President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump’s self-appointed handmaiden, Rep. Andy Barr, being perennially sensitive to the whims of his master, has officially joined the campaign to eject as many brown people as possible from within the nation’s borders.
Trump has regularly groused about those here as a function of birthright citizenship – individuals born in the United States to parents who were undocumented at the time. Having dispatched the goons from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to purge the nation of the millions who crossed over without proper authorization, the Lord of Mar-a-Lago desires to deliver similar treatment to those with birthright citizenships.
Trump has signed an executive order intended to terminate the citizenship of anyone born to parents who were at the time unlawfully in the U.S., as well as those born to parents who were temporary visa holders, including those maintaining student, work, or tourist visas.
Now under the U.S. Constitution, at least for the moment, those folks are as much citizens of the good, ol’ USA as your usual, foul-mouthed, flag-waving and gospel-believing MAGA devotee. Trump wants them to be determined otherwise and has carried the issue to the Supreme Court, which in its current formulation, thanks in large measure to the efforts of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, seems determined to provide the sociopath at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. everything his little heart – emphasis on little – desires.
And there’s ol’ Andy, willing and able as always to debase himself in service to his supreme being – Donald J. Trump.
Barr, R-Lexington, is plotting to sponsor a constitutional amendment to undermine the clear language in the founding document and assure that brown people born here to undocumented parents are unceremonious given the old heave-ho.
You see, that venerable, ancient document, the U.S. Constitution, contains language in the 14th Amendment that states, “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.’’ That has been taken for some years now to mean if you were born on U.S. soil, then, by God, you are a U.S. citizen regardless of the pedigree of your parentage.
Trump, for whatever reason his malignant brain might conjure up, thinks that’s an outrage and wants the high court to side with his repugnance. The justices, who in recent months have displayed a resolve to scrap any and all efforts to hold the executive accountable, thus rendering him the first among supposed equals in the judicial and legislative branches, might just do so. In one recent ruling involving birthright citizenship, the court determined that district courts can’t impose an injunction prohibiting Trump from working his will, raising questions about the court’s ultimate intent.
But the court fiddling may take a while as it searches for an exit ramp to avoid having to deal with those humbling precedents that designate these folks as citizens. Enter Andy and his proposed Protecting American Citizenship Amendment, which would potentially, for lack of a better term, “uncitizen’’ a whole slew of folks who have presented themselves as citizens at least since July 9, 1868, the day the 14th Amendment was ratified.
“I applaud SCOTUS for limiting injunctions, but we cannot wait on ending birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants,’’ Barr said in a statement. “I’ll be introducing a Constitutional Amendment in Congress immediately to put an end to this debate and end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants once and for all.’’
Talking to reporters outside the Capitol recently, Barr said, “If you come to this country illegally, then obviously the constitution would reflect there would not be a birthright citizenship for someone who is being rewarded for breaking our laws.”
He followed up that word salad with this: “We’re a nation of immigrants but we’re also a nation of laws. We want legal immigration. We don’t want illegal immigration that threatens our homeland or poisons (it).”
Now, that’s a lot of lunacy to cover, which should come as no surprise since Andy is involved. But first let’s pose a question: When was the last time Garland Hale Barr IV uttered a statement that displayed so much as an independent thought?
Every statement Barr has proffered for months is issued with the intent of gaining daddy’s approval. Daddy of course, being Trump. He’s even acknowledged that to a degree, maintaining that, “We must fight on every front and do whatever it takes to help President Trump protect America.”
Yeah, you bet.
At age 51, shouldn’t Andy have progressed beyond daddy issues, I don’t know, 20 or 30 years ago? Yet everything he says seems intended to draw a loving smile and a pat on the head from his idol. Now it could be Andy is just cuddling up to the old codger in order to capture an endorsement for his campaign for the Senate in 2028. But, good lord, can he possibly stage a winning campaign simply by seeking daddy’s approval?
Regardless, just how many folks living in the states might find themselves, to paraphrase Edward Everett Hale, people without a country, is unknown, although it could run into the millions. About 20 to 25 percent of births annually in the U.S. involve foreign-born mothers, but some of them may have gained citizenship in the interim, some of the fathers might be U.S. citizens and some of the families might never intend for their offspring to exist as U.S. citizens.
The public appears torn, a situation it constantly finds itself in these days. The Pew Research Center, in a poll conducted in April, found that 50 percent of those questioned believe people born in the United States to parents who immigrated illegally should have U.S. citizenship while 49 percent say they should not.
Which draws the question: What is the harm of letting these folks retain their citizenship and continue living here as they presumably have their entire lives? Like the Dreamers — and I hate that appellation — who entered the country undocumented as small children, they have become a part of the nation’s fabric. Living here is the only country many have ever known and they call it home.
What are you going to do, Andy, ship them off to South Sudan, which is in the midst of a civil war? Send them to some detention center in a Florida swamp so that moron Trump can laugh at the thought of them being eaten alive by alligators if they tried to escape?
Quit thinking about how they got here and start thinking about what they do here.
All signs indicate immigrants born here, not born here, documented, undocumented, are punching above their collective weight, contributing to the national economy and adding to the culture.
So, hell yeah, Trump and Andy say, let’s throw them all out.
It’s not like, in the womb, they decided to pack up bag and baggage and scrip and scripage and cross the Rio Grande. They were not consulted in the move. They were just born here and there’s no reason to punish them simply because they were born here.
Evidence is Andy, requiring daddy’s approval, has changed his mind on this whole shebang. In October 2018, after acquiring Trump’s endorsement in his House re-election campaign, said he actually differed with his savior on this point.
“I don’t think we need to change the constitution, I think we need to secure the border,” Barr told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
That was then and, with a Senate seat in the offing, this is now.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.