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THE OTHER SIDE: From MAGA to MAWA

If you ask me, there is an obvious reason why Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans and the most violent amongst them, the newly pardoned Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, are rejoicing at the efforts to reverse the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of birthright.

Now that “open borders” and “invasion” are never far from the lips of President Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans, this might be the perfect time to ask if our Native Americans had their own massive “open borders” problem. What are the chances the English folk stepped off their boats and, before they settled in, applied for citizenship at the Nauset and Patuxet Immigration Offices? I kind of doubt it.

Why am I skeptical? Well, as David Treuer reminds us, just a few years sooner, rather than register, “Thomas Hunt, an Englishman who had come to the area to explore and trade, had attacked and captured 20 Nauset and Patuxet and intended to sell them into slavery.”

For the colonists, there was more than one way to tame the new land. Treuer has more:

[T]he death of hundreds, if not thousands, of New England natives in 1631 during a particularly bad outbreak of disease … Puritan minister Cotton Mather … wrote, ‘the Indians began to be quarrelsome touching the Bounds of the Land which they had sold to the English, but God ended the Controversy by sending the Smallpox amongst the Indians.’ … [Then] the eventual encroachment of settlers on Native land and the resulting conflict, known as King Philip’s War, launched by tribes in 1675 trying to reclaim their land …” Thousands of Native Americans died, many sold into slavery and indentured servitude. Clearly, their Native ICE was nowhere near as good as ours

Having made themselves at home, and convinced that God had taken their side, the colonists decided to protect their claim to their new land by limiting the freedom of those who came next. As PBS notes:

The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor. The earliest settlers soon realized that they had lots of land to care for, but no one to care for it. With passage to the Colonies expensive for all but the wealthy, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to attract workers. Indentured servants became vital to the colonial economy …

The Thirty Year’s War had left Europe’s economy depressed … A new life in the New World offered a glimmer of hope; this explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants. Servants typically worked four to seven years in exchange for passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. While the life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn’t slavery … But their life was not an easy one, and the punishments meted out to people who wronged were harsher than those for non-servants. An indentured servant’s contract could be extended as punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female servants, becoming pregnant.

[Emphasis added.]

This ultimately brings us to the critical issue of citizenship and birthright and to the status of those brought in chains and sold in the marketplaces of America. PBS explains:

In 1619 the first black Africans came to Virginia. With no slave laws in place, they were initially treated as indentured servants, and given the same opportunities for freedom dues as whites. However, slave laws were soon passed – in Massachusetts in 1641 and Virginia in 1661 – and any small freedoms that might have existed for blacks were taken away. As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured servants … Landowners turned to African slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun.

[Emphasis added.]

An advertisement in The Western Citizen, Sept. 15, 1818.

In his 2015 “Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson,” Paul Finkelman writes:

Slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies when the American Revolution began. When the Constitution was written, slavery was still legal in all but two states (Massachusetts and New Hampshire), although three others (Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) were in the process of gradually abolishing the institution. By the time Thomas Jefferson began his second term as president, in 1805, New York and New Jersey had also taken steps to end slavery, and Vermont and Ohio had joined the Union as free states; but, Kentucky and Tennessee had also joined the Union as slave states. The nation was now half slave and half free, and would essentially remain so until the Civil War finally led to the end of slavery six decades later …

Jefferson’s words from the Declaration ring true today. Americans continue to believe it is ‘self-evident’ that we are all ‘created equal’ and are ‘endowed’ with the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ … Despite Jefferson’s fine words and our belief in this credo, it is clear that liberty was not available to most African-Americans at the time of the founding … I argue that Jefferson— who owned more than 150 slaves when he wrote the Declaration — did not in fact believe that blacks were entitled to the same rights as other Americans … I suggest that attempts to limit or undermine slavery in this period were weak and often ineffectual. I argue that the denial of the ‘blessings of liberty’ to slaves profoundly affected the formation of the nation.

