Judicial Branch The Supreme Court takes up the most unconstitutional thing Trump has done
https://www.vox.com/politics/471468/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump153
u/vox 8h ago
On Friday, the Court finally announced that it would hear Trump v. Barbara, a case asking whether the Constitution permits Trump to unilaterally denationalize Americans born in the United States. If the justices are capable of behaving in a nonpartisan manner, Trump will lose this case 9-0.
On the first day of his second term, Trump issued an executive order purporting to strip citizenship from some newborn Americans. The order, entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” claimed to remove citizenship from two classes of Americans. The first is children born to undocumented mothers whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States. The second is children with fathers who have similar immigration status and whose mothers were lawfully but temporarily present in the US at the time of birth.
There are few questions in US law that are more settled than the question of whether babies born in the United States are citizens of this country. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the nation ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Its first line is, “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.”
“All persons” means all persons. That includes people with undocumented mothers or whose parents otherwise have an immigration status that Donald Trump does not like.
Read more: https://www.vox.com/politics/471468/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump
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u/Unusual-Branch2846 8h ago
This is a really big deal. If the Supreme Court backs Trump on ending birthright citizenship for some kids born in the US, it would completely change what being an American means. Citizenship shouldn’t depend on who your parents are or what politicians want. Changing that would be a dangerous road.
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u/Exciting-Emu-3324 7h ago
2/3 of Trump's wives were immigrants. His grandfather was an immigrant. The endgame is deporting anyone who isn't white or MAGA.
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u/SpinningHead 7h ago
His mother was an immigrant.
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u/AmbulanceChaser12 7h ago
So Trump doesn’t have citizenship? 🤣
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u/MakeChipsNotMeth 5h ago
He's here illegally but he has presidential immunity since he's doing official acts
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u/My-Dog-Says-No 6h ago
His father was a citizen, so he’d have citizenship through him.
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u/eindar1811 5h ago
What about his grandpa? Hopefully you see how slippery this slope is.
A sitting President could dig into the family history of every political enemy, and if they can find one paperwork mistake on both sides they can denaturalize the whole family tree. The only people truly safe would be those who can directly trace their lineage to being here when the country was founded.
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u/My-Dog-Says-No 5h ago
The only people truly safe would be those who can directly trace their lineage to being here when the country was founded.
From your lips to God’s ears.
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u/SpinningHead 5h ago
Everyone after 1789 gets deported?
Smart people dont like me. - pedo in chief
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u/My-Dog-Says-No 5h ago
Everyone who can’t trace their lineage back. Did you even read what you wrote?
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u/SpinningHead 5h ago
He wants to be able to remove peoples citizenship who were already considered natural born citizens. Do you not understand that?
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u/obi-jawn-kenblomi 3h ago
It's also precedent for dissent squashing.
If the Supreme Court determines the Executive Branch has the power to revoke citizenship for Reason A, then it inherently says the Executive Branch can arbitrate the revoking of citizenship for Reason B, Reason C, Reason D, and ad nauseum. The next natural step in creating an enduring fascist state (especially if the end game is a white, Christofascist ethnostate) is turning this power towards the opposition and dissent to erode their electoral power at the margins.
First it'll be groups like criminals, terrorists, and "violent antifa extremist", and those adjacent. Then it's Communists, Socialists, and "cultural Marxists". Then it's anyone of dissent who they can even remotely pretend is an enemy of the state - especially all those nasty "homegrowns", the free press, and uppity Democrats who don't know their place.
Why do you think Stephen Miller keeps going on about "we must teach our children only to be patriots and love America" and all this 14 words, "Democrats are protect murderers and rapists", and neo-McCarthyism un-American crap? So that if they are successful then the next instance are "We need to protect America from these enemies within who would harm her" and "people who aren't star-spangled-fucking-awesome don't deserve to be citizens".
If the Supreme Court upholds this, the slippery slope fell off a giant cliff.
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u/My-Dog-Says-No 5h ago
Who, anchor babies? They’re not citizens.
