The propaganda press exploits the lack of legal clarity about the issue to malign Trump as willing to stomp on the Constitution.
NBC’s Kristen Welker asked President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday if he still planned to end birthright citizenship. Trump affirmed his plans. But the way Welker deliberately misrepresented the amendment reveals not only a glaring need for clarification from Congress or the Supreme Court about whether children born to illegal aliens are citizens but the dangers of a press who are willing to craft law by word of mouth.
“You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one,” Welker said. “Is that still your plan?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Trump responded.
Welker responded: “The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote: ‘All persons born in the United States are citizens.’” Welker then asked if Trump will use “executive action” to circumvent the Constitution.
But that’s not exactly what the 14th Amendment says — though it may be what Welker and her other fellow Democrat propagandists wish it said. The media’s insistence on interpreting the 14th Amendment as a blanket guarantee of birthright citizenship fuels widespread confusion — but it’s deliberate. Take for example, that Politico’s Mia McCarthy reported Trump would have to “go around the 14th Amendment” to end birthright citizenship. CNN’s Daniel Dale wrote that the 14th Amendment says “someone born in the U.S. is granted automatic citizenship even if their parents are not citizens.”
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that.
What the 14th Amendment actually says is:
“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.”
As Elad Hakim wrote in these pages, “While opponents to Trump’s proposed action [to end birthright citizenship] opine that the constitutional language is cut and dry, this might not necessarily be the case.”
Welker and others left out the qualifying clause of the amendment, that is, the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Sen Mike Lee, R-Utah, pointed out “Those words matter.”
“Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof‘,” he said in a post on X. “While current law contains no such restriction, Congress could pass a law defining what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ excluding prospectively from birthright citizenship individuals born in the U.S. to illegal aliens.”Senators Debated This Exact Question
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to guarantee that formerly enslaved persons and their descendants would not be denied citizenship.
