Trump is trying to erase history with the end of birthright citizenship

By: Daimler Koch, Online Editor

Illustration by Milan Rafaelov

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship in an attempt to override 120 years of legal precedent and distort the 14th Amendment.

Ending birthright citizenship under Trump's false claim that it was “only meant for slaves” wipes away the struggles both Black Americans and immigrants made to attain this right. While the 14th Amendment was part of the three Reconstruction-era amendments to ensure Constitutional protection for the rights of Black Americans, its language is interpreted for all people.

In the Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, Scott and his wife were slaves whose owner moved to the free territory of Wisconsin. The owner died, supposedly leaving them free. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the Scotts were still enslaved to Emerson’s widow and that slaves were not US citizens, and therefore not entitled to the protection of US law. 

It took a decade to climb up the appeals court ladder from Missouri to the Supreme Court. Each time, the courts ruled against them. This was later reversed by the 14th Amendment and expanded to include the children of unnaturalized immigrants in the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark case. Even so, Scott did not live to see these achievements, dying nine months after his eponymous court case.

Wong Kim Ark lived in the US for the majority of his life. However, after a visit to China, he was denied entry back to the US due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which also prevented Chinese immigrants from naturalizing. Ark sued the US government for his citizenship, and after three years of waiting, he won. Birthright citizenship has faced few significant challenges since then.

The children of immigrants today rest on the hardships and eventual success of those Black Americans and previous immigrants. Unfortunately, Trump is proving that those sacrifices are fragile, and can be overturned with a flick of his pen. 

Our representatives in government must do all they can to prevent Trump from going through with his plan. There has been some progress. Back in January, attorneys general from Maryland, Washington, and other states sued the federal government to block Trump’s executive order. The order was later blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. 

For now, children of undocumented immigrants are safe from deportation. Five million of them live in the country today. Taking away their birthright citizenship would be a major failing of the US government’s promise to grant freedom for all.