Birthright                                                                                                                     #366

By Hank Silverberg 

Commentary 

This week, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments from the Trump Administration claiming that Birthright Citizenship is not legal. 

It is, frankly, the most ridiculous and alarming claim this administration has ever made. Here is what the Constitution's 14th Amendment says on the issue...a direct quote here: 

"14th Amendment

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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

It's plain, concise English, not left up to interpretation like some other parts of the Constitution. I can't imagine the Supreme Court, even this conservative court, will abolish Birthright Citizenship. 

Yes, the amendment was passed to guarantee that the children of freed slaves would be U.S. citizens as claimed in the government's brief, but it does not specifically mention slaves, and over the years there have been solid precedents that include granting citizenship to other people born here. 

Birthright Citizenship has been the undisputed rule for 127 years. There have been several cases upholding it, but the premier one came in 1898, when SCOTUS ruled that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873 and then denied re-entry after he returned to China for a visit, was a U.S. citizen by birth and could not be stopped from re-entering. 

The only exceptions made were for children of representatives of foreign governments who may have been born here. The 1898 ruling has held up since then. 

America has been, and will always be, a nation of immigrants. 

Millions of people will be affected by this should the Court rebut precedent and agree with the Trump Administration. As many as 255,000 people born in the U.S. each year to non-citizen parents would not become citizens automatically, and millions already born might lose their citizenship. 

Immigrants, both legal and illegal and their U.S. -born children, represent about 28% of the current U.S. population. That's about 93 million people in a population of over 340 million. 

About 15% of that 340 million are second generation Americans. About 30% of Americans have ancestors who arrived here within the last 100 years. 

The United States Constitution is a remarkable document. The 9th Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to allow for the enforcement of rights not specifically addressed by the entire Bill of Rights. 

For those of you who may think citizenship only belongs to those born of citizens, let me point again to the U.S. Constitution. It was signed by 56 people. Thirty-four of them were born somewhere outside of the United States. 

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Trump Administration on Birthright Citizenship, it will shake the very fabric of our society and the basic reason we exist.  

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/05/what-to-know-about-birthright-citizenship-after-supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-case/87634044007/

News You May Have Missed!! 

Come on back, for now????

Call it the DOGE effect! The U.S. Department of Education, facing a huge backlog of school discrimination cases, is asking hundreds of workers furloughed months ago to come back to work--temporarily. 

USA Today has obtained a memo dated December 5 ordering a portion of staffers in the Office of Civil Rights to "return to duty" because of a need for the

government to process those cases. About 250 workers have been on administrative leave for months, and they are the ones being called back, though a spokesman for the Education Department says there are no plans to rehire them permanently.  They were technically put out of a job in March, with a second group of 137 furloughed during the government shutdown in October.  

Why the recall? Students, parents and educators across the country depend on these folks to enforce  antidiscrimination laws, especially for students with disabilities. It's an indication that the Ed Department, which Trump wants to eliminate, is struggling to meet its legally mandated responsibilities.  

It's likely such problems will soon develop in other federal agencies where there have been large furloughs or layoffs. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/education-dept-asks-hundreds-of-fired-employees-to-temporarily-return/ar-AA1RQXQx?ocid=BingNewsBrowse

This Does Not Compute!

Have you seen the latest Movie Star? Her name is Tilly Norwood, and she is an AI. That's right, an AI actress who looks, sounds and acts real. CBS news reported on it this week, and it's very scary. You may remember the use of AI in TV and movies was one of the big issues in the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023 with actors and writers worrying their faces or material would be culled by AI creators without compensation.

(Tilly Norwood
northeastern.edu)

Now a company has created "Tilly," a complete character, with AI. She looks, sounds and acts and she is not based on any real person's  likeness or voice. Needless to say, some folks in Hollywood are not happy. SAG-AFTRA is watching closely to make sure the creators don't step over the line and steal faces, voices or technique from real performers. That's certainly an issue. 

But there should be more concern on whether creating such a real life-like AI can be used for other things, like government propaganda or deception, which could have much bigger consequences.  

AI could change reality very quickly in the near future.  

Dumbest Quote of The Week

This week's dumb quote comes from Secretary of Defense (not war, no change has been made by Congress), Pete Hegseth. Speaking at the annual Reagan Defense Forum earlier this week, he said in reference to past U.S. defense strategy:

"Out with idealistic utopianism. In with hard-nosed realism." 

I'm not sure why Hegseth thinks our Defense policy was "utopian". Certainly Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" approach was not.   

Hegseth was pushing "Zones of Influence" for the U.S, Western Europe and China. It's a 19th century sort of way, despite today's 24 hour global communications systems, cyber wars and missiles that can reach our shores in minutes from China or Russia. This whole administration seems to be lost in the past and fails to acknowledge that carrying Teddy Roosevelt's "big stick" can no longer work by itself. 

  (You suggestions and comments  are welcome)

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