Of all the wrong-headed and perniciously dangerous things Donald Trump did on his first day back in office, from pardoning insurrectionists to denying climate change to rolling back the clock on gender progress, his attempt to re-define what it means to be an American citizen is the most dangerous.  This is not to diminish the seriousness of his other foolish actions and the severity of their consequences for different groups.  However, in attempting to negate birthright citizenship, Trump and his devotees are trying to reimagine and rebrand who gets to be American.  And you may not like what they decide and who gets to remain in the club.

Let’s rewind a bit to establish when and why birthright citizenship was established so that we have some historical context.  Birthright citizenship was established as an integral part of the 14th Amendment which was passed in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War.  Because the Supreme Court had decided in the famous 1857 Dred Scott case that neither slaves nor freed slaves could be citizens, this constitutional amendment was fundamentally necessary to ensure that all slaves and former slaves would be considered citizens.  The constitution is VERY clear on this: “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.” Pretty straightforward, right?  So, from 1868 onward, anyone born in the US was a US citizen.  Cut and dried.  At least it was until yesterday (there will, of course, be a vigorous debate forthcoming on the language and “originalist” intent of the amendment: here’s a summary of that debate).

So who also came to the US in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War would would become citizens?  Generations of English, Irish, Italians, Germans (still the largest ethnic group in the US, if you can believe it), and many other Europeans.  However, by the mid-20th century, Mexicans and Chinese immigrants formed the largest groups with Mexicans and Asians (Indians, Filipinos, and others) forming the largest groups in the late-20th century.  That means that our country, for at least 75 years (over 30% of our history for those of you counting at home), has had majority non-white immigration.  This is not a new phenomenon.  And yet who do Trump and his MAGA lot cast as these undesirables?  Not people from Denmark or Sweden, AKA the “good immigrants”.  Rather, people from Haiti, or Venezuela, or Central America, or even Mexico.  People forget that the Irish were called the “blacks of Europe” when they were immigrating in large numbers in the 19th century and that Italians (and other southern Europeans) were initially stereotyped as dumber and lazier and later as criminals or mafioso.  They were coming to take the jobs, the land, and the wealth of native-born Americans (itself a ridiculous concept as George Carlin so eloquently explained).  So these facile, stupid, and baseless stereotypes of immigrants have persisted for centuries among those who fear them or those to whom this fear can be manipulated for political gain (a practice that is centuries old).

So why end birthright citizenship now?  For starters, it’s an easy campaign promise to fulfill, and an action (albeit wholly and demonstrably unconstituitonal) that panders to MAGA world.  End anchor babies and your problems will go away.  The good jobs will come back. Just don’t pay attention to the tariffs which will explode inflation nor the redux on tax cuts for the rich which will spike inequality.

But I believe there’s an even more insidious motive at the heart of this drive to end birthright citizenship.  If you don’t get your citizenship by being born in America, who determines who is a citizen and who is not?  What is the criteria?  And who designs that criteria?  In the absence of birthright citizenship, it would fall to Congress to craft the definitional legislation and to the judicial and executive branches to interpret and enforce these decisions.  If you think immigration is a polarizing issue, what will happen when the federal government gets to decide who is and who is not a citizen?

The same people who brought you voter discrimination, strict gender definitions, and corporations as citizens will pursue the narrowest definition of “American” possible.  They will want to tell you that an American is white.  And is Christian.  And speaks English.  Will there be a language test?  An ethnicity test?  A loyatly pledge?  Or all of the above?  That is how these things start.  Perhaps you think I’m being sensational and overly dramatic.  But underestimate the insidious nativist motives of people like Stephen Miller at your own peril.

Make no mistake about it, they are coming for our citizenship.  To try to define who and what is American.  Being a patriot is not doning a red cap and mooing with the rest of the herd.  And it’s certainly not invading the Capitol when things don’t go your way.  It’s fighting to safeguard democracy and protecting the rights of innocent Americans.  And I can think of no more innocent American than the newborn baby, born to recent immigrant parents who, whether Donald Trump likes it or not, is an American.  A full citizen with all of the rights that distinction implies (as the 14th Amendment says).  And that baby will undoubtedly grow up to be more patriotic, and have a deeper understanding of what it means to be American, than that fascist fuck will ever know.