Having mastered fake news, now the media are trying out a little
fake history.
In
the news business, new topics are always popping up, from the Logan Act and the
emoluments clause to North Korea. The all-star panels rush to Wikipedia, so
they can pretend to be experts on things they knew nothing about an hour earlier.
Such
is the case today with “anchor babies” and “birthright citizenship.” People who
know zilch about the history of the 14th Amendment are pontificating
magnificently and completely falsely on the issue du jour.
Of
course the president can end the citizenship of “anchor babies” by executive
order — for the simple reason that no Supreme Court or U.S. Congress has ever
conferred such a right.
It’s
just something everyone believes to be true.
How
could anyone — even a not-very-bright person — imagine that granting
citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is actually in our Constitution?
The first question would be: Why would they do that? It’s
like being accused of robbing a homeless person. WHY WOULD I?
The
Supreme Court has stated — repeatedly! — that the “main object” of the
citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment “was to settle the question … as to
the citizenship of free negroes,” making them “citizens of the United States
and of the state in which they reside.”
Democrats,
the entire media and House Speaker Paul Ryan seem to have forgotten the Civil
War. They believe that, immediately after a war that ended slavery, Americans
rose up as one and demanded that the children of illegals be granted
citizenship!
You know what’s really
bothering me? If someone comes into the country illegally and has a kid, that
kid should be an American citizen!
YOU
MEAN THAT’S NOT ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION?
Give
me a scenario — just one scenario — where the post-Civil War amendments would
be intended to grant citizenship to the kids of Chinese ladies flying to
birthing hospitals in California, or pregnant Latin Americans sneaking across
the border in the back of flatbed trucks.
You
can make it up. It doesn’t have to be a true scenario. Any scenario!
As
the court has explained again and again and again:
“(N)o
one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th,
14th and 15th) amendments, lying at the foundation of each, and without which
none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave
race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection
of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had
formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.”
That’s
why the amendment refers to people who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the
United States “and of the state wherein they reside.” For generations,
African-Americans were domiciled in this country. The only reason they weren’t
citizens was because of slavery, which the country had just fought a civil war
to end.
The
14th Amendment fixed that.
The
amendment didn’t even make Indians citizens. Why? Because it was about freed
slaves. Sixteen years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Supreme Court
held that an American Indian, John Elk, was not a citizen, despite having been
born here.
Instead,
Congress had to pass a separate law making Indians citizens, which it did, more
than half a century after the adoption of the 14th Amendment. (It’s easy to
miss — the law is titled: “THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924.”) Why would such
a law be necessary if simply being born in the U.S. was enough to confer
citizenship?
Even
today, the children of diplomats and foreign ministers are not granted
citizenship on the basis of being born here.
President
Trump, unlike his critics, honors black history by recognizing that the whole
purpose of the Civil War amendments was to guarantee the rights of freed
slaves.
But
the left has always been bored with black people. If they start gassing on
about “civil rights,” you can be sure it will be about transgenders, the
abortion ladies or illegal aliens. Liberals can never seem remember the people
whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, i.e., the only reason we even have
civil rights laws.
Still,
it requires breathtaking audacity to use the Civil War amendments to bring in
cheap foreign labor, which drives down the wages of African-Americans — the
very people the amendments were written to protect!
Whether
the children born to legal immigrants are citizens is controversial enough. But
at least there’s a Supreme Court decision claiming that they are — U.S. v. Wong
Kim Ark. That’s “birthright citizenship.”
It’s
something else entirely to claim that an illegal alien, subject to deportation,
can drop a baby and suddenly claim to be the parent of a “citizen.”
This
crackpot notion was concocted by liberal zealot Justice William Brennan and
slipped into a footnote as dicta in a 1982 case. “Dicta” means it was not the
ruling of the court, just a random aside, with zero legal significance.
Left-wing
activists seized on Brennan’s aside and browbeat everyone into believing that
anchor babies are part of our great constitutional heritage, emerging straight
from the pen of James Madison.
No
Supreme Court has ever held that children born to illegal aliens are citizens.
No Congress has deliberated and decided to grant that right. It’s a made-up
right, grounded only in the smoke and mirrors around Justice Brennan’s 1982
footnote.
Obviously,
it would be better if Congress passed a law clearly stating that children born
to illegals are not citizens. (Trump won’t be president forever!) But until
that happens, the president of the United States is not required to continue a
ridiculous practice that has absolutely no basis in law.
It’s
often said that journalism is the first draft of history. As we now we see,
fake news is the first draft of fake history.