Ending Birthright Citizenship Would Let ICE End Democracy

A radical conservative case currently before SCOTUS portends a terrifying political police state ready-made to deport political enemies

I haven't slept well in weeks, I'm sure I'm not alone in this. The images of ICE violence coming out of Minnesota are not only heartbreaking but truly terrifying. Thankfully, it seems like the Trump administration is at least in partial retreat.

Chief Trump administration goon Greg Bovino has been sent home to his station in California where he is expected to retire soon. There's rumblings that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem might be on her way out after the administration seemingly threw her under the bus for the PR disaster in Minnesota.

Now none of us should be foolish enough to believe that things are over in Minnesota, or that we won the war, now would be a perfect time for ICE to slip into the shadows and kidnap people away from the community defenders and cameras.

Here in Massachusetts, for example, after some initial public confrontations, ICE shifted to instead capture folks coming out of immigration hearings in courthouses to deport them.

These things have certainly occupied my brainspace during my recent insomnia, but what's really keeping me up at night is the upcoming birthright citizenship decision at the Supreme Court.

In essence, birthright citizenship means that if you're born in the United States, or in overseas territory owned and controlled by the US, you are automatically a citizen. This is how the vast majority of US citizens have their citizenship. I am a citizen because I was born here, you probably were too, though that's obviously not the case for everyone.

The concept has been baked into US law since the country's founding thanking to its roots in English common law, however, it didn't apply equally to everyone. Black people (both slave and free) were not conferred citizenship. Natives were similarly not considered citizens of the US when the country was founded.

The infamous Dred Scott SCOTUS decision affirmed this treatment of Black people, before the 14th amendment extended birthright citizenship to everyone born in the US in 1868.

Conservatives are now trying to overturn that precedent and get rid of birthright citizenship. They argue that pregnant undocumented migrants are crossing the border just to give birth and give their children citizenship. There's no evidence that this practice is an issue other than it potentially means more Brown people end up living in the US. It's only an issue if you're a racist.

Here is where some chud will trot out some statistics about crime or government assistance as if white people don't lead the country in both, by volume.

Having said all that, I don't really think the effort to overturn birthright citizenship is really about immigration, I think it is a critical step in building out the conservative authoritarian state.

Take a step back and think about it for a second. Let's use me as an example. I am a white person whose ancestors pre-date the republic in these lands. I also have great grandparents who were born in Ireland. But I'm also trans, a minority group that the current administration is actively trying to purge from American society.

Without birthright citizenship, what is stopping the administration from declaring that trans people are no longer citizens of the state? It's happened to other minorities in other countries. Could I then be deported to some Arab or Central Asian state with squishy laws around legalized slavery? That is what is already happening to many migrants who've been snatched off the streets by ICE.

Perhaps even more terrifying, what's to stop the administration from declaring that anyone who protests ICE a non-citizen? They've already smeared Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the two white people slaughtered by ICE agents this month in Minnesota, as domestic terrorists. It's not a giant logical leap to revoking their citizenship.

This would give ICE cart blanche to arrest anyone who shows up to resist or protest them. I mentioned this briefly in my last newsletter about how Republicans have built this current political movement, and again in this bonus segment to the Cancel Me, Daddy podcast, but the implications of losing this case are clear and terrifying.

The Republican party has already long engaged in denying the vote to Democratic Party constituencies. Revoking the citizenship of Democratic voters would be an easy way to deny the vote, since non-citizens do not have the right to vote. They wouldn't even need to deport us, we would just exist in this stateless status, unable to get a passport to leave the country and unable to vote to change the government.

It would be authoritarianism without even cancelling elections. You can't get voted out of office if your opponent's supporters aren't allowed to vote.

A normal Supreme Court would recognize this parade of terribles and the unconstitutionality of this case and rule to preserve birthright citizenship. But we don't currently have a Supreme Court. It is currently occupied by a majority of Republican party hacks with no qualms about forcing their view of society down everybody's throat, consequences be damned.

And so I will watch and read whatever decision they end up with. So should we all. A ruling the wrong way and there is no point in continuing this experiment of a United America. In the meantime, I will continue to lose sleep.

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