The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
An interview of Dan Rayfield, the attorney general of Oregon.
Miller: I want to start with today’s news. As I mentioned, you signed on to a recent lawsuit challenging the president’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. And then a few hours ago, a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order to block it, calling it blatantly unconstitutional. What’s your response?
Rayfield: Birthright citizenship was something that is incredibly clear in our nation’s Constitution. It has 100 years of legal precedence, and you have 100 years of different presidents interpreting it the exact same way. So I can’t say that we are surprised that a federal judge would call this blatantly unconstitutional. I think one of the words he used was “flabbergasted.”
And I think when we think about the foundations of democracy, when you have a president, on the first day of his administration, try and rewrite the United States Constitution with the stroke of a pen via an executive order, it’s incredibly important that the judge ruled the way they did . . . because that’s just the beginning. What’s next? What other constitutional rights do you start moving down towards? This is why we have checks and balances in our democracy. So it was an incredibly important ruling today. — How Oregon Is Responding to Trump’s Crackdown on Immigration, Think Out Loud, 1/23/25 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Rayfield claims it’s “incredibly clear” that he 14th Amendment of the Constitution grants citizenship to the children to illegal aliens who are born here. Actually, this isn’t clear at all.
The amendment states that that persons born on U.S. soil—and subject to the “jurisdiction” of the United States—are citizens. What does jurisdiction mean? From the legal context of the time when the amendment was enacted, it meant “subject to a foreign power.” Thus, the citizens of foreign countries, without allegiance to the United States, are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. In our modern time, this would include illegal aliens.
After passage of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court held jurisdiction to mean allegiance to the U.S. These were the Slaughterhouse Cases in 1872 and Elk v. Wilkins in 1884. The latter case involved an American Indian named John Elk who maintained that he was a citizen because he was born on American soil. The Court denied his claim to citizenship, saying that he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States.”
Nevertheless, the Court appeared to take a different tact in the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. It held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese parents, who were “permanently domiciled” in the United States, was a citizen. This ruling is the basis of granting citizenship to American-born children of illegal aliens.
Such reasoning is not self-evident at all, as it appears to vary from the two previous rulings on the definition of jurisdiction. Furthermore, it is not self-evident that a legal principle applying to permanent legal resident also applies to illegal residents. It is irrelevant how long the current interpretation of the 14 Amendment has stood. The Court in the past has overturned long-standing precedents.
President Trump’s executive order, contrary to Rayfield’s suggestion, is not an arbitrary and dictatorial degree. Trump knew full well that it would bring legal challenges which would end up in the Supreme Court. In that case, the High Court can make a definitive ruling to clear up the present confusion. The sooner the better.