It isn’t often that I find myself even partially agreeing with Donald Trump on anything.
I say partially because Trump goes way too far, but his attacks on the Fourteenth Amendment might have some reasonableness in one part of it.
Section. 1. 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The purpose of the amendment, passed just after the end of the Civil War, was essentially to remove the stigma of the Dred Scott case, which said essentially that African-American slaves could never be U.S. citizens.
Even if they were born here and their family had resided here for generations.
Trump has argued that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, which is stupid in itself. Something that is part of the Constitution is by definition constitutional.
However …
There is one question not covered specifically that is worth considering. What if a baby is born in the United States when his mother is in the country illegally? Or even a rarer situation, if the mother is in the country as a tourist?
There are other countries that offer birthright citizenship. In fact, my youngest grandchild has Jamaican citizenship because she was born in Kingston during her mother’s three-year tour at the American Embassy there. But Pauline was there legally as a representative of the U.S. government.
So if my granddaughter ever wanted to live in Jamaica, she would have the right as a Jamaican-born citizen.
But if her mother had been spending a week at Montego Bay and gave birth a month prematurely, would the baby have the right to be a citizen? I think a no answer to that question would be reasonable.
By the same token, I think arguing that a baby born of a mother who crossed into the U.S. illegally to give birth should not have birthright citizenship is a reasonable argument.
Of course Trump takes reasonableness and goes about eight steps past it.
Rosie O’Donnell was born 63 years ago in Commack, NY. The president — any president — does not have the right to revoke the citizenship of a native-born American whose mother was an American citizen when she gave birth.
There appear to be few if any people Trump hates worse than O’Donnell, but his powers — at least the legal ones — do not extend to gettinbg rid of her.