{"id":6481,"date":"2024-10-21T06:45:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T13:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/?page_id=6481"},"modified":"2024-10-21T10:50:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T17:50:30","slug":"some-things-for-black-folk-to-consider-before-voting-for-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/some-things-for-black-folk-to-consider-before-voting-for-donald-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Things for Black Folk to Consider Before Voting for Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dear Colleagues, this was inspired\u00a0by last week’s Black Space meeting. I’d be grateful for your thoughts\/comments.<\/div>
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In an\u00a0Agenda47 campaign video<\/a><\/u>, Donald Trump pledged to issue an executive order on the first day of his administration that would bar the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving natural-born U.S. citizenship status.<\/div>
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\u201cAs has been laid out by many scholars [sic], this current policy is based on a historical myth [sic] and a willful misinterpretation of the law by the open border advocates [sic]. . .As part of my plan to secure the border, on day one of my new term in office I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law [sic] going forward the future children of illegal aliens [sic] will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. . . .My order will also end their unfair practice known as birth tourism. . . . At least one parent will have to be a citizen or a legal resident in order to qualify.\u201d [1]<\/div>
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Although he views this as an immigration issue, Black people need to pay attention because the issue at hand is birthright citizenship, which has everything to do with us.

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m not a lawyer, and I don\u2019t want to write an extended exegesis on the history of birthright citizenship. The main point of that history, however, is that birthright citizenship was enshrined in the\u00a0Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution<\/a><\/u>:<\/div>
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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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [2]<\/div>
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This was one of the Reconstruction amendments that was ratified following the Civil War to guarantee citizenship to the four million African Americans who were freed from slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment (not the so-called \u201cEmancipation Proclamation\u201d, which did not apply to six states in the Union where slavery was allowed to persist throughout the war: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri). The definition of citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary to overturn the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in the\u00a0Dredd Scott v. Sanford<\/a><\/u>\u00a0decision that Blacks (including free Blacks) were not\u2014and were never intended to be\u2014citizens of the United States, and consequently \u201chad no rights which the white man was bound to respect\u201d [3]<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship in 1898 in the\u00a0U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark<\/a><\/u>\u00a0case [4], which held that the 1882\u00a0Chinese Exclusion Act<\/a><\/u>\u00a0[5] did not apply to Wong because he was born in San Francisco in 1873 to immigrant parents (significantly, his mother was allowed to immigrate to the U.S. prior to the passage of\u00a0the Page Act<\/a><\/u>\u00a0in 1875 that prohibited the immigration of East Asian women [6]), and thus a natural-born U.S. citizen.<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So why should Black people care about any changes to birthright citizenship? Prefatorily, I note that despite Donald Trump\u2019s intention to issue an executive order curtailing birthright citizenship rights, the Supreme Court in\u00a0U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark<\/i>\u00a0clearly stated that the Constitution gives Congress \u201cthe power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization\u201d (at 701), not the executive. Further, Justice Hugo Black in his concurrence in\u00a0Nishikawa v. Dulles<\/a><\/u>\u00a0stated, \u201cWhat the Constitution has conferred, neither the Congress, nor the Executive, nor the Judiciary, nor all three in concert, may strip away.\u201d [7] Thus, the ostensible order would be illegal and\u00a0most likely challenged in the courts<\/a><\/u>\u00a0[8], ultimately arriving at the Supreme Court for adjudication. But presuming the current Supreme Court were to uphold such an executive order, even a narrowly constructed reinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment would necessarily change the bases for citizenship in the United States, which begs the question: what would be the criteria for U.S. citizenship? It is the potential answers to that question that concern me.