To support his insane interpretation of the post-Civil War amendments as granting citizenship to the kids of illegal aliens Fox News Bill OReilly is now taking job applications for the nonexistent -- but dearly hoped-for -- Jeb! administration live during his show.
(Apparently my debate with OReilly will be conducted in my column Twitter feed and current bestselling book Adios America against the highest-rated show on cable news.)
Republicans have been out of the White House for seven long years and GOP lawyers are getting impatient. So now theyre popping up on Fox News airwaves competing to see who can denounce Donald Trump with greater vitriol.
Last Thursdays job applicants were longtime government lawyers John Yoo and David Rivkin.
In response to OReillys statement that there is no question the Supreme Court decisions have upheld that portion of the 14th Amendment that says any person any person born in the U.S.A. is entitled to citizenship ... for 150 years -- Yoo concurred claiming: This has been the rule in American history since the founding of the republic.
Yes Americans fought at Valley Forge to ensure that any illegal alien who breaks into our country and drops a baby would have full citizenship for that child! Why when Washington crossed the Delaware he actually was taking Lupe a Mexican illegal to a birthing center in Trenton N.J.
If one were being a stickler one might recall the two centuries during which the children of slaves were not deemed citizens despite being born here -- in fact despite their parents their grandparents and their great-grandparents being born here.
Wouldnt anyone who wasnt applying for a job in the nonexistent never-to-exist Jeb! administration remember slavery?
Incongruously Yoo also said The text of the 14th Amendment is clear about kids born to illegals being citizens.
Wait a minute! Why did we need an amendment if that was already the law -- since the founding of the republic!
An impartial observer might contest whether the amendment is clear on that. Clear would be: All persons born in the United States are citizens.
What the amendment actually says is: 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.
The framers of the 14th Amendment werent putting a secret trap door in the Constitution for fun. The jurisdiction thereof and state wherein they reside language means something. (Ironically Yoo -- author of the Gitmo torture memo -- was demonstrating that if you torture the words of the Constitution you can get them to say anything.)
At least Rivkin didnt go back to the founding of the republic. But he too claimed that the original public meaning (of the 14th Amendment which matters for those of us who are conservatives is clear: to grant citizenship to any kid whose illegal alien mother managed to evade Border Patrol agents.
Whomever that was the original public meaning" for it sure wasnt the Supreme Court.
To the contrary the cases in the first few decades following the adoption of the 14th Amendment leave the strong impression that it had something to do with freed slaves and freed slaves alone:
-- Supreme Court opinion in the Slaughterhouse cases (1873):
(N)o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments) lying at the foundation of each and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race the security and firm establishment of that freedom and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Ex Parte Virginia (1879):
The 14th Amendment was primarily designed to give freedom to persons of the African race prevent their future enslavement make them citizens prevent discriminating State legislation against their rights as freemen and secure to them the ballot.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880):
The 14th Amendment was framed and adopted ... to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons and to give to that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment whenever it should be denied by the States.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Neal v. Delaware (1880) (majority opinion written by Justice John Marshall Harlan who was the only dissenting vote in Plessy v. Ferguson):
The right secured to the colored man under the 14th Amendment and the civil rights laws is that he shall not be discriminated against solely on account of his race or color.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Elk v. Wilkins (1884):
The main object of the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment was ... to put it beyond doubt that all persons white or black and whether formerly slaves or not born or naturalized in the United States and owing no allegiance to any alien power should be citizens of the United States ... The evident meaning of (the words and subject to the jurisdiction thereof) is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. ... Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterward except by being naturalized ...
One has to leap forward 200 years from the founding of the republic to find the first claim that kids born to illegal immigrants are citizens: To wit in dicta (irrelevant chitchat) by Justice William Brennan slipped into the footnote of a 5-4 decision in 1982.
So to be precise what Yoo means by the founding of the republic and Rivkin means by the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment is: Brennan dicta from a 1982 opinion.
Perhaps if asked the Supreme Court would discover a constitutional right for illegal aliens to sneak into the country drop a baby and win citizenship for the kid and welfare benefits for the whole family. (Seventy-one percent of illegal immigrant households with children are on government assistance.)
But it is a fact that the citizenship of illegal alien kids has never been argued briefed or ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Yoo and Rivkin arent stupid. It appears that the most significant part of their analysis was Yoos legal opinion: I dont think Trump is a Republican. I think actually he is ruining the Republican Party. Please hire me Jeb!! (or Rubio)!
OReilly could get more reliable constitutional analyses from Columba Bush than political lawyers dying to get back into government.
