There is an attack being mounted against the principle that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, full stop. Are we to resurrect the dark days when some in our country were not granted equal rights, this time not African Americans but immigrants?
On the day he took office in January 2025, Trump issued an executive order that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children whose parents do not have permanent legal status. By taking the case Barbara v. Trump, the reactionary majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to help the President undermine our precious birthright citizenship.
This country has always fought over limiting citizenship by race. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted to protect the rights of everyone born on this soil. It overturned the horrid Dred Scott decision, where African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not citizens, even when born here.
This legal challenge goes hand in hand with relentless violence toward immigrants and is central to the MAGA agenda. It paves the way to authoritarianism over everyone. If birthright citizenship can be taken away from anyone, no one’s rights are safe. As in Minneapolis, solidarity of all in defense of all!
