Let's start with Trump's assault on the 14th Amendment.
It contains these paragraphs:
The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift. The Fourteenth Amendment states: “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.” That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race.
But the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.
To understand Trump's error here, let's head over to Hah-vahd, to some actual legal experts:
[Harvard Law Today]: The relevant portion of Fourteenth Amendment states: “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 new administration argues that the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” does not apply to children of those who are undocumented or who are on temporary visas. What do you make of that claim?
[Gerald L. Neuman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law]: The argument is either a crazy theory or dishonest interpretation of the Constitution. The Supreme Court explained what those words mean in the Wong Kim Ark case. It reflects the fact that there are these traditional exceptions that really do involve people who are not subject to the nation’s jurisdiction. The leading example in the 1860s debates was foreign diplomats, who have diplomatic immunity, who are for the most part not subject to our laws, and who retain the citizenship of the country that sent them and which they are serving. Their children share the immunity and would not qualify. There is also the example of a foreign warship visiting a port of the United States — the country does not exercise jurisdiction over foreign warships, and therefore children born on the foreign warships are not citizens of the United States.
With respect to undocumented workers, they are people who come to the United States to work, to participate in our economy, to live in our society, to live safely in our territory. They are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Further, the thing that makes the immigration laws so enforceable against them is that they are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Note that last sentence.
Anyway, Trump's executive order was temporarily blocked quickly after it was pinched out of Trump's Oval Office.
From The NYTimes:
A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship for babies born on American soil, dealing the president his first setback as he attempts to upend the nation’s immigration laws and reverse decades of precedent.
In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided with Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, the four states that sued, signing a restraining order that blocks Mr. Trump’s executive order for 14 days, renewable upon expiration. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said.
“Frankly,” he continued, challenging Trump administration lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”
Mr. Trump responded hours later, telling reporters at the White House, “Obviously we’ll appeal it.”
Of course he will. Not that this part of the judge's order means anything to the MAGA-cult:
There is a strong likelihood that Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their claims that the Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and Immigration and Nationality Act. See United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 694-99 (1898); Regan v. King, 49 F. Supp. 222, 223 (N.D. Cal. 1942), aff'd, 134 F.2d 413 (9thCir. 1943), cert denied, 319 U.S. 753 (1943) see also Gee v. United States, 49 F. 146, 148 (9th Cir. 1892).
But when has Trump ever let the law get in the way of his plans?
