On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump announced on his campaign site that, if he’s elected in 2024, on his first day back in the White House he’d issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship — an action that would be unconstitutional and likely face an immediate challenge in the courts.
“As part of my plan to secure the border, on Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump said in a statement, wrongly asserting that current law was being interpreted incorrectly.
In addition to claiming without evidence that his executive action would “secure the border,” Trump’s campaign website also stated that the order would stop so-called birth tourism — a practice that is so rare it is often labeled as a myth.
The announcement by Trump came during the same week as an important legal anniversary directly related to the topic of birthright citizenship. It was this week 125 years ago, in the court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, that the Supreme Court first recognized that the 14th Amendment established the legal right of people born in the country to be citizens.
The idea that Trump could change that precedent through an executive order (or anything short of a constitutional amendment) borders on the absurd. The amendment’s first sentence says:
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.
Legal experts have suggested that, rather than being a serious promise to alter law, Trump’s call to end birthright citizenship is simply a dog whistle to appeal to xenophobic and bigoted far right members of his base of support.
“I think it’s pretty clear that, for political purposes, he thinks that this kind of announcement will appeal to his base,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, speaking to CBS News on the matter. “It shows that he has anti-immigration credentials. And most of his voters don’t know or don’t care about whether such an executive order would be legal.”
Trump set off a firestorm of anger when he made a similar promise weeks before the 2018 midterms, stating in an interview with Axios that he’d soon make an executive order ending birthright citizenship, and that it’d be easy for him to do so in a purportedly legal way.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said incorrectly.
If Trump’s theory was true, it would render any section or amendment of the Constitution pointless, as presidents in the future could nullify it by decree.
Ultimately, Trump didn’t follow through on his pledge.
Fifteen professors from prestigious law schools throughout the U.S. blasted the former president in 2018 for suggesting he could ignore the rule of law and legal precedent, noting that there was “no serious scholarly debate about whether a president can, through executive action, contradict the Supreme Court’s long-standing and consistent interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
Civil and immigration rights groups also condemned Trump’s bigotry. Mijente, a Latinx rights organization, described his calls for ending birthright citizenship as a “barely-veiled assault on the rights of immigrants and other communities of color” that sought to rile up his base of voters before the 2018 midterms.
“[Trump] is using us for his political purposes right now — as scapegoats, as punching bags, as bogeymen and bogeywomen, as a collection of old stereotypes to be exploited for the benefit of sowing division and hate,” the group said.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.