Supreme Court to hear arguments in May in challenge to Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship

Say goodbye to another constitutional right. Eventually Trump will just have anyone he doesn't like deported to Venezuela even if their ancestors came over on the Mayflower. It doesn't matter what the Supreme Court rules. He'll do whatever he wants with zero repercussions.

The US and Canada are the last Western nations that still have birthright citizenship. The other Western countries who had it got rid of it because the system was being flagrantly abused.

The US has a procedure in place to amend the Constitution. EO's ain't it.

The Supreme Court could do it without an amendment.

What would be the legal argument to overturn it (not saying they won't try).

"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."

Not some, all. I'm curious what legal theory they're going to try to use.

Dump wants it, r5.

That’s the “argument”.

Like r1 said, he doesn’t GAF what the court says, he’ll do it anyway.

The 6-3 majority will use their familiar "Kiss Our Asses, Libs, and Cry Harder" legal theory.

Donald was Mary Trump’s anchor baby

I wonder what r2's motivation is, to lie so flagrantly?

To be fair R9, I think R2 meant Western as in European, US, Canada and not Western Hemisphere.

We still have a Supreme Court? I thought that Trump issued an executive order getting rid of it.

r9/menluvinguy, your chart is not accuate, this one is.

Ireland was the last remaining birthright citizenship European country, and that ended in 2005 by a vote that won by about 80% of the country. The birthright citizenship law was being flagrantly abuse by women who were nine month pregnant and flew into Ireland just to get benefits.

Let's hope birthright citizenship ends.

Friend is RN at Jamaica Hospital near JFK. When mama is near due date, she flies in, stays at nearby hotel and arrives at ED when labor begins. One of the parents should be a US citizen for birthright.

Heterosexual Chief Justice John Roberts will issue one of his trademark hair-splitting decisions, like "birthright citizenship is sacrosanct but it needs to be litigated on an individual basis in the proper court," making it a dead letter (like the rest of the 14th amendment as far as he's concerned).

R13 Why should we hope that?

People like r14 never have any factual data to back up their claims

So Trump was born to a single woman who was not yet a citizen? That's new to me. I thought she was married to his father who was a US citizen. Hey it would make me happy if he were an anchor baby but that's not the case. Unless it was.

Someone needs to open an investigation into how Melontits and her Communist family got U.S. citizenship. Then explore if Barron is actually an American.

R17, it’s always a friend of a friend who witnessed this. And so what? How many kids could that possibly be? A thousand a year? I bet not even. It takes money to simply fly in and have a baby in a US hospital, I’m sure some poor mother in Rawanda isn’t doing this.

R2 is lying or just plain dumb.

R10 that’s not being fair…that’s excusing stupidity.

[quote]Why should we hope that?

Well, R16, tell us why you think "birth tourism" is a good thing.

Here's a very good article from the NYTimes about the issuea:

^issue

By the logic of bigots like R13 R14, tens of millions of legal Americans would lose their citizenship—me included. Nice touch, assholes.

Yeah, when the Supreme Court throws out birthright citizenship what’s going to happen to all the Americans born here whose parents weren’t born here? How long before Trump has them deported?

Who's going to work in all the factories Trump is bringing back home?

[quote]By the logic of bigots like [R13] [R14], tens of millions of legal Americans would lose their citizenship—me included. Nice touch, assholes.

R25 The asshole is you.

Ending birthright citizenship does not mean that those who have already gained theirs will lose it. It can be ended as other countries have done without deporting people born before the new law.

BTW: please tell us why you think birth tourism is a positive thing.

Of course it does. Why do you think Trump is so set on it?!

Ending birthright citizenship does not mean that those who have already gained theirs will lose it.

A logical fallacy if there ever was one. Of course it would.

Either the 14th A means what it has always meant or it mean ms nothing. If you bigots get your way, every single person born since the amendment was ratified, and, therefore every one of their descendants, would have to have citizenship verified by some other standard.

Wake the fuck up. That’s exactly what it means under Trump.

R23, so it's actually Chinese people doing this? And yet the right likes to blame Latinos for "anchor babies"

Where does this leave me?

There's absolutely nothing to argue.

But what would the Founding Fathers think of this amendment? Who fucking knows to be honest but that’s the arguement 6 out the 9 will use to justify their political interpretation of the law.

At the time of the Founding fathers, the total population of the US was less than 3 million people. There were marauding native Americans, there were Spaniards, Frenchman and other hostile forces afoot. The country needed more citizens in order to survive. There wasn't a SINGLE founding father who would have opposed amendment 14, EXCEPT that it also made black people citizens of the US. I'm certain that there is ample evidence from the writings of the founding fathers that they wished more people would come to the newly created United States to populate the land.

