Xenophobe In Chief Wants To Change The Constitution With An Executive Order

For the first time ever, Trump is doing something as so-called "president" that hurts his own business. The Trump family makes huge profits by leasing expensive apartments to wealthy pregnant women from China, Russia and other former Soviet states so that their children are born in the U.S. and become automatic citizens. But as part of his xenophobic scare campaign in the last week of the midterm campaign, he announced Monday that he's signing an executive order to end "birthright citizenship." Since this defies the Constitution, it is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court. The 14th Amendment 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."

Axios, for whom Trump made the announcement, calls it "the most dramatic move yet in Trump's hardline immigration campaign, this time targeting 'anchor babies' and 'chain migration.' And it will set off another stand-off with the courts, as Trump’s power to do this through executive action is debatable to say the least... The Supreme Court has already ruled that children born to immigrants who are legal permanent residents have citizenship. But those who claim the 14th Amendment should not apply to everyone point to the fact that there has been no ruling on a case specifically involving undocumented immigrants or those with temporary legal status."

Lying as usual, Señor Trumpanzee said "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits... It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." There are at least 30 other countries, including Canada, that have birthright citizenship as well. No one expects Trump to have any factual basis for his assertions-- even when White House aides brief him. He has gotten away with lying for his entire life and has no plans on stopping now. Polls show that by huge majorities, Americans are aware that Trump is a congenital liar who can never be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

The American Civil Liberties Union slammed Trump's proposal Tuesday morning.

"The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms."

"What makes America great," warned Judiciary Committee member Ted Lieu, "is that we are a nation of laws, not a dictatorship. Trump cannot change the 14th Amendment by fiat. Any such action would be struck down by the courts. Trump's announcement is little more than a political gimmick to distract from the real issues facing many Americans: rising health care costs, wage stagnation and the deep feeling that our nation is on the wrong track."

Trump lapdog Lindsey Graham, still auditioning for Attorney General, says he will introduce a bill in the Senate to end birthright citizenship. I asked around to some of the political leaders who have a better understanding of the Constitution than Trump and the aide who told him to do this, neo-Nazi Stephen Miller. Alan Grayson mentioned that "The only justification for that would be if Trump were illiterate.

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.

"That’s what the Constitution says-- the very same Constitution that Trump took an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend.'"

Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of Congress' most dedicated social justice leaders, went even further than Grayson, telling me this morning that "Trump, who claims to be an originalist, should read history. Lincoln’s Attorney General, whose thinking was the basis of the 14th Amendment wrote: 'I am quite clear in the opinion that children born in the United States of alien parents, who have never been naturalized, are natural born citizens of the United States.'"

Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who I first met when he was Counsel to People for the American Way and Professor of Constitutional Law at American University, is now the House's most progressive member and Vice-Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. One day he is expected to chair that committee. A few hours ago, he told me that "Like dictators and authoritarians all over the world, Donald Trump now proposes to use the revocation of individual citizenship as a political weapon and a tool of racial demagoguery. As usual, his tyrannical instincts run headfirst into the Constitution, which guarantees, in the Fourteenth Amendment, citizenship to all persons born here. Birthright citizenship was a hard-won victory of the Civil War and the Radical Republicans who inscribed it in the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which had determined that African-Americans could never be citizens within the meaning of the Constitution and had no rights that ‘the white man was bound to respect.’ Just as Trump’s ambivalent and disoriented response to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville put him on the wrong side of World War II, and just as his continuing collection of payments from foreign states, Princes and Kings puts him on the wrong side of the American Revolution, his new effort to isolate and vilify the immigrant community puts him on the wrong side of the Civil War. In any event, the Fourteenth Amendment means just what it says-- ‘All persons born . . . in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’  The idea that Trump can make their constitutional rights disappear with an Executive Order is preposterous and laughable. Any Republican who climbs on this miserable train surrenders the right to call himself a ‘textualist,’ an ‘originalist’ or a respecter of precedent."

In an e-mail to her supporters this morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), also a member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote that "Trump should take a high school government class before so confidently claiming he can eliminate the 14th Amendment though executive action. Constitutional scholars and even members of his own party agree-- this simply isn’t possible. This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant rhetoric, sow division and distract voters from this administration’s very real infringements against working families. To Senator Lindsey Graham and anyone looking to encroach on basic citizenship rights legislatively: we will fight tooth and nail against any kind of regressive action, in the streets, in Congress and beyond. Our country’s fabric is stronger because of the protections provided in the 14th Amendment. These efforts are nothing more than attempts to harm children who are just as American as any other child born in the United States of America."

Mike Siegel, the progressive Texan running against anti-immigrant fanatic Michael McCaul in TX-10 put this into the perspective Trump is seeing this in. "Trump's announcement," he told me, "is a hateful, cynical ploy alongside the military buildup at the border and his attacks on the 'caravan' of asylum seekers. The President cannot revoke the 14th Amendment by fiat, just as he cannot reinstate slavery or restore the right of European men to take land from indigenous peoples. My sincere hope is that a majority of Americans reject this jingoistic white nationalism and elect a Democratic Congress. Until then, I'll be out here fighting for policies that will actually uplift working people, like Medicare for All and a living wage."

Florida state Senator, Annette Taddeo, an old friend of this blog, is originally from Columbia and now represents the Kendall area in southern Miami-Dade County, told me that "Trump must be confusing his presidency with the dictators he so admires as he attacks the press daily and now suggest changing a right that is protected under the 14th amendment of our constitution. Attempting to end this constitutionally protected right through executive order is un-American and downright ilegal."