President Trump claims that birthright citizenship isn’t that: a birthright. He wants the authority to revoke the citizenship of U.S.-born children of immigrants here illegally and visitors here temporarily.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on birthright citizenship this spring. It will likely hand down a ruling by summer. Before the justices decide, they may want to cast their eyes over the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.
They will learn anew how inviolate birthright citizenship was to Paul when he entered Jerusalem. He had to invoke his Roman citizenship to save himself from flogging and torture. On another occasion, Paul used his rights as a citizen to demand a trial.
Here is what befell Paul in Jerusalem in Acts 22: 22-29:
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air,
24 the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.
25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”
26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I am,” he answered.
28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.
“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.
29 Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
In the 1st century, Roman citizenship could be had by birth, purchased or granted by the emperor. But citizens born to their status had something of an edge over those, like the commander, who had bought their citizenship.
A Roman citizen enjoyed many rights, which are also contained in the U.S. Constitution but are being ignored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are sweeping up people — some have turned out to be citizens and some have been deported in error.
These are the rights of a Roman citizen in the 1st century:
—Immunity from flogging and torture. These could be used to extract confessions, but were forbidden to be used against citizens.
—The right to a fair trial, which included the accused’s right to confront his accusers.
—The right to appeal directly to the emperor.
—Protection from degrading death, particularly crucifixion.
—Protection from illegal imprisonment. A citizen couldn’t be jailed if he hadn’t been convicted.
Trump is seeking a Supreme Court ruling to uphold his executive order (14161), ending universal birthright citizenship. The lower courts have restricted the order, and the president has asked SCOTUS to set that aside.
The 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship to any child born under the jurisdiction of the United States. But Trump’s executive order, according to the New York City Bar, “purports to limit birthright citizenship by alleging that a child born to undocumented parents is not ‘within the jurisdiction of the United States.’ It thereby posits that birthright citizenship does not extend to any child born in the United States to a mother who is unlawfully present or lawfully present on a temporary basis and a father who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.”
If Trump prevails, the unfortunate children will be unable to get birth certificates, register for school, receive healthcare or any public assistance. They must either seek citizenship from their parents’ country or, more likely, join the growing ranks of the world’s stateless people, punished for life for the crime of being born.
Victims to be exploited down through the decades of their lives.
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 4 million stateless people in the world, but that is a gross undercount, considering the number of refugees across Africa and in Latin America. War and drought are adding to the numbers daily.
If the justices want another biblical example, they may turn to the Old Testament and its several warnings that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children for generations. As Exodus 20:5 puts it, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.”
Those who support the Trump view may want to think about the iniquity they are promoting. No baby chooses where to be born, ever.