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MAGA DESPERATE TO PROVE SUPERMAN ISN’T AN IMMIGRANT BUT THE LAW IS
CLEAR  
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Joe Patrice
July 11, 2025
Above the Law
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_ There's no legal argument that Superman is anything but an
immigrant. _

,

 

There’s a new Superman movie out this week and it’s proving to be
the right-wing’s kryptonite.

In the lead up to the film’s release, the folks behind the movie
have been up front that it’s an immigrant story. This shouldn’t
come as a shock since the character is almost a century old and has
been an immigrant THE WHOLE TIME, but since the conservative movement
is just a bad-faith book club for people who never read the book,
they’ve launched a broadside against the movie.

What does that even mean? Orphans from other countries cease to be
immigrants? That’s would be news to the 3-year-olds defending
themselves in immigration court
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they were allowed social media in their cages. Is he making a scienter
argument that a child arriving in this country through no act of their
own deserves citizenship? The Fifth Circuit disagrees
[[link removed]]. But
even DACA is about a path to legal status… they’re still
immigrants.

As an aside, imagine being Steeze and knowing that no matter what
vile, insipid garbage you put out, you’ll never even be the most
vile or insipid _Stephen Miller_ out there. That’s got to be
rough.

Superman’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, drew upon their
experience as the children of Jewish immigrants, unveiling an American
hero who came to the country as a refugee. It’s a message that hit
hard in the late-1930s as American nativism closed doors on European
Jews trying to flee. That the purest expression of all-American
idealism is an immigrant is the core of the character — he’s
compelling because he’s America’s savior not because he was born
here, but because he believes in what “here” can be. Stripping the
character of that context is like having Peter Parker’s Uncle move
to Boca and die of old age.

It’s one thing to not understand the character, but — the even
greater sin — it doesn’t make any sense _legally_.

Clark Kent was not born in the United States. Neither of his parents
were citizens. He arrived as an undocumented, unaccompanied minor.

That sure seems like an immigrant under all applicable laws. The Kents
took on the job of raising him, adoption doesn’t automatically
confer citizenship
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Even if the Kents tried to go through the legal process of adopting
him instead of just lying about it. If they’re just sponsoring an
undocumented minor, they’d best watch their back because the Trump
administration has begun a systematic crackdown on those sponsors too
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ostensibly for child safety — looking to separate kids from their
caregivers and then… _oops, there’s no one to watch them so
it’s time to send them back_!

Where would they even send Clark with Krypton gone? Well, South Sudan
is lovely this time of year
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Clark could potentially benefit from the Foundling Statute — 8 U.S.
Code § 1401(f) — providing that anyone of “unknown parentage
found in the United States while under the age of five years” is
presumptively a U.S. citizen unless proof of being born elsewhere is
established prior to turning 21. But the proverbial ship on that one
sailed when the Kents found his literal ship. It’s a difficult
presumption to maintain when you’re holding the kid’s interstellar
Uber in the barn.

And the Foundling law is predicated on birthright citizenship —
since it turns on the idea that a 4-year-old in the country was
probably born here and therefore a citizen — and the same people who
don’t want Superman to be an immigrant aren’t too crazy about
birthright citizenship. There’s actually a dumb alternate Superman
origin where his escape pod was actually a birthing module, meaning he
was actually “born” in Kansas. Randy Barnett and Ilan Wurman are
already working on the op-ed explaining why that shouldn’t matter
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Oh, Superman is an asylum seeker? Great point. The administration is
nabbing asylum seekers from court hearings and disregarding orders
barring deportation. He has nowhere to go back to? DHS is happy to
find a third country for him… indeed, they won’t even let him seek
asylum without checking in with another country first
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He has unique talents that benefit the country as described by the
EB-1A visa? That requires _pre-existing_ acclaim in the
candidate’s specific field. DHS requires the immigrant to show up
with an Oscar or a Pulitzer in hand to qualify (seriously, those
are specific examples from the USCIS website
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didn’t have pre-existing acclaim as a baby. As a baby he was just a
potty training nightmare for the Kents. And as for his talents outside
of superpowers, I think Lois is the one winning a Pulitzer, not Clark.
But at least Travis is _trying_ to make MAGA accept immigrant
Superman instead of reject him out of hand.

But what he doesn’t get is that they don’t _want_ to accept an
immigrant. Now that they’ve thrown off the hood — or put it on as
the case may be — and decided good immigrants don’t exist unless
mail-ordered by an incel. The assimilationist narrative that Travis
wants has always been there for Superman too, but what’s raising
conservative hackles is they don’t want assimilation, they just want
them out. So they’re tying themselves in knots trying to figure out
how the last son of Krypton is really a son of Kansas because they
don’t want EB-1A Clark Kent, they need him to _not be an immigrant
at all_. And there’s no good argument for that.

And just wait until they hear about his cousin Kara chain migrating.

_JOE PATRICE [[link removed]] IS A SENIOR
EDITOR AT ABOVE THE LAW AND CO-HOST OF THINKING LIKE A LAWYER
[[link removed]]. FEEL
FREE TO EMAIL
[[link removed]] ANY
TIPS, QUESTIONS, OR COMMENTS. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER
[[link removed]] OR BLUESKY
[[link removed]] IF YOU’RE
INTERESTED IN LAW, POLITICS, AND A HEALTHY DOSE OF COLLEGE SPORTS
NEWS. JOE ALSO SERVES AS A MANAGING DIRECTOR AT RPN EXECUTIVE SEARCH
[[link removed]]._

_Above the Law takes a behind-the-scenes look at the world of law. The
site provides news and insights about the profession’s most colorful
personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original
commentary on breaking legal developments. Above the Law is published
by Breaking Media
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* Superman
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* Immigration
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* immigration law
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