Finkelman argues:

[S]lavery permeated the debates of 1787 and, in the end, the slave owners got substantially what they wanted: a Constitution that protected slavery. Thus, from 1787 until the Civil War the national government and important national leaders pursued policies that protected slavery … With the exception of real estate, slaves were the most valuable form of privately held property in the United States at the end of the Revolution. A number of slave owners attended the Constitutional Convention. After the adoption of the Constitution, slave owners dominated the executive branch. Moreover, while the most important politician of the era — Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner — feared the negative effects that slavery had on his society, he feared emancipation and the presence of free blacks even more.

Anthony Iaccarino adds further context for Britannica:

[N]o Southern plantation-owning Founder, except George Washington, freed a sizeable body of enslaved labourers. Because his own slaves shared familial attachments with the dower slaves of his wife, Martha Custis Washington, he sought to convince her heirs to forego their inheritance rights in favour of a collective manumission so as to ensure that entire families, not just individual family members, might be freed. Washington failed to win the consent of the Custis heirs, but he nevertheless made sure, through his last will and testament, that his own slaves would enjoy the benefit of freedom.

Washington’s act of manumission implied that he could envision a biracial United States where both blacks and whites might live together as free people. Jefferson, however, explicitly rejected this vision. He acknowledged that slavery violated the natural rights of slaves and that conflicts over slavery might one day lead to the dissolution of the union, but he also believed that, given alleged innate racial differences and deeply held prejudices, emancipation would inevitably degrade the character of the republic and unleash violent civil strife between blacks and whites. Jefferson thus advocated coupling emancipation with what he called ‘colonization,’ or removal, of the black population beyond the boundaries of the United States. His proposals won considerable support in the North, where racial prejudice was on the rise, but such schemes found little support among the majority of Southern slaveholders.

So what has prompted this short history lesson? Well, our dreadful history with slavery and our all-too-slow response to its horrors is sadly once more relevant once again thanks to Donald Trump’s recent executive orders. At the risk of simplifying highly complex events leading up to Emancipation, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford helped to propel a growing discontent with slavery and pushed us ever closer to the Civil War. On March 6, 1857, Judge Taney’s reprehensible ruling in Dred Scott made absolutely clear that Black slaves were in fact the property of their owners and were not citizens. And as we will see, the issue of who is and who isn’t an American citizen makes an extraordinary difference as ICE and the ATF and the FBI now round up and deport the families of “illegal immigrants.”

But back for the moment to Taney and American history.

As Cornell Law explains, Dred Scott was born a slave in the late 1700s then taken by his owner Emerson to the free state of Wisconsin. When Emerson died, Scott attempted to buy his freedom from Emerson’s wife. When she refused, he sued Sandford, the man who currently controlled the estate and Scott’s fate, arguing that he was now living in a state that outlawed slavery. Scott accused Sandford of assaulting him, his wife, and his children. Sandford asserted that Scott was a slave and his property and that he had restrained him and his family as he had a right to do. Cornell writes:

The Supreme Court, in a contentious opinion written by Chief Justice Taney … reasoned that, at the time of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, persons of African descent were brought to the U.S. as property, and, whether later freed or not, could not become U.S. citizens. Even though many states granted citizenship to African Americans, the Court distinguished state citizenship from federal citizenship, and found the later precluded to African Americans because of whom the Court believed the founders meant to include in the original Constitution.

Taney wrote:

Dred Scott v. Sandford. Highlighting added.

Taney made it perfectly clear that Dred Scott, as a slave, had no right to sue in federal court. He was Emerson’s property:

Dred Scott v. Sandford. Highlighting added.

In addition, Taney repudiated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, ruling that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories north of the 36°30′ latitude line in the Louisiana Purchase territories:

3. Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognises as property. 4.The Constitution of the United States recognises slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property of that description than it may constitutionally exercise over property of any other kind. 5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution-and the removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no title to freedom.