The argument could be made, although I'm not making it, that the US doesn't need additional population at the moment. However, that argument does not speak to the intent of the founding fathers, which is what r36 brought up.

If current demographic trends continue, in the absence of immigration, the population of the US will decline to 240,000,000 or less by the year 2100, which will create a huge economic crisis. 240,000,000 people, half of them elderly, will create a very lop-sided demographic which will put all the money-earning and care-giving population into an untenable position - not to mention all the people not buying things. Consumption of goods is at the root of the capitalist system, which would ultimately collapse in negative population growth.

R37 Fewer people is a positive thing.

[quote]the population of the US will decline to 240,000,000 or less by the year 2100

In other words, about the size of the US population in 1990. Gee...how did we ever get along?!

[quote]not to mention all the people not buying things. Consumption of goods is at the root of the capitalist system, which would ultimately collapse in negative population growth.

So...an ever bigger population, consuming more and more things. That's what we need. Yeah, you sound smart.

"Bill Gates: Within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers—humans won’t be needed ‘for most things’"

And that's within 10 years. Imagine by the year 2100.

Maybe that system needs to change then.

Maybe we need to spend less and save more like the Japanese do.

I’ve always been disgusted with the gross consumption of the US. People constantly buying shit they don’t need just because. Then bitching about being in debt.

Maybe we need to stop the spending and change “the system”

I'm all in favor of less materialism, less gross consumerism. However, a drastically smaller population affects everything and rather quickly. Japan's real estate lost half of its value between 1991 and 2010 with most of that deflating very quickly from its peak. It has slowly started to rise again because they have loosened restrictions on foreign investment in real estate there. If the biggest economic asset that most Americans own is their home, a drastic drop in its value is going to affect their economic well-being and stability. There is also the problem of demographic inversion. When a country's citizens are mostly elderly, that puts an enormous burden on the younger demographic - both for the personal care needed by older people, to a rapidly depleting tax revenue base- meaning that cities and communities can no longer provide basic services.

[Quote] The US and Canada are the last Western nations that still have birthright citizenship. The other Western countries who had it got rid of it because the system was being flagrantly abused.

Gee I wonder why two nations that were built by waves of immigration still have birthright citizenship? You’d almost think they see a connection.

Anyway, anyone who thinks Plump is right on this is below 100 IQ. And if the Nazi kangaroo court that we call the SCOTUS rules that Plump is right, we may as well crumple up the constitution and toss it in the garbage.

Get rid of PBS!!!

Nice hyperbole r41 but ending it makes sense. The system is being abused constantly.

What was hyperbolic in what I wrote, Defacto?

I'm not this Defacto you're obsessed with. Birthright citizenship is being abused constantly. And don't think for a moment if the overwhelming majority of people coming into the US to drop an anchor baby were Russian you and your ilk wouldn't be screaming your heads off to end it.

Amending the constitution to remove birthright citizenship may have a good chance of passing.

Most countries in the world don't allow it, and the reasons for its establishment (mostly clarifying citizenship after the end of slavery) no longer applies.

The US and Canada are the last Western countries to grant birthright citizenship to anyone born on their soil or territories. All of the other countries who once had it got rid of it because of the flagrant abuse of the system. Ireland, for example, got rid of it in 2005 - with 80% of the population voting in favor of it - because there were so many women who were nine months pregnant flying in and practically being rushed to the hospital from the airport so they could get benefits.

Isn't their some airline rule about how advanced a pregnancy can be before the mother is not allowed to fly?

Awkwardly worded, but you know what I mean. How could a woman in labor get on a plane and fly here to give birth as R14 claims?

Not in labor, but very close to the due date.

R47 Please tell us more about the millions, nay, billions of heavily-pregnant women being air-dropped en masse into the United States for the express purpose of being welfare queens and claiming food stamps.

The fact that this armada of women can't even legally remain in the United States (ergo no government benefits) apparently hasn't crossed your mind.

r50 nice hyperbole, yet again. If you can't talk intelligently about a particular subject don't talk at all. Your emotions get in the way.

‘Birth tourism’ organizer jailed over scheme to bring pregnant Chinese women to US

‘POV’ Goes Behind the Closed Doors of the Chinese Birth Tourism Industry in the U.S. in Director Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby

[quote]The fact that this armada of women can't even legally remain in the United States (ergo no government benefits) apparently hasn't crossed your mind.

Oh yes they can, and do. You are completely uninformed about this subject.

See how people like R50 reason? "Please tell us more about the millions, nay, billions of heavily-pregnant women being air-dropped en masse into the United States ". That's the level of stupidity they stoop to, to argue a point.