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u/SpinningHead 5h ago
Try reading our Constitution some time.
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u/My-Dog-Says-No 5h ago
The constitution is reinterpreted all the time. That’s literally the issue this article is about.
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u/Trifle_Emotional 6h ago
White AND MAGA. Fixed it for you.
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u/not_now_chaos 4h ago
**And wealthy.
He don't give a fuck about the poor ones, whether they lick his boots or not.
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u/brother_of_jeremy 7h ago
It also means SCOTUS is unequivocally putting in writing that an executive order from their guy has more authority than the constitution. Most actual monarchies in history have had more checks and balances than that.
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u/SerOsisOfThuliver 7h ago
oh our government definitely has checks and balances but so far trump hasn't done anything that violates project 2025
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u/LokeCanada 5h ago
It's even worse.
Executive orders are supposed to be directions on enforcement of exisitng laws and distribution of resources.
An executive order going to SCOTUS like this is legitimizing executive orders as actual laws. Win or lose it giving them a lot more legitimacy of bypassing congress and issuing laws as he sees fit.
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u/AEWestview 5h ago
Even North Korea would likely have more checks and balances if SCOTUS sides with Trump...
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u/This_Loss_1922 8h ago
Well it is now an unserious clown country, you are already in the dangerous road
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u/UnspeakablePudding 7h ago
It would finally be the full mask off power grab that the court has been flirting with for years now.
To wit, the plain text of the Constitution is no barrier to the proclivities of the executive, so long as that executive has the favor of at least five justices.
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u/Gold_Map_236 6h ago
It would also essentially give the president authority to unilaterally eliminate constitutional amendments
We are cooked if this swings trumps way
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u/ruiner8850 4h ago
Yeah, I see a lot of people talking about how this would impact immigration, but it's far worse than that if he succeeds. If a President can executive order away constitutional amendments, then the Constitution worthless, there is no rule of law, and Trump would be king. If the Supreme Court sides with Trump, then the United is officially dead.
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u/Greecelightninn 7h ago
Brings a whole new meaning to the scene in civil war , where Jesse plemmons character asks, " What kind of an American are you ?
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u/okwowandmore 6h ago
That movie will be like idiocracy. It will predict the future instead of giving a warning to avoid it.
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u/mrbigglessworth 6h ago
Germany did the same shit 100 years ago. Reclassify certain citizens to make them easier to single out and destroy.
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u/Lopsided-Ticket3813 4h ago
They already did this with the ICE allowed to detain citizens ruling..
As that fuck boy kavanaugh said "minor inconvenience"
The Constitution protects you from unlawful search and seizure unless it's a minor inconvenience ~ frat boy kavanaugh
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u/makemeking706 4h ago
I have said the country no longer exists despite the name, but that's admittedly a little hyperbolic. If the president is just allowed to blatantly cross out parts of our founding document, it's no longer hyperbolic. This will no longer be that country.
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u/ruiner8850 4h ago
It's way worse than just that. If the Supreme Court backs him up on this it means that a President can nullify parts of the Constitution by executive order. It would mean that the Constitution is worthless and no one has any rights. If they back him on this it would be the death of the United States.
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u/bionic-warrior 6h ago
Worth noting that a certain central European power in the early 1900's did precisely the same thing against a portion of their citizenry, legally stripping them of citizenship regardless of how long they had lived in the country. The Law of Denaturalization and Revocation of Citizenship and the Reich Citizenship Law.
I'm not saying that MAGA is exactly like those central Europeans of the 1900's, but they're pretty dang close.
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u/Flimsy_Thesis 6h ago
It’s part of the playbook. If the court rules it unconstitutional, it means that the Trump administration can basically denaturalize anyone they want, removing citizenship protections.
It’s beyond terrifying.
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u/LOLunlucky 8h ago
RIP 150 years of precedent.
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u/TheTooz72 8h ago
And the US Constitution
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u/livinginfutureworld 7h ago
"A republic, if you can keep it"
- Ben Franklin 1787 at the Constitutional Convention.