[Emphasis added.]

As Social Studies Help points out:

By invalidating the Missouri Compromise, the ruling opened all western territories to slavery. This possibility alarmed many in the North who opposed the spread of slavery … The North reacted vehemently against the Dred Scott decision … Newspapers, abolitionists, and politicians condemned the ruling. They viewed it as a deliberate attempt by the “Slave Power” to nationalize slavery … Legal scholars criticized the decision’s constitutional interpretations. Moral objections were raised against treating human beings as property …The ruling galvanized the abolitionist movement, leading to increased activism and a surge in anti-slavery literature and speeches.

Opposition to the Dred Scott decision—and, of course, the Civil War itself—revealed that a growing number of Americans were now unwilling to continue to tolerate the horrors of slavery. This changing sentiment helped bring forth the Fourteenth Amendment.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Highlighting added.

Let’s jump ahead to the present day as Donald Trump and MAGA work to undo some of the critical gains we have made to move beyond racial discrimination and hatred, to embrace a multi-racial and multi-cultural America.

So how about we connect some dots? There is a reason why they are rushing to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs throughout the government and simultaneously pressing colleges, school districts, and major corporations to undo the efforts to extend opportunity to those previously discouraged and disadvantaged. President Trump’s executive orders “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” and “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” curtail federal DEI programs:

Donald Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” Highlighting added.

The Administration’s DEI “Fact Sheet” makes clear:

It terminates ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) discrimination in the federal workforce, and in federal contracting and spending. Federal hiring, promotions, and performance reviews will reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and not, under any circumstances, DEI-related factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.

In the private sector, many corporations and universities use DEI as an excuse for biased and unlawful employment practices and illegal admissions preferences, ignoring the fact that DEI’s foundational rhetoric and ideas foster intergroup hostility and authoritarianism. Billions of dollars are spent annually on DEI, but rather than reducing bias and promoting inclusion, DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict.

Issuance of these executive orders is one thing, but Donald Trump is making sure no one in his government can escape their enforcement. In an article entitled “Federal Workers Ordered to Report on Colleagues Over D.E.I. Crackdown,” The New York Times reports:

The Trump administration on Wednesday threatened federal employees with ‘adverse consequences’ if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies. Tens of thousands of workers were put on notice that officials would not tolerate any efforts to ‘disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.’ Emails sent out, which were based on a template from the Office of Personnel Management, gave employees 10 days to report their observations to a special email account without risking disciplinary action. ‘There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information,’ the template sent to agency heads said. ‘However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.’

[Emphasis added.]

I am reminded of the 2006 German film “The Lives of Others,” which details the efforts of the diabolical East German Stasi secret police to force family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors to spy on each other and report any suspicious behavior.

As CBS News reports, Trump is not only going after our government’s DEI efforts but revoking decades of highly successful civil rights protection. While he claims to be going after “forced illegal and immoral discrimination,” in reality, he is removing decades of effective measures to prevent discrimination:

[H]is efforts go beyond DEI, with one recent order rescinding a Civil Rights-era rule that has helped protect millions of workers from discrimination. Mr. Trump’s Jan. 21 order — ‘Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity’ — revokes the Equal Employment Opportunity rule signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. According to the rule, federal contractors, who today employ 3.7 million people, can’t discriminate against job applicants or workers on the basis of race, gender and other protected characteristics.

Revoking the 60-year-old rule eliminates a bedrock civil rights protection for American workers, signaling an effort to target workplace issues that go beyond DEI, labor experts say. While DEI is shorthand for programs that encourage equality in the workplace for women, minorities and other groups, the Equal Employment Opportunity rule prohibited federal contractors from engaging in acts of discrimination, such as refusing to hire someone due to their race or paying an employee less because of their gender.

[Emphasis added.]

Trump’s executive order “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Highlighting added.

