On his first time in business, President Trump did the country a wonderful company by issuing an , professional order , rejecting heritage membership as a condition of the 14th Amendment.
Whether Trump’s purchase will survive the legal issues remains to be seen ( a federal judge in Seattle , partially blocked the order , on Thursday ). However, the actual issues will necessitate a decision on this matter, possibly even at the Supreme Court.
For a reckoning is late. We have for far too much accepted the absurd notion that every person born in the United States quickly becomes a citizen and that the 14th Amendment in some way mandates this suicidal behavior.
I’m not going to do a deep dive into the legal explanations for why the 14the Amendment’s Citizenship Clause doesn’t grant automatic citizenship to people born on U. S. land ( for that, see , around,  , around,  , around,  , here,  , here, and , these ). Suffice to say, it wasn’t until about the middle of the 20th , century, amid massive upheavals in American life, that the notion of “birthright citizenship” was adopted — over and against how we had understood the 14th , Amendment’s Citizenship Clause since it was adopted in 1868.  ,
Briefly, the legal argument is this: to acquire citizenship, the 14th , Amendment requires a person to be born in the United States and be” subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, which means you owe your total allegiance to the United States alone and not some foreign power. In other words, the children of illegal immigrants, or those here on a temporary basis, were not American citizens. That’s what the drafters of the 14th , Amendment said at the time and that’s how the Supreme Court understood it when ruling on 14th , Amendment-related cases in the decades following ratification.
On that point, actually, we’re going to be hearing a lot in the coming weeks and months about an 1898 Supreme Court case called , United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Birthright advocates claim that this case proves that the 14th Amendment does indeed grant birthright citizenship, but they are mistaken. Wong Kim Ark involved a child who was born to parents who were lawfully present and permanently settled in the United States, not to illegal immigrants or temporary residents.
In fact, the Supreme Court has never held that illegal immigrants ‘ children are eligible for citizenship simply because they were born in the United States. If the cases challenging Trump’s executive order make it to the Supreme Court, a majority of justices might make that decision. However, if that happens, it will mean a change from previous court decisions.
Beyond the legal arguments, a pressing moral argument about national identity and citizenship is at the heart of the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship, and other important issues. The moral argument addresses a different and arguably more significant set of questions. What is an American? Who is America for? What is the purpose of immigration? What do immigrants or would-be immigrants owe to the native-born population?
Conservatives had been opposed to these topics for a long time because doing so could lead to racism or xenophobia. As if we were all in agreement that mass immigration was a net positive, we just need to make sure it’s orderly, it was easier to take refuge in platitudes about how we should crack down on illegal immigration but expand legal immigration. It was simpler to refute the popular notion that anyone could become an American if they adopted our idea. America was a “propositional nation,” an idea.
This was a mistake, and not just because it’s a lie. This way of thinking and speaking prevented us from transcending the platitudes and accepting some harsh truths, such as the fact that America is not merely a propositional nation. Not everyone can truly become an American, contrary to what has been taught to the majority of us since grade school. Being an American means more than just agreeing to our laws and paying taxes; it’s more than just a concept. ( As others have noted, foreigners are not required to come here at all if America is just an idea. We can write it down and send it overseas. )
Simply put, America is a nation. We share a common language and a long history. We have a particular way of life and customs. We have a distinctly American identity. Our system of government is firmly rooted in Christian myths about God and man. Christian morality has been the foundation of our civic life for the majority of our history. We are united by our family ties, our connections to the land, our shared experiences, and what Abraham Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory” in his first inaugural address.
Every foreigner who visits this country is aware of how applicable this is to their own country. We have been making a grave error by insisting for so long that none of it applies to us. Making a case for illegal birthright citizenship will mean challenging the perverse multiculturalism that we have been taught to believe makes us strong but actually makes us weak and poor.
It will also mean making claims that it is not true that someone with a foreign-born parent and a family that has only lived in America for one generation is” just as American” as someone with an American ancestry. It will mean accepting that America would be much better off with only a very low level of legal and non-illegal immigration, which would help preserve our cultural and community cohesion and promote the assimilation of all newcomers.
We must become comfortable defending and saying these things. Yes, the legal and constitutional defenses of birthright citizenship are very strong, and they may ultimately prevail. But regardless of the outcome of the legal battle over the 14th , Amendment, we have to insist, without apology, on a fuller understanding of the American nation and the American people. An American is , not , just someone who happens to be born here. For a foreign national to become an American, he has to thoroughly adopt our culture, language, and way of life — and resolve to pass all of those habits and customs onto his posterity, here in his adopted homeland. Nothing can replace his complete assimilation and allegiance.
Why do I say this? Because America itself is first and foremost , for , native-born Americans. The only homeland that we will ever possess is the one that can be. As a result, our immigration policy should only serve the benefit of the American people. Our immigration policy should be narrowly tailored to best serve the needs of our people because the only legitimate reason for immigration is to create new Americans. Businesses, especially multinational corporations, should have no say in it whatsoever, nor should legal resident noncitizens or family members of immigrants, whether legal or illegal.
All of these arguments are not really about immigration policy, but rather about who a country is and how to keep it. They are also not economic arguments. We frequently hear about how mass immigration will boost GDP, how we need illegal immigrants to pick our vegetables, and how mass deportations will increase the cost of groceries ( Democrat politicians have been saying this all week ).
All of that misses the point, though. A higher national GDP would be beneficial if it meant native-born Americans were poorer and worse off. If more jobs are produced at the expense of social and cultural cohesion, what are the overall benefits of more jobs? How can it entice working-class Americans to compete for wages with foreigners?  ,
A country is more than just GDP, more than just an unemployment rate. Instead of focusing on those kinds of metrics, we have spent too much time on what will best safeguard our nation’s distinctive character, what will advance our country’s way of life for posterity, and what will advance the pursuit of happiness and liberty for our people. Whatever happens with birthright citizenship, we had better start thinking about those things, and defending them, before it’s too late.
