"Abstruse?"

Bruce Lesley @BruceLesley
“Abstruse”?

Well, here are just a few items in the Pandora’s Box the Supreme Court would open up if they decide to gut the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

What they authors of the birthright citizenship clause wanted to avoid was the government ever creating another caste system whereby people are denied based on their skin color, national origin, economic status, being the child of a “gypsy”, or a whole other array of possible barriers.

What would be immediately “abstruse” would be the alternative, as 3.6 million babies born in this country every single year would have to file paperwork to some unnamed bureaucracy with uncertain criteria for determining citizenship? What paperwork? Can a bureaucracy question the stated status of who the father is? What is it is later determined that was wrong? Does a child then lose citizenship retroactively? What about children given up at birth and so have no known biological parents? What about IVF? Same sex parents? Surrogacy?

What is the status of babies until a bureaucracy has made the determination? Statelessness? Can they get health care, nutrition, immunizations, the Child Tax Credit? Does prenatal care get eliminated (because current law assumes citizenship)?

If Trump can overturn the Constitution based with a EO, can he make it retroactive with another? Can he deport JD Vance’s wife, Marco Rubio, Cash Patel, the GOP candidate for governor, Kamala Harris, or anybody else the government happens to get mad at or decide to hold over a barrel?

Do Africaners deserve citizenship over children born, raised, pledging allegiance to the Constitution, and singing the National Anthem for their entire childhood? This President does. Is that what the Constitution intends?

What does an appeals process look like since birth certificates no longer would matter? What is the child is born to a single mom who is a victim of maternal mortality? Who submits the documents for that baby? What is none is submitted?

The Constitution also is pretty clear about the founders opposing the concept of punishing babies for the “sins of the parent.” Ending birthright citizenship doesn’t harm the parents — not at all. It harms one group of people: babies. 👶

Babies who did nothing wrong. Babies who didn’t ask to come into this world. Babies who the government in many places in this countries now requires to be born even if unwanted. For these babies, they get statelessness for life. It is a lifetime of living in the shadows and subjected to horrific exploitation. And for what crime? Birth in this country would be meaningless, even though the Constitution is pretty clear the criteria is “soil” and “not blood”.

If you are defining “abstruse”, that would be it.

What happens if the Supreme Court overturns it? Nobody who is arguing for the end of birthright citizenship knows or can tell you.

Literally nobody.

Can it also change by executive fiat, government bureaucratic discretion, etc.? If birth certificates don’t matter, what does and for how many generations? Again, do fathers have to submit blood tests? What parental status matters? Is it one or both parents? What about dual citizens? Children born out of wedlock?

Isn’t the whole purpose of a Constitution to create certain protections for people from government whims and tyranny?

Therefore, if you want to change the Constitution, federal statutes, and well over a century of administrative laws and practices, then, seek a constitutional amendment — not presidential fiats by EO that can change the life-status of millions of babies (and uncountable numbers retroactively) overnight but for the rest of their lives.


HT @DennisGoris
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thread: x.com/BruceLesley/status/1997682455898100061