In reality, experience has taught us that we can best achieve merit-based opportunity by preventing discrimination that is based on completely irrelevant factors like race and religion and gender. It boggles the mind to fully appreciate the damage Donald Trump is committed to doing by terminating these policies:

(i) Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994 (Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations);

(ii) Executive Order 13583 of August 18, 2011 (Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce);

(iii) Executive Order 13672 of July 21, 2014 (Further Amendments to Executive Order 11478, Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government, and Executive Order 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity); and

(iv) The Presidential Memorandum of October 5, 2016 (Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce).

(b) The Federal contracting process shall be streamlined to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil-rights laws. Accordingly:

(i) Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965 (Equal Employment Opportunity), is hereby revoked. For 90 days from the date of this order, Federal contractors may continue to comply with the regulatory scheme in effect on January 20, 2025.

(ii) The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs within the Department of Labor shall immediately cease:

(A) Promoting ‘diversity’;

(B) Holding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking ‘affirmative action’; and

(C) Allowing or encouraging Federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.

(iii) In accordance with Executive Order 13279 of December 12, 2002 (Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-Based and Community Organizations), the employment, procurement, and contracting practices of Federal contractors and subcontractors shall not consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin in ways that violate the Nation’s civil rights laws.

(iv) The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award:

(A) A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code; and

(B) A term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.

(c) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with the assistance of the Attorney General as requested, shall:

(i) Review and revise, as appropriate, all Government-wide processes, directives, and guidance;

(ii) Excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants, and financial assistance procedures to streamline those procedures, improve speed and efficiency, lower costs, and comply with civil-rights laws; and

(iii) Terminate all ‘diversity,’ ‘equity’ ‘equitable decision-making,’ ‘equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance.’ ‘advancing equity,’ and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.

Not only is the Trump administration determined to wipe out federal DEI and civil rights requirements, but they are committed to pressuring private firms doing business with the government to do the same:

Sec. 4. Encouraging the Private Sector to End Illegal DEI Discrimination and Preferences. (a) The heads of all agencies, with the assistance of the Attorney General, shall take all appropriate action with respect to the operations of their agencies to advance in the private sector the policy of individual initiative, excellence, and hard work identified in section 2 of this order.

All these measures are linked to MAGA’s smoldering opposition to an America overly influenced by affirmative action and policies that promote uppity women, many of whom are Black and brown. MAGA detests programs that encourage the likelihood that they might have to live and work besides, depend upon, and sometimes even be eclipsed by people speaking languages other than English. They fear programs that pressure them to acknowledge the prideful presence of gays and lesbians and, God forbid, those who transcend MAGA’s boundaries of the two unforgiving genders. Many MAGA have spent these years biding their time, plotting the best way to turn the clock back.

They have steadfastly believed that Donald John Trump was/is the man to Make America White Again (MAWA). A modern-day Barnum, he is even able to persuade a great many of these not-really-Americans to vote to send him back to the White House. And now, of course, we are seeing quite clearly how, with his sweeping executive orders, he is pulling the rug out from under his followers once again. Shrewdly, and without even the tiniest bit of shame, he made sure to congratulate them in his inaugural address, with a shout-out to their murdered Black hero, Martin Luther King Jr., the man powerful white people jailed and harassed to the end of his days:

As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society, young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural and, very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people.

To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come. Today is Martin Luther King Day and his honor — this will be a great honor — but in his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true. Thank you. Thank you. National unity is now returning to America and confidence and pride is soaring like never before. In everything we do, my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. We will not forget our country. We will not forget our Constitution and we will not forget our God. Can’t do that.

[Emphasis added.]

But how did he really thank them? He didn’t forget our Constitution; he just betrayed it, and Dr. King, by issuing his laughably titled executive order “Protecting The Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”:

Trump’s executive order “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.”

