President Donald Trump signs an executive order on birthright citizenship in the Oval Office on Monday.Evan Vucci/AP
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday declaring that the federal government would no longer recognize the US-born children of undocumented immigrants as American citizens. It’s a move that has been brewing for years. The Washington Post described the order as an effort to “reinterpret the 14th Amendment of the Constitution,” and sure enough, the text includes a few paragraphs of legalese purporting to do just that.
The order itself goes into effect in 30 days, and specifically prohibits federal agencies from issuing citizenship documents (such as passports) to the—to be clear—citizens in question. It was part of a slate of executive orders Trump enacted on his first day in office, many of which were completed at a choreographed ceremony at DC’s Capital One Arena, in a display of strength meant to impose his will on national politics from day one.
You cannot simply blot out the Constitution. Laws still exist.
The executive order, which excludes anyone whose parents were not legal permanent residents, is an act of intimidation and a preview of a nativist crackdown to come. But I think it’s important to say what else it is: complete horseshit. The federal government cannot simply stop recognizing the citizenship of US-born children of undocumented immigrants, because those people are US citizens under the 14th Amendment, full stop. The president does not get to unilaterally “reinterpret” Constitutional amendments, and there is no compelling basis for doing so in this case, even if he could. Any attempt to implement the order would be an unconstitutional violation of American citizens’ civil rights. You cannot simply blot out the Constitution. Laws still exist.
Trump wants to do a lot of bad things as president, and in his first 24 hours he’s already accomplished quite a number of them—narrowing the definition of who matters in this country while signaling an era of decadence, corruption, and environmental degradation. But there are a lot of things he can’t just do. Sometimes he’ll be blocked. Sometimes he’ll be sued. And he will often lose, even with a judiciary that’s several degrees beyond pliant. If he wants to get rid of birthright citizenship, he has to do more than issue a press release; he will have to get the law of the land changed—or get the highest court in the land to effectively do the same for him. I wouldn’t bet against anything in the Trump era. But with the clock running on a lame-duck term, the last thing anyone should do is give him a victory before he’s earned it.
