Birthright Citizenship

Nigel Piddlewhite arrives in the US as an exchange student from York, England, to attend the University of Nebraska.  To his great delight, he meets Fiona Feversham who happens to be from Leeds, England.  Both are freshman and quickly hit it off.  By their sophomore year, they have married and have a son, Algernon Piddlewhite.  Upon graduation, Nigel and Fiona return to England with young Algernon to begin careers and have another child.  Life is great and Algernon soon has a younger brother and sister.  On his 18th birthday, an official-looking letter arrives from America!  It is a request for him to enroll in Selective Services.  Is he legally obligated to do so?  Might an effort to extradite him be made if he failed to enroll?  Is Algernon an American citizen?  Certainly, neither of his parents are American citizens.  Nor are his siblings.

Maria Cortes is 6 months pregnant when she pays a coyote to get her across the US border into Arizona.  She has cousins in Tucson who support her until she has the baby.  Little Ximena is a healthy baby girl.  However, ICE has grabbed Maria and want to deport her.  Immigration lawyers declared that Ximena is an American citizen and the US must let her mother stay to raise her.  Is Ximena an American citizen or is she the same nationality as her mother who just happened to be born in another country?

The 14th Amendment states that:

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

Was it the intent of the authors of this amendment to provide such a path to citizenship?  It must be remembered that this amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War and with the intent of countering the Dred Scott Decision.  The 13th abolished slavery and the 15th provided the vote regardless of race.  The 14th granted citizenship to former slaves.  What was meant to be a one-and-done granting of citizenship has somehow morphed into birthright citizenship for the children of whomever can get across the border and give birth.

President Trump has signed an executive order that will see this issue hashed out in the courts in the near future.

Travel Ban Approved, Mostly

Surprising no one who read the law and the 'travel ban,' the Supreme Court largely brushed aside the decisions of the 4th and 9th Circuit courts, allowing some exceptions to stand until the court is able to hear arguments in its next term.  Of course, the 120 day ban will have expired by then so it is somewhat moot.  The interesting thing to me is that I, a humble blogger with no legal training, was able to render a Supreme Court-level decision whereas numerous federal and appeals judges, with many decades of legal education and experience among them, were not.  Why is that?  The law itself, as discussed here, is not difficult to understand.  The judges who ruled against it had abandoned the judiciary and joined the #Resistance.  They ruled not upon the letter of the law but upon what they inferred from Trump's campaign statements.  Lady Justice removed her blindfold and blanched when she saw Trump.  This is how a trusted institution ruins itself.  If the law can so readily be interpreted in two diametrically opposed ways, we cease to have a rule of law.

Undermining the Law

First Judge Robart and now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal have ruled against President Trump's executive order that restricts travel from 7 terror hot-beds.  Arguments against the order rest on due process, equal protection, and First Amendment religious protections.  I did not realize that Constitutional rights extended into other countries.  We need to start toppling a lot of governments in order to make sure these rights are observed globally.  Or maybe these rights aren't conferred until the foreign national books a flight to the United States.  Interesting and diverting as these issues may be, judges are supposed to interpret the law.  What does the law say?

8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate

Legalese is usually an ambiguous mess - the better to let unelected bureaucrats and judges to implement their policy preferences - but this is surprisingly clear.  Would a 90 day travel ban on aliens from 7 countries fit the above language?  Clearly.  More interesting, there is no check on his ability to make this proclamation.  If the president deems it appropriate, it fits within the law.  It doesn't take a law degree to interpret this.  If the Rule of Law was taken seriously, Robart would have dismissed the case.

Throughout the Obama administration, I was frustrated that the Republicans refused to oppose the president when he went beyond his Constitutional authority  (e.g. implementing the Dreamers Act despite the fact that Congress failed to pass the legislation, bailing out car companies even though Congress voted down the bill that would allow him to do so, rewriting the Affordable Care Act, etc.).  They offered anemic resistance, often leaving their best tools (e.g. power of the purse) unused.  With Trump, we have the opposite extreme.  So desperate to oppose him at every turn, the left is beclowning itself.  The media are jumping at shadows (e.g. Trump Dossier, Trump may assassinate Press like Putin) and shrieking with panic on a daily basis.  The career bureaucrats are leaking his every phone conversation, setting up secret societies to oppose the boss that the people elected, and stonewall fact-finding efforts by the administration.  The judiciary has now joined these crazy antics with rulings that are based not on a sober reading of the law but on a desire to oppose a president with whom they disagree.

Where the Republicans were spineless and timid in opposition, the Democrats are mindless berserkers, not unlike the rioters in Berkeley last week.  The Republicans would do well to emulate some of the fiery passion and steadfast determination of the Democrats (Democrats will resist tooth and nail) while the Democrats would benefit from the calm rationality of the Republicans (Republicans never riot).

Such obviously political rulings only serve to harm the judiciary.  The rulings have rewritten the limits of a clear statute.  In an effort to oppose, judges are undermining the rule of law.

"You're Fired!"

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates refused to defend President Trump's executive order that imposed a 90 day entry ban from several countries.

"You're fired!"

Until Jeff Sessions gets confirmed, Dana Boente is the new acting A.G.

Yates will be a liberal hero for the rest of her life and I suspect this will be equated with the Saturday Night Massacre before long.  However, the president is the chief executive.  He's the decider, as George W Bush put it.  If you don't like his decisions, resign.

 

As a political move, this only serves to escalate the current outcry.  Of course, with Trump's everything at once approach, this may be forgotten history tomorrow night when the Supreme Court nomination battle begins.  Trump is generating so much outrage in such a short period of time that the outraged will become exhausted.  Of note, this is a strategy from the Obama playbook.  Before the Republicans could move against Obama's latest outrage, he rolled out a new outrage.  Fast and Furious, IRS targeting scandal, Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap, Iran ransom payment, 'flexibility' for Vladimir after the election, ISIL is the JV team, undeclared war in Libya, etc.  There was always new bad news to make everyone forget the old bad news.  However, Obama usually waited a week or two before rolling out the latest disaster.  Trump is rolling them out daily.  Hourly!

 

Trump should call a dozen or so bureaucrats to the White House every week, sit them around a big table, and fire one or more of them.  On camera!  It would be a ratings monster!  I never watched The Apprentice but I would watch that.

 

"Assistant Undersecretary of Fiji Trade Relations Smith, you're fired!"

 

"Executive Assistant Secretary of Fiji Trade Relations Johnson, you're fired!"

 

"Superfluous Supreme Fiji Trade Representative Harris, you're fired!"

 

Might Trump deliver on the eternal Republican promise of shrinking government?  That would be unexpected and marvelous.