Constitutional amendments need to go through the proper process to be reversed. End of sentence.

Depending on how the Supreme Court interprets the 14th Amendment, the law could be adjusted.

I could see that they would say that it was meant to apply to freed slaves and their children, but that's not what the text says.

And that’s not what the drafters intended. The language was intentionally written in the broadest way possible. It’s all in the Congressional Record.

100!

I'm not r50, but I wonder why certain posters object to exploring the numbers involved in birthright citizenship tourism? If it is 3,400,000 people, that is 1/100th of the population of the US and a significant number warranting concern and possible looking into changing the amendment via the constitutional process. If is 34,000, that is 1/10,000th of the US population and not worth a moment's concern.

If we are talking only about people who come over the border to have children, if 1,000,000 successfully slip over the border from Mexico every year, I'm pretty sure that not everyone of those million people are pregnant women. In fact, I'd be very surprised if that number is over 50,000. (one out of 20 border crossers).

7-2 vote

R50 is right. There is no data telling us how often this happens, and I suspect it doesn’t happen much. It takes lots of money to do this, and good point about the mother not even being able to stay here.

If people want to end birth right citizenship, then do it the right way, through a constitutional amendment.

menluvinguy is a part of the problem. Stuck in the 90s.

The return of “birtherism.” Really?—is that the best you bigots can do right now.? You’re slipping…

r65 doesn't understand the assignment.

R51 Can you prove that this is a pressing issue that is emptying the coffers of state and federal governments to the point that we as a society must suspend over two hundred years of precedent and circumvent the notion of constitutional amendments? "Because I think so" is not good enough; that's just your emotions.

R52 R53 It is very interesting that the two links provided show stories of rich Chinese people who would pay "tens of thousands of dollars" to an agency that would pamper the mothers and (upon further research) even take them on hauls to Babies R Us so they could then ship the supplies back home. So how exactly does this play into the welfare queens sucking all those government "benefits" narrative?

R54 Can you provide evidence of the many undocumented mothers receiving government benefits?

R55 How rich of you to claim I have no arguments while providing 0 counter-arguments to my post and resorting solely to ad hominem attacks. Typical Trump-era brainrot.

R66 Doesn't understand that we don't abuse the constitution to service the whims of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

*I just tested and blocked the OP and a chunk of the posts in the thread disappeared (including virtually all the "people" I am responding to in this post).

This really is an obsessive little pet issue for you, isn't it?

tl;dr^^

No other Western countries except the US and Canada have birthright citizenship and they're doing just fine. The Irish and the Danes couldn't wait to get rid of it. It's an archaic law that's out of date.

Canada is doing just fine and the US would be doing fine if we hadn't elected Trump

Canada is having major problems with integration of third world immigrants. Halifax is a shitshow.

R69 you’re still wrong, no matter how often you repeat it. Even if you were not an idiot parroting bullshit—so what. We have a 14th A, and what any other country does is utterly irrelevant.

r72 you are not the authority.

Correct. But I am a note of sanity, coupled with some relevant experience, on thread where most people lack any basic knowledge.

Oh right r74. You're a bloviating pompous ass. There are real reasons for ending birthright citizenship. It's a relic.

R72 Very few countries maintained chattel slavery the way the United States did, which is why the 14th Amendment was created and why it can’t be directly compared to laws in other countries.

Not even South America, with its high mortality rates and racial mixing, mirrored the U.S. system.

The 14th Amendment was meant to guarantee citizenship and rights to formerly enslaved people born on U.S. soil, not to be used as a loophole for birth tourism, anchor babies, or to exploit the concept of birthright citizenship.

You know nothing about American history, as your last paragraph is 100% wrong. Read the actual record…you might learn something.

Sorry r77 that poster is right.

Please specify where in the following text only former slavers are protected. The point was to protect former slaves, their children and any other person similarly situated by virtue of being born (or naturalized) in the U.S.

“ 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.”

The Supreme Court ruled over 125 years ago that the 14th A was not limited by its terms to former slaves or their children.

You guys are missing the point. This Supreme Court doesn't care about precedent or textual analysis. It will be all about the history of the 14th Amendment. And they won't take legislative intent into consideration.

I know we're all suppose to bow down to RBG but that ancient witch fucked us all over

The case before SCOTUS will turn on how a majority defines "[s]ubject to the jurisdiction thereof[.]" That language has been known to exclude the children of foreign diplomats, children of armed combatants from other countries, & the children of Native American tribes in the country that are not federally recognized. Whether those are the sole exceptions or mere examples will tell the tale.