The article argues that Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship attempts to negate the Fourteenth Amendment's resolution on racial citizenship. It draws a parallel between this order and the historical context of the Dred Scott decision, which denied Black Americans citizenship. Frederick Douglass’s criticism of the interpretation of the Constitution in favor of slavery is invoked to highlight the potential constitutional implications of Trump's actions, emphasizing that rewriting constitutional principles is an overreach of presidential authority.
The purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to settle once and for all the question of racial citizenship, forever preventing the subjugation of one class of people by another.
The order, which purports to exclude the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants from citizenship, states that such children are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
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