Every morning is something new. He’s throwing out some chum to his racist base now:
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump offered a dramatic, if legally dubious, promise in a new interview to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, ratcheting up his hardline immigration rhetoric with a week to go before critical midterm elections.
Trump’s vow to end the right to citizenship for the children of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on US soil came in an interview with Axios released Tuesday. Such a step would be regarded as an affront to the US Constitution, which was amended 150 years ago to include the words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Trump did not say when he would sign the order, and some of his past promises to use executive action have gone unfulfilled. But whether the President follows through on his threat or not, the issue joins a string of actions intended to thrust the matter of immigration into the front of voters’ minds as they head to polls next week.
1/ On birthright citizenship, read the debate in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 30, 1866. The framers of the Civil Rights Act–the immediate precursor to the 14th Amendment, and the first place national citizenship was codified–knew exactly what they were doing.
— Steve Kantrowitz (@skantrow) October 30, 2018
*wakes up* Can’t undo the fourteenth amendment by executive order. *falls back asleep* https://t.co/Oz9yCShW7e
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 30, 2018
The founders set up the constitution so the president can’t do what he’s proposing to do with birthright citizenship. It’s a stunt, like sending the troops to a border for a non-existent invasion.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 30, 2018
You can’t alter the Constitution by executive order. You want to repeal the 14th Amendment, you do it the old fashioned way: By having enough racist hacks on the Supreme Court to render the constitutional rights of people of color meaningless. https://t.co/jkXx48pCEy
— Student Loans ? (@AdamSerwer) October 30, 2018
If Trump said he wanted to reinstitute slavery by executive order, would your headline read, "Exclusive: Trump to Reinstitute Slavery"?
— Anil Kalhan (@kalhan) October 30, 2018