It should prob be remembered that “birthright citizenship” was the product of the abolitionist mvt, which understood that no person of color would be safe from deportation or bondage if their citizenship could be questioned or taken away
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I thought it was meant to create dual citizenship with the state and federal govt effectively beginning the process of imposing the Bill of Rights on the states. Both go hand in hand I guess, the amendment tried to protect people from retaliation.
Actually birthright citizenship was in the constitution for whites in 1790 later the fourteenth amendment codified that all persons were included. Subsequent court rulings further confirmed its use.
There is no provision for birthright citizenship in the original Constitution. It was, as the OP explains, included in the Fourteenth Amendment as a repudiation of the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, which held that Black people, even if born in the US, could never be citizens.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 granted birthright citizenship to children born outside of the United States to two citizen parents. This act was the first to permit citizenship by blood or descent, also known as jus sanguinis.
I mean, how many white immigrants like lady coprolite or the muskrat will be facing deportation? And how many white kids of such immigrants facing denaturalization? Prolly not many
There's a whole aspect you aren't aware of. Stephen Miller is eyeing the 'public charge' sections of legal immigration. CIS defines (coming up) EITC claims from immigrants and no/reduced-cost school lunches as "welfare". Miller wants to frame it as "use welfare [even lawfully], get deported". 1/More
'CIS' = Center for Immigration Studies, the bigots and racists sourced by these nuts - CIS bends the numbers and data very badly to work for them.
'EITC' = The Earned Income Tax Credit; Legal immigrants can lawfully claim it, but CIS considers it "welfare" - by LEGAL immigrants! And here is more...
An "immigrant [or "non-citizen"] household is when the head of household or their spouse is an immigrant (like the current White House). Even if the immigrant naturalizes, that definition doesn't change. So, and "immigrant household" can all be citizens, yet in a "non-citizen" household. And more...
...the children and grandchildren of ONLY Hispanic immigrants are defined by CIS to be "immigrants" themselves. That's how CIS gets skewed data to scare Americans, to make them think "non-citizens" are unauthorized immigrants, when access to true government benefits is restricted for immigrants.
CIS claims that two-thirds of "immigrant households" (also interchanged as "non-citizen households") receive "welfare". It's from CIS reinventing what "welfare" is. Unauthorized immigrants can't access benefits, so those numbers are - again - LEGAL immigrants. And there is still more...
I've studied CIS and the sister organization of 'FAIR' (Federation for American Immigration Reform) for years; Much of this is hidden away now. FAIR had a webpage that maligned immigrant sponsorship (which is legal immigration) with bad math, but pulled it down a decade ago. Just the false data now.
Except when the bill was submitted to court the person who wrote it stated on the congress floor that it applied to all children born here. Imagine that. When amendments are put in, if they want to limit it then it would say so like it does for diplomats children.
Not that it saved having their civil rights and human rights stripped from them, but at least it was something (I realize the Amendments gave them civil rights, too, but those were quickly squashed by the racists).
Yeah, we remember. Just like we realized that the backlash against DEI is increasingly-thinly veiled segregationism and coordinated othering of whole ethnic groups is a hallmark of fascism.
There's layers and layers to this onion and each one makes you want to cry.
This may be a dumb question, but if we get rid of birthright citizenship what makes someone like me (born in America to parents that were also born in America) qualify as a citizen?
I read a bit more after asking this, and the EO only targets children whose mother was here illegally or on a temporary visa and whose father isn’t a citizen.
And then its a case of how far back do we go? If some ancestor 200 years ago didn't have proper papers, does that invalidate citizenship of everyone after? I can see that nonsense too.
Interesting. That makes this thing even more likely to lose in court. trying to claim the constitution doesn't say what it clearly says is dumb enough, but to only have it apply moving forward, and only though an EO is absurd. Even this SCOTUS won't buy that. Thomas and alito, sure, but that's it
Yep. And SCOTUS, if it gets its hands on it, will try to treat that aspect of the 14th Amendment as something peculiar to Reconstruction, not really applicable now. Sorta like that part of the 14th Amendment about insurrection.
You mean current SCOTUS - They got it right with 'United States v. Kim Wong Ark' in 1898. Kim Wong Ark's parents were forbidden from naturalized, because they were ethnic Chinese, during the Chinese Exclusion Act. Same principles for what Trump is attacking now.
Yes I am aware of the Wong Kim Ark case, which solidified 14th A and birthright citizenship into immigration law. The idea of birthright citizenship however began as a discussion among mostly Black antebellum abolitionists and was written into the 14th A from the beginning
They also for the most part do not have the particular history of domestic slavery and Jim Crow in which the citizenship rights of millions of African Americans were up to the civil war and after denied by the state
Citizenship rights is itself a concept with a history of course. Passports and immigration controls likewise. They evolved (fairly recently) in a context (which I think is what you are saying too).
We certainly can learn from other countries, but to suggest the U.S. has something to learn about immigration from, e.g., France or Germany is laughable.
Thank you - yes that is what the abolitionists meant I agree, but in light of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Johnson Reed Act, McCarran Walter Act et al, I was trying to suggest ways in which denial of citizenship, deportation & forced labor were expanded & in some ways predicted by the abolitionists
I would also like to mention that even in antebellum US, Black activists and intellectuals made the analogy btw their fate as non and/or liminal citizens and the fate of Native Americans (from M Jones’ excellent book Birthright Citizens)
@profmmurray.bsky.social
Just heard you in w/Nicolle Wallace. You spoke incorrectly. The "more than half of the country" is wrong. Please watch your words because they matter. Ninety million registered voters DIDN'T vote. Of those who did, Trump got 49.8%.
Parenthetically I am a citizen of Illinois and a resident of Idaho (each state is constitutionally a republic). Shall I go back where I came from? Is the food good?
Not to be exceptionally pedantic, but citizenship of states is determined by domicile, not birth. So if you are physically present in Idaho with the intent to remain indefinitely, you are actually a citizen of Idaho under the Constitution. (This matters occasionally.)
Oh, please do! Residency can be determined by a utility bill; citizenship of a sub-national republic so pro forma it's invisible. Residency matters for taxation and voter registration, not (say) Idaho citizenship. (I've an Illinois native license plate frame for good reason!)
Actually voter registration goes by citizenship! Residency is evidence of domicile, but not conclusive. For example, a college student who moves out of state for school but always intends to return home state remains a citizen of the home state. That’s why they don’t have to move their auto reg
Apparently the Constitution has been taken down from the White House website, and the ‘Trump Bible’ has an edited version of it which doesn’t include the parts about women, slaves and birthright citizenship.
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To change it a constitutional amendment is required.
'EITC' = The Earned Income Tax Credit; Legal immigrants can lawfully claim it, but CIS considers it "welfare" - by LEGAL immigrants! And here is more...
The next step was granting citizenship to slaves born in America made them American
Wiki
There's layers and layers to this onion and each one makes you want to cry.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/
Yup
He owns the Supreme Court
New York State had a valid and solid $450 million judgment against him. They should have taken the entire amount.
Rather than going for the jugular, Democrats always play nice when it matters the most.
Oh
That the abolition of slavery delivered birthright citizenship to us is no coincidence.
The Americas massacred most of theirs….
2. Many (most) countries in the world are less than a few hundred years old
Just heard you in w/Nicolle Wallace. You spoke incorrectly. The "more than half of the country" is wrong. Please watch your words because they matter. Ninety million registered voters DIDN'T vote. Of those who did, Trump got 49.8%.