As is tradition
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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I feel like people think there are rules or brakes. There aren’t. There is already a pathetic, threadbare argument for ending birthright citizenship put out by the heritage foundation and there’s literally no one to say no anymore. They don’t have to chip away at shit. They just have to say whatever they want and it’s gonna be law.
The word they’re looking for is loop-hole, and there is always one or another.
My personal guess is that we’ll start to see a two-tiered system defined by a difference between “citizen” and “civilian”
SCOTUS looking at a chair:
“This chair is functioning perfectly fine, so it doesn’t need all 4 legs. Now that it’s still standing with 3 legs, it proves taking out legs isn’t harmful so we can take another out. Well, now that the chair isn’t functional with 2 legs, it proves the chair never worked in the first place.”
“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.”
SCROTUS: “Illegals aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because (insert BS here) and therefore their children are not US citizens.” *rides off in a gold motor home to vacation with billionaire friends*
We’re in for a wild ride.
Strap in.
Because they understand the power to completely erode something by chipping away bit by bit, the policies that they enact have zero wiggle room.
Using the example of abortion, not only do they not allow abortions in the third trimester, you also can’t get one in the second or the first trimester or if you were raped or if you are underaged or old enough to consent to medical care yourself or if you are pregnant by incest or if your fetus has a life-threatening condition or if you have a life-threatening condition.
In fact, you can’t even travel out of state if you are pregnant without being accused of trying to obtain an abortion and if anyone helps you try to get an abortion they can go to jail for a long time. Further, you can’t prevent yourself from getting pregnant by using birth control or an IUD or a day after pill or medication for a medical abortion, even if that medicine can be used for other purposes.
They have systematically over time removed every single thing that could possibly be an exception to the ‘no abortion’ rule without any concern for the lives lost and suffering imposed and they have done so because the don’t want to leave anything that could ever be used to chip away at their total without-exception ban.
Suddenly the ‘strict textualists’ will become ‘Well we need to interpret this in light of today’s world’.
They’ve already ignored part of the 14th Amendment (people engaged in Insurrection may not hold office), and held that the emoluments clause is not applicable to Trump. And they’ve ruled that bribery is legal. Does anyone honestly think they’re suddenly going to uphold the Constitution now?
They’ll find a way to define “natural born” as born of at least one citizen parent, just so that Barron would not fit the definition.
There’s another, scarier way they could go about it. Not today, not tomorrow, but not that far in the future.
They could convene a Constitutional convention. It only requires 2/3 of the states (34 states) to achieve this.
23 states currently have Republican trifectas. There are 5 states with Republican legislatures who currently have Democratic governors but could easily end up with Republican ones (Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Wisconsin). Then there’s Alaska and Nevada that are split but could easily be fully red at any point.
I think about this every time people talk about fleeing red states to move to California, Washington, or Minnesota. I think about it especially when I hear people lament reproductive rights or LGBTQ rights or voting rights in “those other” states but feel safe because they live in a blue state.
They’re not only chipping away rights a little bit of a time: they’re chipping away at plurality. And once they get a supermajority, even just a little bit, even just one time, it’s over.
Edit: typo
And to add to OPs comment, chipping away while dangling something in front of the American people to distract them from the truth
Same for the 22nd amendment.
It’ll start with the deportation of young undocumented parents and their US-born children as family groups because the Republicans “won’t break up the families.” That will establish a precedent.
Just watched London has Fallen and it takes an insider. It always takes an insider.
So, they’re going to coat us in vanilla pudding first?
That amendment is also the basis of Brown vs board of education and Loving vs Virginia and Obergefell vs Hodges.
Meaning without it they can segregate public schools, make interracial marriages illegal and gay marriage.
The 14th amendment section 3 clearly states that insurrectionists are not allowed in public office. Colorado used this in a decision to strike Trump from the ballot. States have authority to govern their elections granted by the constitution. SCOTUS just turned around and said no they don’t, with their ruling in violation of the constitution and Colorado state election law. So, anyone that is an illegal immigrant with children whom were born in the States and are citizens, Trump and Co. will deport your entire family, and will not blink and eye tossing out US citizens, while half of the country cheers and applauds.