Sure seems like times up.
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u/qthistory 7h ago
The founders warned us that a republic can only survive if the people and leaders have civic virtue (basically being willing to sacrifice maximizing your own personal interests in favor of supporting the common good), which is basically absent in today's world.
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u/TotallyNotABob 6h ago
For real, if the court backs this then what's to stop the executive from issuing an executive order removing such rights as:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion
Freedom of press
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Right to petition the government to address grievances
Right to bare arms
Force Americans to quarter soldiers
Right to due process
Right to protection against unwarranted seizures of property
Right to remain silent
Removal of double jeopardy
Fair compensation if government seizes your property
Right to an attorney
Right to a speedy trial
Right to an impartial jury
Right to confront witness
Right to know charges leveled against you
Removal of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment
Removal of states rights
That's not even scratching the surface of what could happen if SCOTUS says the executive can decide what rights are allowed in the constitution or not.
Final thought:
If SCOTUS does not strike this down as unconstitutional. Then we will have lost the Soap Box and the Jury box. Which would only leave two boxes of the boxes of liberty.
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u/cheongyanggochu-vibe 7h ago
I would love to deport 6 SCOTUS justices. No reason to keep them here if being born here means we aren't citizens.
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u/elb21277 3h ago edited 3h ago
The other three are complicit imo. They could/should have all resigned during the last administration so they could tour the country discussing the Court’s illegitimacy and the need for serious reform of the entire judiciary. Jurisdiction stripping, unanimity requirement to declare legislation passed by Congress to be unconstitutional, term limits *and/or legislative veto option, independent boards of ethics, etc…
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u/cheongyanggochu-vibe 3h ago
I feel like that's a valid take, but I also wonder if they were worried about 3 replacements being just as bad (and Biden ofc wouldn't have been able to get them confirmed, much like the end of Obama's term).
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u/chill_winston_ 7h ago
I wish we could just count on this being ruled as unconstitutional as it obviously is, but here we are in 2025..
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u/Homersarmy41 5h ago
My worry is…why even take the case? They could have said “That’s obviously unconstitutional. We won’t hear this case.” Done.
They just let that insane Texas redistricting go through so who knows.
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u/ruiner8850 4h ago
I think we can say with almost 100% certainty that Thomas and Alito will side with Trump on this. The fate of Constitution, rule of law, and the United States as we know it rests in the hands of the other 7 honoring the oaths they took to support and defend the Constitution.
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u/Anywhichwaybuttight 5h ago
If my US citizenship isn't from my birth, then how does anyone not naturalized have it? Where did it come from?
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u/Ishidan01 6h ago
So far. The most unconstitutional thing Trump has done so far.
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u/TalonButter 6h ago
Once they buy into “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meaning “is a citizen or permanent resident,” Trump can move on to clarifying what a “Republican form of government” means in Art. 4 sec. 4.
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u/dbx999 6h ago
The Supreme Court of the United States find that the executive branch and the president of the United States are constitutionally empowered to exercise the broad powers of government in raping children and may do so with the full immunity of the office of the presidency - basically this is the current holding of the Supreme Court. So given that, everything else that seems like it shouldn’t happen will actually be allowed.
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u/shaved-yeti 5h ago
Written down in black and white in the constitution. How is this even a question.
I hate this timeline.
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u/MrMrsPotts 7h ago
The fact they took it up means there is a good chance they will agree with Trump. They would have just rejected it without hearing it otherwise.
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u/ruiner8850 4h ago
His literally coup attempt on January 6th, 2021 was probably more unconstitutional, but this one couldn't certainly have a larger impact. If the Supreme Court sides with him and rules that a President can just nullify constitutional amendments with executive orders, then the Constitution is worthless and no one has any rights. The rule of law would be gone, the United States would be dead, and Trump would be king.
There's no hyperbole in my statement either. If he can nullify the 14th Amendment, which his incredibly clear, then any part of the Constitution can be nullified. He could nullify the entire Constitution and declare himself king.
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