A pair of law professors from Georgetown Law School and the University of Minnesota dropped a bombshell on Democrats who have mocked President Donald Trump’s case to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The professors penned an opinion piece for The New York Times that likely shocked the publication’s liberal readers, who were greeted with a headline that said, “Trump might have a case on birthright citizenship.”
As Constitutional experts have said, the original intention of birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment was to give citizenship to the children of former slaves, not illegal immigrants. But in the century since, federal courts have leaned in on the amendment’s text to include all children born in the U.S., regardless of the legal status of their parents.
“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,” the Amendment says.
“When they finally consider this question, the justices will find that the case for Mr. Trump’s order is stronger than his critics realize,” the professors said in reference to a case that is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
When it comes to illegal immigrants, the Amendment gets tricky, they said in the piece.
“Has a citizen of another country who violated the laws of this country to gain entry and unlawfully remain here pledged obedience to the laws in exchange for the protection and benefit of those laws?” the professors said.
“Clearly, the parents are not enemies in the sense of an invading army, but they did not come in amity,” they said in reference to the legal definitions of citizenship. “They gave no obedience or allegiance to the country when they entered — one cannot give allegiance and promise to be bound by the laws through an act of defiance of those laws.”
“Such persons can even be summarily removed from the country without judicial procedures of the sort that would protect citizens,” the professors said. “If the allegiance-for-protection view informed the original meaning of the text, then they and their children are therefore not under the protection or ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the nation in the relevant sense.”
They also addressed the part of the president’s order that excludes “children born to mothers who are ‘lawful but temporary’ residents,” writing that “is a more complicated question not addressed here.”
“And whether Congress ought to grant naturalized citizenship to children born to those illegally present in the United States is a policy issue distinct from whether the 14th Amendment has already done so,” they said. “The Supreme Court has, in a footnote, presumed that the 14th Amendment’s jurisdictional phrase applied equally to people who are here illegally, but the issue was neither briefed nor argued in that case; nor was it material to its outcome.”
The president’s executive order, which is perhaps his most controversial order, has been blocked by four federal judges already.
Others also agree that Trump has a shot at having his order deemed constitutional.
“President Trump is acting fully within his Article II powers with these executive orders,” Article III Project founder Mike Davis said to The Caller. “Activist judges are attempting to steal his executive power over nothing more than political differences. This is unacceptable, and these activist judges are creating a constitutional crisis. If it comes to the Supreme Court to put an end to this, then so be it.”
Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen said in a piece for The New Yorker that the president likely knew he would get sued on his orders and had the intention of getting the cases to the Supreme Court to be adjudicated.
“This makes Trump’s legal strategy intelligible,” she said.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