And, thanks to the conservative majority getting its second wind, they’ll have just as much time to do that as they did with everything else.
Why do you think the rules actually matter if the people who enforce the rules say otherwise?
Laws are ultimately only as strong as the paper they are written on is. It comes down to who has the power to enforce their rules.
This has happened in the past. The Expatriation Act of 1907 took birthright citizenship away from US-born women who married foreigners/immigrants. SCOTUS upheld it and it only ended through legislative appeal. So all Trump needs is for the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a law that does what he wants (probably take away birthright citizenship to children born to 2 immigrants), then get the Republican-majority appointed Supreme Court to uphold this. This won’t be hard, although it may take a few years to come into effect due to court challenges. Is it awful – yes! But it can happen if Trump wants it to happen.
If we want justice we are gonna have to do it ourselves. Does everyone understand that? That is where we are heading. No one is coming to save us. If we want anything to change we are gonna have to get real dirty. That’s all I can say on here.
I am not an American, but even I can see that the 14th does not prevent Congress from enacting a law to end birthright citiznship. The 14th only prohibits *States* from doing so.
Contrast that with the 2nd ammendment for example, which reads “ Congress shall make no law”
That’s a hole big enough for this Scotus to drive a bus through.
This applies to the second too. Ever wonder why gun owners don’t want to compromise? Because it’s an amendment that has already been severely eroded for 90 years.
Same with the fourth. See “Civil forfeiture” ie deprivation of property without due process.
“They will do it the way they’ve overruled our other rights”
What Constitutional rights have been overruled?
They could ban travel to the US by pregnant women. I’m sure that will be one of the first things they do.
They did it already. My great grandmother lost her birthright citizenship when she married a foreigner in 1922. She had to become naturalized.
“They can’t make it illegal, so they will make it impossible.”
I’ve said this many times over the last eight years: Stop believing that any person or institution is going to save you. They aren’t. Our institutions are weaker than we ever imagined. Our politicians are (incredibly) more spineless than we ever imagined. They aren’t going to bail us out. It’s going to be an all hands on deck when/if things get dark over the next four years.
The 14th amendment is about to join the company of the 1st and 2nd where absolutes become not so absolute.
And by installing judges that will rule against it at every opportunity.
Cool. When can we send Barron back?
SCOTUS will agree with some stupid argument that it only applied to freed slaves or something
Partisan vote birthright citizenship is dead.
Even as textualist as Thomas and Alito are, I feel like that’s a bridge too far for them.
What nobody here seems to understand is that this isn’t about, doesn’t require, and has nothing to do with repeating the 14th amendment.
The 14th amendment states that “All persons born … in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,* shall be citizens of the United States.”
Congress has the power to define what that means.
People continue to incorrectly state that the only way to change the citizen status of children born to illegals is to completely overturn the 14th amendment. That’s not how that works. Please, educate yourselves before buying into the ragebait.
I dunno if this will get much traction here, but say we were having a sincere policy discussion among honest actors. The outcome that would be implemented in good faith.
Is it actually a good policy that someone who enters the country illegally and has a baby, the baby is a us citizen? Is it a good policy that someone just on a vacation and gives birth the kid is now a us citizen? I think no cuz it doesn’t seem in those two scenarios the child should be a us citizen but rather same citizenship of birth mother.
“we’re all textualists now” – that sounded good at the time, until they changed the definition of textualist.
They’ll go after the attached phrase “…and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and state that these immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and are therefore not citizens.
We would have no legal recourse if they do. We’re at the mercy of religious extremists.
All they need is some well funded, right wing lawyer and someone with the right claim. Just like they did with gun rights in Heller vs DC. Just like they did in Dobbs. Don’t strike the whole thing down. Just ‘liberate’ the states to make their own laws around it.
But ya know, fuck the consequences🤷🏻♀️
Founding Fathers
Courtney Milan was actually a clerk for a SCOTUS justice. She knows what she’s talking about.
This reminds me of how supposedly 14th protects the rights of women yet it is well known it does not. That’s why the 19th had to happen.
So… lot’s of luck out there because the 14th protection is already very little!