As Trump prepares to leave Washington, talks about birthright citizenship heats up

As a final middle-finger to the Americans who didn't vote for him, the Donald Trump administration is reportedly planning to do away with birthright citizenship, according to The Hill.

The threatened executive order, is part of the slash-and-burn practice of the Trump administration before it gives up the power of the presidency. By throwing a monkey wrench in the machinery of government, the current administration hopes to gum up the works so that the incoming Joe Biden team would start up -- wasting their time, actually -- cleaning up the wreckage left behind by Trump and his people.

Besides Trump, the man who will miss his power the most is Stephen Miller, a senior advisor with links to white supremacists who is Trump's point man on immigration. Under Miller's advice, Trump has done everything he could to reduce immigration, the lifeblood that keeps the United States from stagnating; separated infants from their parents seeking refugee status, cut back work and student visas and implemented a Muslim ban.

Trump has threatened often about ending birthright citizenship. Drafts of a possible order have been circulating for some time, and there is now internal discussion about finalizing it before the Biden administration takes over in January, sources told The Hill.

The administration is aware the order would be promptly challenged in court, but officials would hope to get a ruling on whether birthright citizenship is protected under the 14th Amendment, according to one source familiar with the plans. Many lawmakers and experts have argued it is protected, but the courts have not definitively ruled on the issue and Trump hopes the conservative-heavy Supreme Court to rule in his favor.

“Since taking office, President Trump has never shied away from using his lawful executive authority to advance bold policies and fulfill the promises he made to the American people, but I won’t speculate or comment on potential executive action,” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.

Currently, anyone born in the United States are automatically given citizenship, even if the parents are here illegally or in the country with some other visa.

The language of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution clearly and explicitly provides for birthright citizenship. The amendment, adopted in 1866, provides that “[a]ll 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 1898, the Supreme Court decided US v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents in 1873. He lived in the U.S. all his life. His parents eventually left the country and he visited them in China in his late teens and again in his early twenties. 

When he tried to re-enter the U.S. in 1895, a customs agent refused him entry, stating that Wong was not a U.S. citizen based on the Chinese Exclusion Acts, federal laws that barred Chinese immigration, originally passed in 1882 and extended in various forms until 1943.

Wong challenged the exclusion, arguing that he was a U.S. citizen based on the 14th Amendment. Wong successfully argued that the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which barred immigrants, did not apply to him because he was American by virtue of birth on US soil.

Other areas where Trump's middle finger has been raised as he prepares to leave Washington includes: complete troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, securing more oil drilling leases in Alaska, weaken environmental standards and pushing more unqualified conservative judges onto the federal bench and eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this is news sprinkled with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to formulate their own positions.