In his Shout at the Reporters session this morning Trump pretended he can change the Constitution all by himself.
Nah. He can’t.
Trump said on Wednesday that his administration was seriously looking at ending the right of citizenship for U.S.-born children of noncitizens and people who immigrated to the United States illegally.
“We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land, you walk over the border, have a baby – congratulations, the baby is now a U.S. citizen. … It’s frankly ridiculous,” Trump told reporters outside the White House.
He can look at it very seriously all he wants, but he can’t do anything about it.
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War to ensure that black Americans had full citizenship rights, granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.”
It has since routinely been interpreted to grant citizenship to most people born in the United States, whether or not their parents are American citizens or legally living in the United States.
He can’t just wave his pudgy little fist around and make that go away.
Comments
2 responses to “Very seriously”
Why not? It’s not like most of the first ten amendments mean anything…
“We’re looking at that” is Trump-speak for “nothing’s going to happen, but I have to look like I’m doing something.” It’s for those issues where he decides that his usual favorite placeholder, “we’ll see,” is too passive.