A federal judge in Washington state has become the latest Man in the Moment by issuing a temporary halt to Donald Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship for anyone born in the United States of America.
I agree with U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan. He called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstititutional.”
But hold on! He’s getting plenty of push back from conservative legal experts who are backing Trump’s decision.
One of them is Hans Von Spakovsky, who works for the Heritage Foundation. He said: “The 14th Amendment has two key clauses in it. One, you have to be born in the United States, but you also have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All those who push birthright citizenship just point to that first phrase and ignore the second,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of research on this. I’ve looked at the original passage of the 14th Amendment and what that phrase meant subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. According to the original sponsors of the 14th Amendment in Congress was that you owed your political allegiance to the United States and not a foreign government.”
I just want to take note, however, of one key ommission in the amendment. It makes no mention of allegiance to a foreign power. It just lays it out there in plain English: If you’re born or are naturalized in this country, you are a U.S. citizen.
Conservatives ought to stand on historical precedent. This proposal to end birthright citizenship is a notion intended to attack the intentions of illegal residents, which has nsothing to do with the children they bring into this world.