Birtherism and Beyond

Trump's Attacks on Citizenship

You may remember the infamous “birther” conspiracy: Trump alleged that Obama was not born in Hawaii, but rather in Kenya, and therefore questioned his eligibility to become president. Of course, if Obama had been born in Kenya, he would have been just as much of a citizen eligible for the presidency as Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada. Logical arguments meant nothing, the truth meant nothing, evidence meant nothing. All that mattered was the allegation.

During the 2020 primaries, none other than insurrection leader John Eastman wrote an article questioning whether Kamala Harris was eligible to be president. There was no question that she was born in California. No one was trying to allege a conspiracy around her birth. During the current election, the same question is being asked about Nikki Haley. What do they have in common? The citizenship of their parents.

We all know that you are a US citizen if you are born on US soil. How can they even try to argue something so ridiculous? By reinterpreting the 14^th amendment to end what is called birthright citizenship.

The first section of the 14^th amendment states, “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.” Their argument is over the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” They want to take those five words and completely revamp our concept of citizenship. Under their argument, children born in the US would only be citizens if their parents are, too.

During his presidency, Trump started laying the groundwork for issuing an executive order declaring that birthright citizenship does not apply to children of immigrants. This was on the drawing board at the end of his presidency, but the promised executive order was never released.

He fully plans to issue that executive order ending birthright citizenship if he’s elected. While of course there will be litigation over this, it will cause chaos in the system and hurt countless people while the issue winds its way through the courts. His Attorney General could issue a precedent decision, binding to all immigration courts, that children of the undocumented are not citizens, blocking defenses to removal. Some people would give up, some people would go into hiding, and some people would be unable to afford legal defense. He even intends to round people up and put them in deportation camps, away from all support systems. Long-term residents will be gone before the courts declare the policy unconstitutional.

His attacks on citizens extended to naturalized citizens. He had a focus on denaturalization – stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship and putting them at risk for removal. Denaturalization has always been a tool to use against people who became citizens through fraud, and it has famously been used against Nazi war criminals. However, creating an office to focus on denaturalization, seeking out thousands of people to strip of citizenship, would inevitably lead to going after people for minor violations. Those minor violations could include failure to disclose visa violations, which could possibly include Melania Trump herself.

We can’t just dismiss Trump when he threatens to take extreme action. We have to assume he will do it, throwing immigrant families into legal limbo. I spoke with countless children of the undocumented during the Trump years who were worried about what would happen to their parents. Family separation includes taking parents from children in raids. If Trump were reelected, the children would no longer be considered citizens and would be swept up as well.