was ratified.