Birthright citizenship has helped make America great
By the Bloomberg Opinion Editorial Board
Amid the flood of executive orders issued from the White House on Jan. 20, one is especially misguided, both in legal and policy terms: Beginning in 30 days, the order declared, children born in the U.S. to mothers who are undocumented immigrants — or even legal temporary residents — may no longer automatically be granted citizenship of their own.
The order was immediately challenged in court, where a federal judge in Seattle, John C. Coughenour, quickly declared it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Two further injunctions followed last week.
For good reason. “All persons,” the 14th Amendment reads, “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Administration lawyers argue that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” doesn’t apply to children of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. either illegally or on a visa.
Logical quandaries aside — the implication seems to be that people born in the U.S. aren’t subject to its laws — there’s no statutory basis for such a claim. That any lawyer would even make the case, said Coughenour, “just boggles my mind.”
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