Clearly, all things are permissible in the fight to Make America White Again, especially by distorting our history and by denying the clear meaning of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. If only twisting words inside out could help Donald Trump effectively bend the Fourteenth Amendment to his will. But still, he argues in “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” that being born in the United States doesn’t really mean being born in the United States:

Section 1. Purpose. The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift. The Fourteenth Amendment states: ‘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.’ That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race.

But the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that ‘a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.

[Emphasis added.]

Trump then makes the shocking claim:

Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

[Emphasis added.]

Trump’s executive order then requires:

Sec. 2. Policy. (a) It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

Almost immediately, the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon sued to prevent the implementation of President Trump’s executive order:

States of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, Oregon v. President Donald Trump. Highlighting added.

The states argue:

The President’s Executive Order, issued on January 20, 2025, and styled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” (Citizenship Stripping Order), is contrary to the plain terms of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The President has no authority to amend the Constitution or supersede the Citizenship Clause’s grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States. Nor is he empowered by any other constitutional provision or law to determine who shall or shall not be granted United States citizenship at birth. The Fourteenth Amendment and federal law automatically confer citizenship upon individuals born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction.

[Emphasis added.]

The states respond to the Trump administration’s claim that the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” thereby excludes children whose “mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.” The states argue:

Unlike the Naturalization Clause, U.S. Const, art. I, § 8, cl. 4, which empowers Congress to set rules for naturalization, the Constitution nowhere else speaks to citizenship by birth in the United States and nowhere empowers the President or Congress to set additional requirements that override or conflict with the Citizenship Clause’s plain and broad grant of automatic citizenship to individuals born in the United States.

The Citizenship Clause contains no exceptions based on the citizenship or immigration status of one’s parents or their country of origin. Rather, the Citizenship Clause’s only requirements are that an individual be born ‘in the United States’ and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The only individuals who are excluded under the ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ language are the extremely limited number of individuals who are in fact not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at birth — the children of diplomats covered by diplomatic immunity or children born to enemy combatants engaged in war against the United States while on United States soil. Indeed, before the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, there was explicit legislative debate and clarity that the Citizenship Clause was meant to reach all persons born in the United States, with only the limited exceptions above …

[Emphasis added.]

The States continue:

The Supreme Court cemented this longstanding and established understanding of the Citizenship Clause more than 125 years ago in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). There, the Supreme Court held that a child born in the United States to non-citizen parents was entitled to automatic citizenship by birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. In so holding, the Court explained:

The fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons, of whatever race or color … To hold that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.

In addition to Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court has separately made clear that undocumented immigrants are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 215 (1982), the Supreme Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause — the sentence immediately following the Citizenship Clause — and explained that the term ‘within its jurisdiction’ makes plain that ‘the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory.’ The Court concluded:

That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter. Given such presence, he is subject to the full range of obligations imposed by the State’s civil and criminal laws.

As the Supreme Court explained, ‘no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment “jurisdiction” can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.’ Id. at 211 n.10. The Supreme Court further confirmed that the phrases ‘within its jurisdiction’ and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the first and second sentences of the Fourteenth Amendment have the same meaning. Id.

[Emphasis added.]

And the states persuasively reveal the severe consequences enforcement of such an order would have on many of the citizens of their states:

If the Citizenship Stripping Order is allowed to stand, the Plaintiff States and their residents will suffer immediate and irreparable harm. Nationally, in 2022 alone, there were approximately 255,000 births of citizen children to non-citizen mothers without lawful status (undocumented) and approximately 153,000 births to two undocumented parents. In Washington, in 2022 alone, approximately 7,000 United States citizen children were born to mothers who lacked legal status and approximately 4,000 United States citizen children were born to two parents who lacked legal status. In Arizona, in 2022 alone, there were approximately 6,000 United States citizen children born to mothers who lacked legal status and approximately 3,400 United States citizen children born to two parents who lacked legal status. Likewise, in Illinois, in 2022 alone, there were approximately 9,100 United States citizen children born to mothers who lacked legal status and approximately 5,200 United States citizen children born to two parents who lacked legal status. And in Oregon, in 2022 alone, there were approximately 2,500 United States citizen children born to mothers who lacked legal status and approximately 1,500 United States citizen children born to two parents who lacked legal status …

