Born in the USA
Birthright citizenship and the history of using racism to ignore it
“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.”
United States Constitution, 14th Amendment, Section 1
The 14th amendment makes clear in its first sentence that anyone born on US soil is a citizen. It’s unequivocal. Born out of the English common law concept of jus soli (right of soil) it held that those born in England were its natural subjects. This principal held for centuries in England.
Fast forward to the US in 1857 and one of the worst SCOTUS rulings in court history, Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that ruling the SCOTUS held that US territories could practice slavery, black people could not be US citizens, and the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The Missouri Compromise was the rule that states North of the 36°30′ parallel (the Mason-Dixon line) would be free, South would be slave states, and the remaining territories of the Louisiana Purchase would not allow slavery.
In 1866 the US reversed the ruling of Dred Scott by ratifying the 14th amendment. Since that time the US has lost its way more than once. Trump is not the first to set aside the rights granted in the 14th amendment. There was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the US for 10 years, prevented Chinese-born US residents from returning to the US if they visited China, and until US v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 prevented children of Chinese immigrant parents from claiming their birthright citizenship and any Chinese immigrant from becoming a naturalized citizen.
Sadly, the trend continued. Whichever group in the US is being used as a scapegoat at that time is denied their privileges or immunities guaranteed by the 14th amendment.
We saw it with segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 which established the separate but equal doctrine and later Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 which rightfully reversed Plessy.
We saw it with interracial marriages in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 which established that the Equal Protection Clause must apply to all citizens regardless of race, striking down laws against interracial marriages throughout the US.
To keep this article from getting longer than Moby Dick, there are a laundry list of SCOTUS cases addressing times the US used racism as an excuse to deny citizens their rights guaranteed by the 14th amendment. Feel free to peruse them in detail. Many of the cases I pull from in this article are nicely summarized here by the National Constitution Center.
This brings us to the Executive Order signed yesterday, January 20, 2025, by Donald Trump entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. You can read the full EO at the link. In summary, it argues that “All persons born or naturalized…” doesn’t mean all people. It claims that children born to non-citizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In other words, they are spuriously arguing that a child of non-citizens may live in the US but they are not subject to US jurisdiction. As with most legal points argued by Donald Trump’s team, they get it completely wrong. A simple thought exercise proves it. If an immigrant of any legal status in the US is accused of a crime, they are subject to the jurisdiction of US courts to adjudicate that crime. That doesn’t change simply because they lack citizenship or immigration paperwork. Donald and the legal staff we know he had write the executive order, because Trump is functionally illiterate, fall into the same trap as the others who used hate as a reason to deny people their constitutional rights.
It’s going to be busy here in Helheim. Day 2 and I had to throw a dart to pick a Trump atrocity to cover. There may even be another article today. I should just get caffeine on an IV drip for the next four years.