Trump Attacks the 14th Amendment
By: Thalia Butts
President Trump revealed to an Axios reporter on Monday that he plans to end birthright citizenship with an executive order.
In his latest attempt to further galvanize his supporters ahead of one of the most critical midterms yet, Trump has claimed he can and will make an executive order to end birthright citizenship of children born on American soil to non-citizens, contradicting a short, four page, and largely unread document called the constitution of the United States of America.
Birthright citizenship is covered by the 14th Amendment, which celebrated its 150th birthday this year. It states that “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.” The land of the law clearly and simply states that if you are born here, you’re a citizen.
The words of the constitution, among many other easily researchable facts, have proved much too sensible for Trump and have fallen on deaf ears.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits,” he said, or lied rather, to Axios reporters. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
There are actually more than 30 countries, Canada and Mexico included, that grant automatic birthright citizenship, most of which are in the western hemisphere.
This proclamation came in the midst of the funerals of those slain in a mass shooting at a Pittsburg synagogue by an anti-sematic Trump supporter, thousands of troops being sent to the border to meet the approaching caravan of asylum seekers (called thugs by Trump), and it appears to be a desperate attempt by the President to make the midterms about immigration policy, a popular point among Republican voters.
Several Republican gubernatorial candidates, including Brian Kemp in Georgia, Bill Lee in Tennessee, and Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma, have all incorporated strict immigration policies into their platforms and therefore have hung their campaigns on Trump’s coat rack of fear tactics and propaganda intended to mislead the public.
Thankfully, the general public isn’t completely comprised of impotent toddlers running around mindlessly following whoever makes them ridiculous promises in the name of hate and divisiveness. Hopefully, America’s voters recognize what Trump and affiliated candidates are trying to do to them in order to secure their vote. Prayerfully, Trump’s attack on the Constitution and the citizenship of millions of first-generation Americans does not go unnoticed and it pushes those who can vote and want to make a difference to the polls on Tuesday. Again, prayerfully.
Thalia Butts, 19, is a Decatur, GA native and a sophomore Mass Communications major at Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC.
