President Donald Trump Wednesday vowed that he will end birthright citizenship and insisted that legal scholars agree that a phrase in the 14th Amendment means that he would be within his rights to end the practice.
He promised to "keep our Country safe" and said the Supeme Court would settle the matter.
"So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other," Trump said in a Wednesday morning tweet. "It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof.' Many legal scholars agree....."
He followed up later with two more tweets. In the first, he said:
"....Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings massive Crime) “stuff.” Don’t forget the nasty term Anchor Babies. I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!
He then concluded: "The World is using our laws to our detriment. They laugh at the Stupidity they see!"
The "jurisdiction" phrase has been the subject of much debate over the years, and has been argued in the Supreme Court in years past, reports MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos in an analysis of the president's plan.
The court first interpreted the clause in 1872, shortly after the amendment's passage, said Cevallos, and concluded that itwas made to "establish the citizenship of" African-Americans while excluding the children of "ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign states born within the United States."
However, a few years later, in 1898, the court ruled in the case of a Chinese immigrant couple's child, stating that the child was entitled to citizenship because of being born in the United States to parents with permanent domicile.
There are some scholars, though, that say the case, the Wong Kim Ark decision, was wrong because the 14th Amendment was misinterpreted.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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