President Donald Trump continues to dream up new ways to undercut minorities in the United States. Although it’s hardly certain at present that his proposal will come to pass, one of his latest pushes is to end birthright citizenship. The practice is employed by dozens of countries around the world, including a large number in the Americas. Trump, though, claims it’s an insurmountable burden that must be abolished — because providing for babies born on U.S. soil is a bad thing, apparently.
Wednesday morning, he asserted:
‘So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Many legal scholars agree…..’
It’s not clear why exactly it’s so “unfair.” Is is “unfair” to accept new members of a population whose parents are from someplace else? Is it “unfair” to care for babies born to immigrant parents so they don’t end up dead?
He’s railed against the cost of providing care for specifically undocumented immigrant mothers in the past, pushing a “study” which made its racial biases clear and explicit. Like other talking heads on the right, the Center for Immigration Studies asserted that large numbers of immigrant children prove problematic for the social cohesion of a country. That, however, is just racist conjecture. Besides, cost-wise — those children end up providing for themselves and society. The fact that it costs money to provide healthcare for new mothers and their children is just the way it works.
It’s not even as though he has a single accurate point in his latest public statement that he can hang on, either. The legal consensus is not that birthright citizenship is a fraud. That doesn’t even make any sense — how could something persist as law for so long if “many legal scholars agree” that it’s a fraudulent concept? Ironically enough, GOP Speaker of the U.S. House Paul Ryan himself asserted that one can’t just end birthright citizenship with an executive order.
Yet again, the president is again attempting to elevate angry racist rhetoric to national doctrine.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
