End Birthright Citizenship-Trump

A third federal District Judge just blocked Trump's executive order, New Hampshire this time.

I kind of wonder if Trump really cares either way. Birthright citizenship sold well to the MAGA base but it doesn't look like it's going anywhere and there's nothing to be gained by dying on that hill that I can see.

The other thought I'm having, though, is that once the cases reach the Supreme Court, if they ever do, the Justices will be faced with an awful choice. If they rule according to the consensus that the 14th amendment means what we've long thought it means, they will risk touching off a constitutional crisis.

Courts have no real power to force anyone to do anything. Such a crisis is an unwinnable situation. It would not be the first time in history that the Supreme Court decided that discretion really is the better part of valor. There are a couple of fig leaf arguments that they could adopt to give Trump some sort of win.

The Court might, for example, declare that Trump is right in principle but that Congress, not the President, decides who gets citizenship outside of the birthright provision.

Trump has always hedged his statements on the subject. Given the GOP majorities in Congress, he would probably accept such a ruling.

 

All of this slashing and confusion has one goal: to justify a huge slash in taxes for the wealthy. Please do not lose sight of that. The slashing justifies the money, which the chaos makes it easier to slide it through.

 

So it's all a distraction? Could well be.

 

The big tax cut for the super wealthy can't raise the debt because of the way they will have to pass it. Therefore they need to slash spending and increase income with tariffs to pay for it.

 

No, it's more than that. By crippling the government, they make it difficult for them to be stopped. The cuts are meant to offset the tax cuts looming. The chaos is meant to reduce, even eliminate, oversight.

 

A good example supporting Rich's statement about crippling the government is the simple fact that they fired 18 inspector generals. He did this I have to assume because he didn't want any inspector generals poking around trying to see what Musk is doing.

Another big question is if Musk is really interested in finding fraud and corruption then why didn't he hire any accountants to look at the books instead of just hiring software engineers. I'm not sure what he's doing because he is keeping all details secret.

 

Keep in mind that the legal consensus on birthright citizenship has not been reduced to statue or tested in any court opinion (until now). We all think we know what the citizenship clause means but in fact, we don't.

 

Perhaps. But we certainly know what TRUMP thinks it means.

 

Do we? I can't read Trump's mind but I suspect that his only real concern is what he can get out of it. Right now, I think the answer may be, "Not much."

 

Some think that one primary goal of the effort to end birthright citizenship appears to be largely declarative—intended, among other things, to send shockwaves beyond U.S. borders and deter migrants or visitors from coming to the country with the intention of having so-called "Anchor Babies." This term refers to children born in a country to non-citizen parents, often with the hope of securing citizenship for the child and, potentially, legal residency for the parents. The term frequently arises in discussions about immigration policies, particularly in countries like the United States that grant birthright citizenship. This action allegedly may have an effect and significant reduction of the illegal immigration to the US.

Another primary objective of this effort is the legal challenge itself—a process that could take years and faces significant uncertainty, as there is no guarantee it will succeed.

 

You don't have to read his mind. His words will do. Trump is a compulsive liar, but his lies are also the window to his soul.

He's doing all this anti-immigrant and anti-DEI stuff to mollify the Red Hats who supported him, while simultanously picking their pockets clean. It's a time-worn GOP strategy with those people, but Trump has shown how much farther it can be taken. (But he doesn't seem to be at its limit even yet.)

The best part: it's free. He's using the levers of government to do it, which means all taxpayers are footing the bill. And, as we know, Trump loves it when others pay.

 

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just refused to stay the District Court's injunction against Trump's Executive Order. Such a stay requires a two part showing being 1) the Government will suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is not stayed and 2) that the Government is likely to succeed in its appeal. Thing is, there's no way to know which part of the test the Court was not satisfied about if not both.

Stay tuned.

 

I've posted on this forum about my theory that the J6 criminals that Trump pardoned might be playing a role in his grip on the Republican Senators and Congressmen. This article confirms that it is true.

They’re Scared Shitless”: The Threat of Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress
quote:
In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-congress-political-violence

 

Don't forget to pick up your brown shirts and armbands after the meeting in mom's basement!

 

Trump communicates in a specific way, which does include threats towards the unwilling. But I would be careful with taking every utterance with utmost seriousness. I would wait for real action and policy enactment. This applies to any issue including Ukraine, or the mobilization of the MAGA base. Here's just one of his communication strategies;

"It's a classic PR strategy: overwhelm, distract and control the narrative before anyone else can. Flooding the zone is his way of making sure no single controversy sticks because there's always a new one incoming." Longstanding Trump cheerleader Steve Bannon explained the shock-and-awe strategy in 2018, when he argued that the real opposition to the Republican billionaire was not the Democrats but the media. "And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit," he said. "Flooding the zone" is a phrase with roots in sports lingo, originally used to describe the tactic in US football of saturating the opposition's defense until a weak spot opens."

"By throwing out an overwhelming number of policy changes and provocations, Trump has presented his opponents with giant game of whack-a-mole stacked very much in his favor," political scientist Michael Montgomery, of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told AFP.

"While everyone else scrambles to process yesterday's outrage, he's already on to the next, ensuring his version of events dominates both the day's headlines and social media conversation." (https://archive.is/sPJFc)

 

Just thinking aloud, here...

There's something different about this EO from the other Trump orders being challenged. The Supreme Court will declare whether Trump's executive order is valid. That’s all they really need to do. There's no overall enforcement to worry about and therefore no constitutional crisis after all.

 

We should know something fairly soon. The Trump Administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court, not to block any of the three separate injunctions against the EO, but to limit their effect to the actual parties in the respective cases while the Court considers the merits. This isn't likely to succeed I don't think but it's far from novel. Abraham Lincoln made the identical claim in the context of his First Inaugural Address.

I'm wondering if the Supreme Court will even hear the merits since every Court, District and Appeals, that's looked at the EO has agreed that it's unconstitutional. In the absence of a judicial controversy, why should the Supreme Court take the matter up?

 

Tea leaves, here. The Supreme Court gave the plaintiffs until April 4 to file their response to Trump's petition and did not grant any interim relief. Apparently, the Justices aren't in a hurry to deprive any newborns of their U.S. citizenship.

One must not try to suss out what the final order might say. That's akin to predicting who the next Pope will be. A hopeless task. But...if they felt strongly that Trump is right, one might expect some sort of stay of the lower Court orders.

 

The Supreme Court is requesting responses from states and groups challenging the executive order.
Louisiana AG disagrees with the way the 14th Amendment has been interpreted. South Carolina is one of 18 states that joined a Supreme Court brief supporting the executive order.
"That amendment was rightfully designed to bestow citizenship on emancipated slaves, which needed to happen, but it has been misinterpreted over the last 160 years."
He added that he believes the Supreme Court could rule in their favor.

Yet, when we read the amendment - The 14 Amendment states, ‘ALL PERSONS born or naturalized in the United States” are American citizens.” It doesn’t state anything specific about slaves.
It doesn’t state, “All slaves…., it states, “All persons….” What is there to question? It’s specific, as is.
If the 14th amendment was only supposed to apply to slaves, why not just pass a law instead of going through the amendment process?