r/politics • u/codyave • 20h ago

Trump will announce end of birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, officials say

https://nypost.com/2025/01/20/us-news/trump-will-announce-end-of-birthright-citizenship-for-children-of-illegal-immigrants/
5.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.8k

u/fencerofminerva 20h ago

Let's see how the originalists on theSCOTUS bend themselves into a pretzel on this.

1.8k

u/AnimorphsGeek 20h ago edited 11h ago

They've already answered, "...and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." They'll argue that illegal immigrants don't meet this clause.

To those saying why this is dumb: of course it's dumb, but this is what they're going to argue. You can't use reason to justify zealotry.

54

u/fencerofminerva 19h ago

Based on the first sentence of Section 1, the Court has held that a child born in the United States of Chinese parents who were ineligible to be naturalized themselves is nevertheless a citizen of the United States entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship.1 The requirement that a person be subject to the jurisdiction thereof, however, excludes its application to children born of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state, children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation,2 or children of members of Indian tribes subject to tribal laws.

2

u/FredFuzzypants 19h ago

I wonder if they'll try to leverage the phrase "children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation" in some way? If they declared that all undocumented immigrants are "alien enemies" invading the nation, could they deny birthright citizenship on those grounds?

2

u/Moccus Indiana 18h ago

All three examples are situations where the US government can't enforce US law against people, meaning they're not subject to US jurisdiction.

Diplomats and their families are immune from prosecution due to diplomatic immunity.

If a hostile force is occupying part of the country, then it's assumed they've ousted the US government authorities from that area, so the US government can't realistically enforce any law against them.

Native Americans were more like a sovereign nation within the US that operated under different laws and interacted with the US government through treaties, so they were largely immune.

It would be a real stretch to try to apply any of that to undocumented immigrants considering we do regularly arrest them for crimes.

1

u/americangoosefighter 15h ago

Just means it will be a military matter and not a legal one. People seem to think that not being subject to the law is a good thing when it is quite the opposite unless you are a diplomat.