[zekevermillion]

This has zero chance of passing the most trivial legal challenge. Plain reading of 14th Amendment grants citizenship to those born in the US. And for good reason. This is really the heart of equal protection. Do we want a country where the laws apply consistently to all, or a country of castes with different rights?

But like all these cheap, position-taking measures, we really should ask -- what is this distracting us from? What is going on that we should be paying attention to, instead of the daily outrage?

[masonic]

"Section 1. 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."

Those in the USA illegally are specifically evading the jurisdiction of the federal government.

This was the consistent interpretation and practice all the way into the 1960s.

[zekevermillion]

The alternate argument is that anyone in the US is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US unless somehow immune, eg, a diplomat. I don't see it as very likely that federal courts today would agree with your argument. Nevertheless, this is the argument I've heard offered in support of the constitutionality of denying citizenship for US-born children of undocumented immigrants. Presumably there is some caselaw to support this? Please feel free to educate me with a citation here.

[java-man]

62 million voters don't seem to care

[zekevermillion]

They never do. I think the attitude of a lot of pols is "we can pass the laws, let the courts decide if they are constitutional". But if you know for a fact that a law is not constitutional, I don't see how you square that with the oath of office.

[java-man]

There is no feedback mechanism for correcting a rogue agent at this particular powerful position. One more SCOTUS justice retires and we have a rubberstamp entity.

Add to the mix a giant military industrial complex and we are all set for the next 1933.

[zekevermillion]

I think you'll be surprised at how independent the SCOTUS is. Life appointment. It is always surprising that despite politics and personal flair (thinking Scalia here) the top judges agree on 99.9% of the law. It is only the hard cases that they take, and there is disagreement there. But removing a right that is verbatim protected in the US Constitution is not a hard case at all. You might be worried about the recent Republican appointees who are originalists. But if you're an originalist, or a textualist, I mean there is no ambiguity in the text of the 14th amendment when it comes to citizenship for those "born in" the US.

[java-man]

I really hope so.

Surprisingly, the Republic nearly withstood a certain event seventeen years ago. It is hard to make predictions (especially about the future), and engineers ought to be naturally pessimistic, but amazingly a lot of what makes this country great is still there. I see a lot of down trends and it's not fun.