<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The\u00a01790 Naturalization Act<\/a><\/u>\u00a0limited U.S. citizenship to Whites only: \u201cBe it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof\u00a0\u201d [9]\u00a0Indigenous Americans<\/a><\/u>\u00a0were not granted citizenship until 1924. [10] The Chinese Exclusion Act wasn\u2019t\u00a0repealed<\/a><\/u>\u00a0until 1943. Similarly, exclusion of Asians from India and the Philippines didn\u2019t end until 1952. [11] What is to prevent the current Supreme Court from authorizing Congress to reconfigure birthright citizenship along these old lines? Could they restore and extend Roger Brooks Taney\u2019s decision in\u00a0Dredd Scott V. Sanford<\/i>\u00a0to all people in the U.S. who aren\u2019t White? Could they repeal the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act? Since we would no longer have the protections of citizenship, would we be subject to the extreme vetting, roundup, and deportation called for in\u00a0Project 2025<\/a><\/u>? [12] Or with the ostensible closing of the border and deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, would we\u2014now no longer citizens\u2014be forced to take on those jobs that the undocumented currently do and U.S. citizens don\u2019t want to do? Could they close off admissions to all higher education institutions to non-Whites by extending the\u00a0ban on race as a category for admissions<\/a><\/u>\u00a0to a ban on access to higher education for non-citizens? Or possibly reverse\u00a0Plyler v. Doe<\/a><\/u><\/i>, which would allow states to bar the children of undocumented immigrants from public schools? [13]<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The current Supreme Court has shown itself hostile to the principle of\u00a0stare decisis<\/i>, or respect for established judicial precedent. Thus, the possibility that they could review, reinterpret, and\/or reverse\u00a0Wong Kim Ark<\/i>\u00a0is not farfetched. Equally troubling are the implications stemming from the 2022\u00a0Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/i>\u00a0decision. [14] In his concurrence, Clarence Thomas argued that<\/div>
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Cases like\u00a0Griswold v. Connecticut<\/i>, 381 U. S. 479 (1965) (right of married persons to obtain contraceptives);\u00a0Lawrence v. Texas<\/i>, 539 U. S. 558 (2003) (right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts); and\u00a0Obergefell v. Hodges<\/i>, 576 U. S. 644 (2015) (right to same-sex marriage), are not at issue. . . . in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court\u2019s substantive due process precedents, including\u00a0Griswold<\/i>,\u00a0Lawrence<\/i>, and\u00a0Obergefell<\/i>. Because any substantive due process decision is \u201cdemonstrably erroneous,\u201d. . . we have a duty to \u201ccorrect the error\u201d established in those precedents. After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated.<\/div>
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Significantly, Thomas did not include\u00a0Loving v. Virginia<\/a><\/u><\/i>, which struck down state laws forbidding interracial marriage, more than likely because he is in one. [15]\u00a0At least one member of the Republican party<\/u>, however, did not have any reservations about including\u00a0Loving<\/i>\u00a0for reconsideration and return to the states.\u00a0[16]<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of the key principles underlying birthright citizenship is\u00a0ius soli<\/i>, or right of the soil, which privileges place of birth as the basis for citizenship. The dissenters in\u00a0Wong Kim Ark<\/i>, however, argued in favor of the principle of\u00a0ius sanguinis<\/i>, or right of blood, which privileges one\u2019s parentage as the basis for citizenship. A shift to\u00a0ius sanguinis<\/i>, as Trump\u2019s executive order would effect, would open the door to a return to the concept of\u00a0partus sequitur ventrem<\/i>, or the doctrine that a child\u2019s status follows the status of its mother. This is the doctrine that was enshrined into law by the\u00a0Virginia colonial legislature in 1662<\/a><\/u>\u00a0that effectively allowed White slave holders to rape their enslaved Black female and claim any children they bore as chattel property. [17] If we lose birthright citizenship based on birth in the territorial United States, as constructed by the Fourteenth Amendment and based on centuries of legal precedent dating back to English Common Law, what protections and legal recourse would Black women have against the sexual depredations of White men? This would effectively take us back not only to the days of Jim Crow where Blacks were second class citizens, but the time when \u201chad no rights which the white man was bound to respect.\u201d<\/div>
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so, Black folk, I say be careful what you vote for because you might get it. And a whole lot more.<\/div>
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Peace,<\/div>
Nick<\/span><\/div>
\u00a0<\/div>
Nicholas M. Creary, Ph.D.<\/div>
Institutional Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (JEDI) Officer<\/div>
Middlebury Institute of International Studies\u00a0<\/div>
217 McCone Bldg., 499 Pierce St.\u00a0<\/div>
Monterey, CA 93940<\/div>
831-647-3582<\/div>
ncreary@middlebury.edu<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Dear Colleagues, this was inspired\u00a0by last week’s Black Space meeting. I’d be grateful for your thoughts\/comments.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In an\u00a0Agenda47 campaign video, Donald Trump pledged to issue an executive order on the first day of his administration that would bar the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving natural-born U.S. citizenship status.\u00a0\u201cAs has been laid out by many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"hide","_kad_post_layout":"fullwidth","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"unboxed","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"hide","_kad_post_feature":"hide","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6481","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6481"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6498,"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6481\/revisions\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casteactionalliance.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}