Trump Signs Executive Orders Limiting Birthright Citizenship

You know how they say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results? Yeah — I feel like whoever came up with that had met President Donald Trump, who somehow still thinks he can get rid of birthright citizenship by writing his name down on an executive order.

As CBS News reports, on Thursday, Trump signed two orders: one seeking to deny people who engage in what the White House describes as “birth tourism” access to the U.S., and one that expands the definitions of people that it states are ineligible for birthright citizenship, such as children of foreign citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign governments. 

As you all know, in June the Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship in a 6-3 decision that should have sent the message to Trump that he can’t just unilaterally undo a constitutional amendment, which MAGA supporters across the country seemed to think was some new liberal, communist, socialist, Marxist, globalist, whatever-the-hell-else-ist invention, and not a part of the U.S. Constitution that has existed for roughly a century and a half. But since Trump doesn’t understand the English words “no means no,” no matter how many times he hears them (just ask E. Jean Carroll), he’s giving it another try.

“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright; it was close,” he said during the signing of the orders at the White House. “But a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments.”

On Tuesday, several civil rights groups filed a lawsuit to counter Trump’s executive orders and push a federal court to say outright “that the citizenship of babies covered by that class-action lawsuit is protected despite this new executive order.”

From an ACLU New Hampshire press release:

In its June ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause puts “the question of citizenship ‘once and forever [to] rest.’”

In their motion filed today in New Hampshire federal court, where the lawsuit was first filed, the legal groups wrote: “The Supreme Court confirmed that there are no additional exceptions beyond those recognized in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and the Fourteenth Amendment is not subject to executive (or legislative) revision. President Trump’s continued resistance to that principle calls for this Court’s renewed intervention.”

The following is comment on today’s filing:

“President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right, and he may not like that he lost in the Supreme Court, but that is really beside the point,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel. “It’s well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children’s citizenship to end.”

Meanwhile, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is out here pretending literally anyone in the MAGA world knew what birthright citizenship was before their Tang-tinted messiah started bloviating about it this year.

“This has been something that people have talked about, not only for years, but for decades,” Miller said.

“The idea that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor, saying they want to go to Disneyland or they want to go visit a monument or go to a national park, but the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child,” said Miller, who is still pretending he’s a real human being and not an alien in a human being suit like the ones from the Men In Black movies. “It gives them access, under this broken system, to welfare benefits, ultimately to the voting booth, and all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.”

Miller has been repeating this narrative since the SCOTUS decision was made, telling Fox News host Jesse Waters — another white man whose opinion on women could make one wonder if he’s ever met one who felt safe leaving their drinks unattended around him — “But if you have birthright citizenship, it means if a person comes here nine months pregnant to go look around at some things, in a couple of weeks, that is the mother of a lifetime American citizen and a direct line into American cash and welfare for the rest of that child’s life.”

To Miller’s credit, he at least sounded slightly less absurd than right-wing commentator Matt Walsh did when he imagined a Guatemalan woman sprinting across the border while nine months pregnant to give birth to a U.S. citizen.

The fact is, the kind of “birth tourism” Trump and his mindless minions are describing is extremely rare and already illegal, and they probably already know that, but they also know Trump supporters don’t read past headlines, know the law, or know anything that is actually in the Constitution past the first two amendments, which they also don’t know in any kind of detail.

“The Supreme Court already decided this issue: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution,” Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “No additional executive order can change the meaning of the Constitution. Any executive order that tries to rewrite birthright citizenship will meet the same fate as the last one.”

As CBS noted, the issue of birth tourism had already been discussed during Supreme Court oral arguments, when Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the six conservative justices, told U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, “You do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us.” 

So, not only has the court already made its ruling on birthright citizenship, but it has already addressed the birth tourism issue, which is decidedly no issue at all.

Perhaps — and I’m just spitballing here —Trump truly is the definition of insanity.

SEE ALSO:

Donald Trump Attends Supreme Court Hearing On Birthright Citizenship

The History Of Birthright Citizenship And Its Connection To Slavery

Supreme Court Upholds Transgender Athlete Ban, Birthright Citizenship

Trump Signs 2 Executive Orders Limiting Birthright Citizenship was originally published on newsone.com