Not directly. But it’s more complicated than you think, writes Princeton law professor Imani Perry.
By Imani Perry
October 30, 2018
In a strangely jolly introductory clip the news outlet Axios put out today (October 30) to tease its upcoming HBO show, President Donald Trump announced that he will pass an executive order that would end birthright citizenship, the constitutional guarantee that people born in the United States are automatically citizens. The immediate response throughout social and news media has been that the 14th Amendment protects birthright citizenship and is immune to executive orders. (You know, separation and balance of power and all of that.) But Princeton University law professor and author Imani Perry says it’s more complicated — and less secure — than many of us think. Here is Perry’s warning:
Almost every year I teach a class on the history of race and the law. An essential part of that class is the 1898 Supreme Court case, United States. v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark was the son of Chinese immigrants who, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, could not become citizens of the United States. However, unlike his parents, Ark was born in the United States and asserted that he was a citizen due to the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment which reads, “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 case is important in constitutional law because, in applying and interpreting the 14th Amendment, it firmly established the law of birthright citizenship.
This morning, it was reported that President Trump has plans to revoke birthright citizenship by executive order. This is yet another example of Trump’s willful ignorance, or his deliberate deception. Or both. After all, a president cannot revoke a constitutional protection by executive order. That isn’t how any of this works. Accordingly, many pundits have said we shouldn’t worry about this latest antic.
But the pundits shouldn’t be so blasé. Given the relatively minimal checks the House and Senate have placed on Trump’s unethical and even criminal behavior, we should expect that he will take steps to begin destroying birthright citizenship. Trump campaigned on that objective. He has proclaimed a thinly veiled White nationalism that reaches back into a long history of excluding people of color from citizenship, either literally or effectively. And the fact that there are mostly Latinx migrant children living in a tent camp detention center in Tornillo, Texas, right now should make us even more vigilant about his intentions. And we must not forget that immigration rights lawyers have decades of personal stories about how sometimes legal immigrants are illegally deported or have their green cards illegally taken by immigration agents. Vulnerable populations are always at risk of having their rights breached no matter how firmly established they are.
Read more of Imani Perry on Trump’s announcement that he will end birthright citizenship: http://bit.ly/2Q1pbRA.
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