MIKE DAVIS: Dissecting the Supreme Court's 'birthright' betrayal
The Supreme Court just delivered its most disastrous ruling in generations in Trump v. Barbara. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices to block President Donald Trump's executive order and hand over birthright citizenship to the children of tens of millions of illegal aliens and birth tourists from China and other enemy nations.
The majority ruled that the 14th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War to give former slaves equal rights, mandates citizenship to nearly anyone born on U.S. soil, even if they entered illegally, even if they’re a foreigner who hates America, even if they’re only here on a temporary visa and even if they are gaming our system as a Chinese birth tourist.
Under this logic, American citizenship means nothing but birthplace. Forget heritage, patriotism or common values. All that matters is location.
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This decision destroys what it means to be an American. It ranks among the court's very worst, alongside Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and Roe v. Wade (1973).
Justice Samuel Alito warned in dissent, "This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake."
Justice Alito is a gentleman. This was more than a serious mistake. John Roberts’ disastrous decision, joined by the court’s four women, could be fatal for our country.
The damage cannot be overstated. At the core of sovereignty is the power to decide who enters the country and who becomes one of its citizens. Otherwise, we live at the mercy of billions of foreigners. Citizenship defines who shares in America's blessings and burdens, who upholds its values, who honors its history and who joins its social contract. It will ultimately determine whether the United States is a nation or just a place.
The American people built the New York skyline, tamed a vast frontier, defeated fascism and communism, landed on the Moon and created the freest and most prosperous and powerful country in human history. Deciding who we invite to join us is the most consequential choice our nation can make. Once citizenship is granted, it is rarely undone. Citizenship confers full and equal rights, including the right to vote and claim every economic and social benefit.
Yet this ruling puts the newborn child of an MS-13 gangster who crossed the border illegally days earlier on equal footing with the descendants of generations of Americans who fought world wars, built this country from nothing and died for its future.
The national security implications are terrifying.
As Justice Alito noted, a child born here to an enemy visitor from China or another hostile power, then raised abroad to hate the United States, would have lifelong citizenship and the right to vote in every election. That child could even run for president of the United States.
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The votes of professors Roberts and Barrett, who call themselves originalists, are especially despicable. Anyone with a reasonable historical understanding of the 14th Amendment could never conclude it was intended to endow citizenship to children of illegal aliens or foreigners with no allegiance to this country. Ratified in 1868 to secure citizenship for freed slaves after the Civil War, the amendment's pivotal qualifier — "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" — deliberately excludes children of diplomats and children of invading soldiers.
The Supreme Court recognized this principle in Elk v. Wilkins (1884), ruling that Native Americans born on reservations were not entitled to birthright citizenship under the amendment because they were subject to the jurisdiction of — and owed their allegiance to — their tribes instead of the United States. Congress later extended birthright citizenship to them by statute in 1924.
If Native Americans born here and who have lived here for thousands of years are not constitutionally entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, the children of illegal immigrants, foreign criminals and fraudster tourists certainly cannot be. Until now. The amendment's ratifiers could never have imagined, let alone intended, citizenship for the children of millions of unvetted illegals or for a birth-tourism industry that’s funneled hundreds of thousands of foreigners, especially from China, into the country for this purpose.
But Roberts, Barrett and three liberals put their vanity over our sovereignty, national security and country. This ultimate betrayal is unforgivable.
By deciding the case on sweeping constitutional grounds rather than a narrower statutory basis, the majority, including Roberts and Barrett, made fixing this catastrophe extraordinarily difficult. Reversing it now requires the passage of a constitutional amendment by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the states or a constitutional convention. They ignored the canon of constitutional avoidance, locked in a maximalist, ahistorical rule, and tied the hands of future majorities.
Had they taken the narrower path, as Justice Kavanaugh argued, Congress could have legislated a fix. Justice Kavanaugh’s rationale was still wrong, but it wasn’t catastrophic, like Roberts’ ruling.
With this decision, Roberts again prioritized his personal perception over constitutional duty. His legacy is one of preserving his own reputation at the expense of our nation when political pressure mounted. Time and again he has flinched — on Obamacare, on election cases, on immigration — choosing the path of least resistance and maximum elite approval.
Justice Barrett's vote is particularly galling. Barrett auditioned as the next Justice Scalia, for whom she clerked. Her advocates sold her as the same. Yet Barrett helped deliver a ruling that ignores the amendment's text, history and limiting principles. This was a failure of character and of judgment that elevates abstract academic hypotheticals over real stakes: anchor babies for gang members, incentives for further surges of illegal immigration and the erosion of citizenship as a meaningful inheritance rather than a geographic accident. Originalism without regard for the sovereign interests it is supposed to protect is performative.
Professor Barrett thinks she’s grading law-school exams instead of exercising sound judgment, proving why she’s the junior varsity justice who is not up to the job.
The Trump administration must pursue mass deportations of all illegal immigrants, starting with women of childbearing age. Even if these illegals have "citizen" children, they must still be deported to prevent them from creating more fake citizens. Cutting federal funds for programs that benefit illegal immigrants, as well, will force the hands of those who exploit our generosity.
Federal funds to states, cities and any other entities that provide benefits to illegal immigrants must also end. And the Trump Justice Department, under the all-star leadership of Todd Blanche, must continue to use all criminal and civil tools to sue, imprison, denaturalize and expel illegal aliens who have entered our country, attacked our citizens, plundered our treasure and debased our culture.
The American people deserved better from Roberts and Barrett. Lifetime tenure exists precisely so justices can resist political fads and elite pressure. This abomination of a ruling destroys our sovereign power and duty — as We The People, the sovereign citizens of America — to define and control our own future. It amounts to national suicide by judicial decree. It is the ultimate betrayal by five unelected narcissists in robes. With no mercy, we must quadruple the mass deportations. And immediately.