Ending birthright citizenship will create a permanent, rightless underclass

 

     This column ran in the paper yesterday. 

     The cruelty of slavery was so extreme that every aspect of the shameful institution does not get proper consideration. Once you get past loss of personal autonomy, enforced labor without compensation, brutal punishment, separation of families, obliteration of culture ... there's more, but that will do ... there isn't much emotional space left to consider slavery's multigenerational aspect, though that certainly was one of the more horrific features.
     You were a slave because your parents had been slaves. Your children, even if fathered by the man who owned you, a common occurrence, would also be slaves. As would be their children. And their children. Onward into eternity.
     Take a moment and try to imagine how grotesque this is. As a parent, I take comfort that my boys are better than me in almost every regard, leading lives that are smarter, less troubled, an all-around improvement. I can't conceive of the agony of being certain your children would be doomed to a fate exactly like yours, to toil in a field. Or worse.
     If you're wondering why this bit of American history bobbed to the surface now — it's isn't even Black History Month yet! — that's because among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump issued after his inauguration Monday was one aimed at ending birthright citizenship.
     Enshrined in the Constitution, the 14th Amendment has been law since the Civil War. It begins, "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."
     In a nutshell, if you're born here, you're a citizen.
     Since even the president cannot change the Constitution — you need a two-thirds majority in Congress and approval of three-quarters of the states — the Trump administration is arguing that the 14th Amendment has "never been interpreted" to grant universal citizenship to those born here. Another untruth to add to the tally.
     The legal crack that the Trump administration is trying to squeeze through is the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" part. If your parents aren't citizens, the argument goes, then you are not subject to the oversight of the United States but an unwelcome interloper whose only relationship to the law is being sent back to wherever you, or your parents, came from.
     The American Civil Liberties Union has already filed a lawsuit against the order, calling it "an attack on a fundamental constitutional protection, and one that is central to equality and inclusion." The 14th Amendment, the ACLU said, "is the cornerstone of civil rights in the United States," and "every attack on birthright citizenship, from the 19th century until now, has been grounded in racism."

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