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
To support his insane interpretation of the post-Civil War amendments as granting citizenship to the kids of illegal aliens Fox News Bill OReilly is now taking job applications for the nonexistent -- but dearly hoped-for -- Jeb! administration live during his show.
(Apparently my debate with OReilly will be conducted in my column Twitter feed and current bestselling book Adios America against the highest-rated show on cable news.)
Republicans have been out of the White House for seven long years and GOP lawyers are getting impatient. So now theyre popping up on Fox News airwaves competing to see who can denounce Donald Trump with greater vitriol.
Last Thursdays job applicants were longtime government lawyers John Yoo and David Rivkin.
In response to OReillys statement that there is no question the Supreme Court decisions have upheld that portion of the 14th Amendment that says any person any person born in the U.S.A. is entitled to citizenship ... for 150 years -- Yoo concurred claiming: This has been the rule in American history since the founding of the republic.
Yes Americans fought at Valley Forge to ensure that any illegal alien who breaks into our country and drops a baby would have full citizenship for that child! Why when Washington crossed the Delaware he actually was taking Lupe a Mexican illegal to a birthing center in Trenton N.J.
If one were being a stickler one might recall the two centuries during which the children of slaves were not deemed citizens despite being born here -- in fact despite their parents their grandparents and their great-grandparents being born here.
Wouldnt anyone who wasnt applying for a job in the nonexistent never-to-exist Jeb! administration remember slavery?
Incongruously Yoo also said The text of the 14th Amendment is clear about kids born to illegals being citizens.
Wait a minute! Why did we need an amendment if that was already the law -- since the founding of the republic!
An impartial observer might contest whether the amendment is clear on that. Clear would be: All persons born in the United States are citizens.
What the amendment actually says is: 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.
The framers of the 14th Amendment werent putting a secret trap door in the Constitution for fun. The jurisdiction thereof and state wherein they reside language means something. (Ironically Yoo -- author of the Gitmo torture memo -- was demonstrating that if you torture the words of the Constitution you can get them to say anything.)
At least Rivkin didnt go back to the founding of the republic. But he too claimed that the original public meaning (of the 14th Amendment which matters for those of us who are conservatives is clear: to grant citizenship to any kid whose illegal alien mother managed to evade Border Patrol agents.
Whomever that was the original public meaning" for it sure wasnt the Supreme Court.
To the contrary the cases in the first few decades following the adoption of the 14th Amendment leave the strong impression that it had something to do with freed slaves and freed slaves alone:
-- Supreme Court opinion in the Slaughterhouse cases (1873):
(N)o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments) lying at the foundation of each and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race the security and firm establishment of that freedom and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Ex Parte Virginia (1879):
The 14th Amendment was primarily designed to give freedom to persons of the African race prevent their future enslavement make them citizens prevent discriminating State legislation against their rights as freemen and secure to them the ballot.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880):
The 14th Amendment was framed and adopted ... to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons and to give to that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment whenever it should be denied by the States.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Neal v. Delaware (1880) (majority opinion written by Justice John Marshall Harlan who was the only dissenting vote in Plessy v. Ferguson):
The right secured to the colored man under the 14th Amendment and the civil rights laws is that he shall not be discriminated against solely on account of his race or color.
-- Supreme Court opinion in Elk v. Wilkins (1884):
The main object of the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment was ... to put it beyond doubt that all persons white or black and whether formerly slaves or not born or naturalized in the United States and owing no allegiance to any alien power should be citizens of the United States ... The evident meaning of (the words and subject to the jurisdiction thereof) is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. ... Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterward except by being naturalized ...
One has to leap forward 200 years from the founding of the republic to find the first claim that kids born to illegal immigrants are citizens: To wit in dicta (irrelevant chitchat) by Justice William Brennan slipped into the footnote of a 5-4 decision in 1982.
So to be precise what Yoo means by the founding of the republic and Rivkin means by the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment is: Brennan dicta from a 1982 opinion.
Perhaps if asked the Supreme Court would discover a constitutional right for illegal aliens to sneak into the country drop a baby and win citizenship for the kid and welfare benefits for the whole family. (Seventy-one percent of illegal immigrant households with children are on government assistance.)
But it is a fact that the citizenship of illegal alien kids has never been argued briefed or ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Yoo and Rivkin arent stupid. It appears that the most significant part of their analysis was Yoos legal opinion: I dont think Trump is a Republican. I think actually he is ruining the Republican Party. Please hire me Jeb!! (or Rubio)!
OReilly could get more reliable constitutional analyses from Columba Bush than political lawyers dying to get back into government.
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
