FREE NEWS LINKS
HOME SEARCH
Updates & changes ongoing ....
---- Although this site is https-secure, we cannot guarantee that it or any provided links are safe; be sure your antivirus and other security systems are up to date.
Also see: Constitution in full;
Jump to: 2018; 2019;
Undated: The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Arguably one of the most consequential amendments to this day, the amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, including those acting on behalf of such an official.
The amendment's first section includes several clauses: the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship, nullifying the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had held that Americans descended from African slaves could not be citizens of the United States. Since the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), the Privileges or Immunities Clause has been interpreted to do very little.
The Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without a fair procedure. The Supreme Court has ruled this clause makes most of the Bill of Rights as applicable to the states as it is to the federal government, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural requirements that state laws must satisfy. The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people, including all non-citizens, within its jurisdiction. This clause has been the basis for many decisions rejecting irrational or unnecessary discrimination against people belonging to various groups.
The second, third, and fourth sections of the amendment are seldom litigated. However, the second section's reference to "rebellion, or other crime" has been invoked as a constitutional ground for felony disenfranchisement. The fourth section was held, in Perry v. United States (1935), to prohibit a current Congress from abrogating a contract of debt incurred by a prior Congress. The fifth section gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment's provisions by "appropriate legislation"; however, under City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), this power may not be used to contradict a Supreme Court decision interpreting the amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
-- 2018 --
October 30: Fact Check: 14th Amendment On Citizenship Cannot Be Overridden By Executive Order
In an interview with Axios, published Tuesday, the president said he wants to end the automatic right to citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to noncitizens.
"You can definitely do it with an act of Congress," Trump said in the Axios interview. "But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order."
The 14th Amendment holds that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Most legal scholars take that as an explicit protection of birthright citizenship — and think it will take much more than an executive order to change that.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/30/662335612/legal-scholars-say-14th-amendment-doubt-trump-can-end-birthright-citizenship-wit
October 30: President Donald Trump may have met his match Tuesday: the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"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," the 1868 amendment begins.
"It's ridiculous," Trump said 150 years later, on the eve of midterm elections that could erode his power, perhaps for the rest of his presidency. "And it has to end."
So began the 45th president's latest legal, policy and political battle, neatly contained in a history lesson dating to Reconstruction.
As the administration vowed to block a migrant caravan heading toward the southern border and delay a trial next week on its plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 Census, Trump turned his focus on generations of American-born citizens.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/30/donald-trump-birthright-citizenship-constitution-14th-amendment/1818311002/
October 30: What Is the 14th Amendment, and Will It Stop Trump From Ending Birthright Citizenship?
https://www.newsweek.com/what-14th-amendment-trump-ending-birthright-citizenship-1193397
October 30: Trump has 'zero authority' to end birthright citizenship, and this is a 'Hail Mary' a week before the midterms, legal experts say
In an interview with "Axios on HBO" published Tuesday morning, Trump called the concept of birthright citizenship "ridiculous" and said it "has to end."
"We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States ... with all of those benefits," Trump said, falsely — more than 30 countries have laws providing for birthright citizenship.
... it would be "virtually impossible" to amend the Constitution in today's political climate. Changing an amendment requires either a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of state legislatures.
If Trump issues an executive order to end birthright citizenship "there will be lawsuits from all over the country over equal protection," ...
"This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms," the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted Tuesday. "The 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear."
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-birthright-citizenship-14th-amendment-experts-2018-10
October 31: Trump Sheds Light on His Legal Rationale for Ending Birthright Citizenship
A 1952 law codifying the 14th Amendment adds a major major hurdle, however
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signaled that his belief he can legally end U.S. citizenship for children born here is based on the interpretation of five words written in 1868.
Democrats say the president is merely threatening to sign — as soon as this week — an executive order to end what’s called “birthright citizenship” as another way to energize his conservative base before Tuesday’s midterm elections. Such an order would surely prompt an immediate court challenge.
Trump and his Republican allies, like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, see automatic citizenship as a “magnet,” in Graham’s words, for undocumented migrants to get onto American soil and establish legal roots via an infant child. End birthright citizenship, Trump and his allies say, and illegal immigration rates will plummet.
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-sheds-light-legal-rationale-ending-birthright-citizenship
November 1: Less than a week before Election Day, President Donald Trump has thrust the 14th Amendment — and its promise of citizenship to anyone born in the United States — into a mid-term election issue. But congressional members, including some North Carolina Republicans, have signed onto legislation to limit birthright citizenship long before Trump’s tweets.
Five North Carolina Republicans were co-sponsors on bills in 2015 and 2017 to more narrowly define who the 14th Amendment would apply to. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, introduced the legislation.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article220915465.html
November 1: Trump can’t strike 14th Amendment with his pen
Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship contradicts his Supreme Court nominations of ‘originalists.’
In an interview for “Axios on HBO,” President Trump announced he will sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship. When challenged on the constitutionality of doing this by executive order, Trump replied:
“You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
This is simply untrue. The 14th Amendment — which declares, “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” — cannot be changed by executive order, or even by an act of Congress. It would require a constitutional amendment.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/thiessen-trump-cant-strike-14th-amendment-with-his-pen/
November 2: Trump slams 14th Amendment at rally
President Donald Trump slammed the constitutionally protected provision of birthright citizenship as a "crazy, lunatic policy" while speaking at a rally in Columbia, Missouri.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/11/02/trump-birthright-constitutional-amendment-missouri-rally-vpx.cnn
November 3: The 14th amendment to the constitution confirms that all Americans are born equal. One immigrant-hating lover of dictators cannot change that with a simple stroke of his pen
Trump’s proposal reveals that he does not understand our constitution, or the deeper values behind it.
After the civil war, Congress sought to grant full citizenship to African Americans, who had been denied it under the Dred Scott supreme court decision. Yet when it passed the 14th amendment in 1868, Congress went further. It wrote a rule making it clear that any person, regardless of ethnicity or national origin, had a right to citizenship upon being born in the US.
The relevant portion of the 14th amendment reads: “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.” The phrase about jurisdiction was meant to exclude the children of ambassadors and tribal Native Americans, who until 1924 were regarded as citizens of separate sovereign nations.
These words about birthright citizenship reflect the wider values of the 14th amendment, which also guarantees “equal protection of the laws” for all persons. Together with the constitution’s ban on royal titles in Article I, Section 9, the document stands for the idea that the US does not condone hereditary hierarchy – or any legal distinction based on birth or parentage, ideas associated with aristocratic societies. In the US, everyone starts on the same plane.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/03/donald-trump-birthright-citizenship-14th-amendment-constitution
-- 2019 --
Webpage visitor counts provided by
