Birthright citizenship is one of the "hallmark pieces of the American experiment," Jennie tells Sarah Matusek and Caitlin Babcock of The Christian Science Monitor.
Restricting or ending it, as President-elect Donald Trump has promised, "begins to unwind the definition of what it means to be American," she said.
The Citizenship Clause that opens 14th Amendment to the Constitution 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." In an NBC interview aired Sunday, Trump said, "We have to end it."
Legal experts are analyzing Trump’s options, as Kaia Hubbard and Kathryn Watson of CBS News report. "They are hoping they can convince a judge to overturn over 125 years of precedent and ignore the plain text of the 14th Amendment," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council told Syra Ortiz Blanes of the Miami Herald.
Daniel Urman, a Northeastern University law professor, said the amendment prevents a president — or Congress — from eliminating birthright citizenship, reports Tanner Stening of Northeastern Global News. The only way to change it would be for the Supreme Court to issue "a new reading of the law," Urman said.
For more on birthright citizenship, read Forum Senior Fellow Linda Chavez’s Q&A.
Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP. The great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Soledad Gassó Parker, Clara Villatoro and Becka Wall. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
BUSINESS STRAIN — Kate Rogers of CNBC is the latest to report on mass deportation’s potential steep costs to Americans. Sectors such as agriculture, health care and construction rely on immigrant workers, making some in these industries nervous for what the Trump administration’s plans could mean for business, she notes. "American companies are going to feel the strain," Jennie told Rogers.
MIXED-STATUS FAMILIES — Given that an estimated 4.4 million U.S.-citizen minors live with at least one undocumented parent, Trump’s plan for mass deportations gives the incoming administration two options, Aaron Blake analyzes in The Washington Post: "Either you somehow deport U.S. citizens, too, or you separate these families by sending the parents to another country." We’d add a third: Don’t prioritize such families for immigration enforcement.
BEYOND SECURITY — Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) focused on security during a Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce event Friday, reports Lionel Ramos of KOSU. But he also nodded to bipartisanship to address other challenges, including on asylum and other parts of immigration policy. "[T]hose things we hope to be able to bring in to say, let's actually finish out the negotiation, let's find 60 people again in the Senate that are willing to talk about this and see if we can actually get this resolved," he said.
SYRIAN REFUGEES — We’re watching this week's news from Syria with hope; it’s the country in the world with the most displaced people — well more than 13 million. On Monday, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called for patience for displaced Syrians, Reuters reports. "There is a remarkable opportunity for Syria to move toward peace and for its people to begin returning home ... ," Grandi said in a statement. "But with the situation still uncertain, millions of refugees are carefully assessing how safe it is to do so."
P.S. Thirty-four years ago, Francisco Coreas Arevalo arrived in the U.S. from El Salvador. At a Dallas City Hall ceremony Friday, he became a U.S. citizen alongside 30 other residents originally from 19 countries, Priscilla Rice of KERA reports.