The individuals who are stripped of their United States citizenship will be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many will be stateless — that is, citizens of no country at all. They will lose eligibility for myriad federal benefits programs. They will lose their right to travel freely and re-enter the United States. They will lose their ability to obtain a Social Security number (SSN) and work lawfully. They will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices. And they will be placed into lifelong positions of instability and insecurity as part of a new underclass in the United States. In short, despite the Constitution’s guarantee of their citizenship, thousands of newborns and children will lose their ability to fully and fairly be a part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges.

[Emphasis added.]

The states subsequently detail the consequences they would suffer:

The Plaintiff States will suffer immediate and irreparable harm by losing federal funding or reimbursements to programs that the Plaintiff States administer, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), foster care and adoption assistance programs, and programs to facilitate streamlined issuance of SSNs to eligible babies — among others. By purporting to unilaterally strip citizenship from individuals born in the Plaintiff States based on their parents’ citizenship or immigration status, the Plaintiff States will be forced to bear significantly increased costs to operate and fund programs that ensure the health and well-being of their residents. The Plaintiff States will also be required — on no notice and at their considerable burden and expense — to immediately begin modifying their funding and operational structures and administration of programs to account for this change. This will impose significant administrative and operational burdens for multiple of the Plaintiff States’ agencies that operate programs for the benefit of their residents.

The states then call on the Court to act:

To prevent the President’s and the federal government’s unlawful action from harming the Plaintiff States and their residents, the Court should invalidate the Citizenship Stripping Order in its entirety and enjoin any actions taken to implement its directives.

On January 23, 2025, the Honorable John C. Coughenour granted the states’ motion for a temporary restraining order:

Judge John C. Coughenour’s decision for a temporary restraining order of Trump’s “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” Highlighting added.

The New York Times report:

In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided with Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, the four states that sued, signing a restraining order that blocks Mr. Trump’s executive order for 14 days, renewable upon expiration. ‘This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,’ he said. ‘Frankly,’ he continued, challenging Trump administration lawyers, ‘I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.’

If you ask me, there is an obvious reason why Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans and the most violent amongst them, the newly pardoned Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, are rejoicing at the efforts to reverse the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of birthright. They have never been comfortable with multicultural America. They yearn for the days before the Civil War. Then lynching was one of the most effective ways to enforce slavery, and slavery’s offspring: segregation. Do you imagine it an accident that the January 6 insurrectionists were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”? That the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers brought their swastikas to Charlottesville, loudly warning the world, “Jews will not replace us.” Because in their book, Jews are hardly the same shade of white as they are. And, at the end of the day, it is never been about living together: It ha always been us versus them.

Have you forgotten the words of our president? As NBC News reported on December 17, 2023:

Former President Donald Trump said immigrants coming to the U.S. are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ a remark on Saturday that quickly drew a rebuke from his chief Democratic rival as President Joe Biden’s campaign likened the words to those of Adolf Hitler. ‘They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,’ Trump told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire.

Now that they have won back the White House, is it such a stretch to imagine that MAGA, chameleon-like, would transform itself into MAWA, Make America White Again?

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THE OTHER SIDE: The fire this time

Pretty much everything about the human interaction with Los Angeles has brought us a war with nature we seem no longer to be able to win.

THE OTHER SIDE: Felonious Don

As we take a look at how it is that litigation against Donald Trump has ended in a whimper, let’s try and find the smallest bit of solace amongst the ruins of diminished expectations.

THE OTHER SIDE: Beware Truskmumpia CIA

If ever there was a president prone to abusing the significant powers of the CIA, it is Donald Trump. If ever there was a potential head of the CIA exceptionally willing to yield its powers on behalf of a president without reservation, it is John Radcliffe, his nominee.

The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.