Trump Barfs Out Some Crap On Birthright Citizenship, IGNORE

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Working at the White House is awesome! Where else can you whisper absolutely any crazy nonsense over a Diet Coke and watch it barfed out by the leader of the free world on live TV just moments later? That's a hell of a perk! And right now someone in the White House is texting everyone he knows bragging, "Fkn toldya! The Idiot actly DID IT! OMGLOLROFLMAO! U owe me beers 4ever!" Because last night Donald Trump sat down with Axios's Jonathan Swan and announced that he plans to end birthright citizenship for babies born on American soil. And he thinks he can un-person thousands of children every year with just a flick of his mighty pen.

It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't. [...] You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order.

Oh "they" are, are "they"? Because Section 1, Clause 1 of the 14th Amendment, which confirmed that children of slaves were US citizens, is unambiguous here. That's why they call it The Citizenship Clause.

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.

And unless That Idiot is saying that we have no legal authority over non-citizens present in US America -- i.e. "subject to jurisdiction thereof" -- then the Constitution is pretty clear on this one. (Also, he's still wrong.) There's also the little matter of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), where the Supreme Court held that children born to Chinese parents in the US were American citizens. Man, Donald Trump realllllly doesn't want us talking about all those bombs and shootings by American-born white men this week!

Now how ridiculous! We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.

Yep, we're the only country with unrestricted birthright citizenship. Well, besides Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uruguay, and Venezuela. So, like, most of the Western hemisphere. But, you were saying ...

That's a very interesting question. I didn't think anybody knew that but me. I thought I was the only one.

Oh, Lordy! The man thinks his own people don't immediately text Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman and Josh Dawsey every time he scratches his balls. Right.

Look, there are some people who will tell you that Wong Kim Ark and the 14th Amendment apply only to the children of legal residents of the US because the judges and legislators who wrote those words had in their minds only people who came in the "right way." Those people are either nativist loons or liars. Because slaves never had immigration papers, there was no registration of non-citizens until 1940, and the kosher immigrant envisioned by these revisionist historians and whoever "they" are in the White House whispering this nonsense in Trump's orange ear is bullshit. This isn't a close legal question, even for a conservative SCOTUS -- no matter that the New York Times thinks whether or not Trump can EO the Constitution is "unclear."

Here, go ahead and watch the video for yourself. It's only a minute long, so you won't get Trump poisoned before lunchtime.

Trump immigration executive order: President to terminate birthright citizenship    www.youtube.com 

WHAT. EVER.

[ Axios ]

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