RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/01/when-laws-are-

What makes citizens obey the law is not always their sterling character. Instead, fear of punishment—the shame of arrest, fines or imprisonment—more often makes us comply with laws. Law enforcement is not just a way to deal with individual violators but also a way to remind society at large that there can be no civilization without legality.

Or, as 17th-century British statesman George Savile famously put it: “Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.”

In the modern world, we call such prompt, uniform and guaranteed law enforcement “deterrence,” from the Latin verb meaning “to frighten away.” One protester who disrupts a speech is not the problem. But if unpunished, he green-lights hundreds more like him.

Worse still, when one law is left unenforced, then all sorts of other laws are weakened.

The result of hundreds of “sanctuary cities” is not just to forbid full immigration enforcement in particular jurisdictions. They also signal that U.S. immigration law, and other laws by extension, can be ignored.

The presence of an estimated 12 million or more foreign nationals unlawfully living in the United States without legal consequence sends a similar message. The logical result is the current caravan of thousands of Central Americans now inching its way northward to enter the United States illegally.

If the border was secure, immigration laws enforced and illegal residence phased out, deterrence would be re-established and there would likely be no caravan.

Campus protests often turn violent. Agitators shout down and sometimes try to physically intimidate speakers with whom they disagree.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-case-against-birthright-citizenship-1541025425

President Trump accomplished something remarkable this week: He sent his harshest critics and closest allies running to the Constitution. In an interview about immigration, the president argued that the “ridiculous” policy of birthright citizenship has to end—and that he can do it through an executive order.

In response, Democrats and Republicans alike have raised the banner of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.” They claim this means anyone born in the U.S. has a constitutional right to citizenship. But a closer look at the language and history shows this is not the Constitution’s mandate and should never have become national policy.

The crucial phrase is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” As originally understood when Congress proposed the amendment in 1866, that referred not merely to the obligation of following U.S. laws but also, and more important, to full political allegiance. According to Lyman Trumbull—who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a co-author of the 14th Amendment—being “subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else.”

That reading is supported by the 1866 Civil Rights Act, also written by Trumbull, which Congress passed over President Andrew Johnson’s veto before proposing the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court endorsed this reading in the Slaughter-House Cases (1872) and Elk v. Wilkins (1884).

Even when the justices expanded the constitutional mandate U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the decision cited as establishing birthright citizenship, they held only that the children of legal permanent residents were automatically citizens. The high court has never held that the clause confers automatic citizenship on the children of temporary visitors, much less of aliens in the country illegally.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/31/country-accepts-comers-isnt-country/

A group 7,000 strong marches northward toward our southern border. I confess to mixed feelings. We should give asylum-seekers a fair shot, since our compassion toward those in tough spots is a bedrock American value. However, we should reject the idea of inclusivity at all costs. That’s not just about national security, it’s also about culture.

Exclusivity is necessary for meaning, identity, and accountability. A constant refrain during the 2016 election cycle, and again with the caravan, is some iteration of the following: without borders, we don’t have a nation. Despite the flawed vessel, this obviously resonated, and it’s fair to say that while simple, the concept is profound.

Perhaps this resonated precisely because we’re in a time where basic questions about immigration and nationhood are in question. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee deputy chairman was seen wearing a shirt that said “I don’t believe in borders” in Spanish. Taking it at face value, it would appear that he doesn’t get the possibility that exclusivity and borders could actually give meaning and hold some cultural benefits.

The principle of exclusivity is critical to properly understanding relationships and institutions, and it is what allows for meaning, community, accountability, and some sense of identity. These are the things that allow a culture to form and flourish. Relationships or communities of real meaning require commonality. It can be commonality of interests, beliefs, values, covenant, or even simply time. This is true for institutions — marriages, families, friend groups, and nations.

Marriages are perhaps the most obvious example. With exclusion, the marriage works. It flourishes. It facilitates depth, vulnerability, accountability, and reliance. It allows for healthy sex and child rearing. Without exclusion, it is broken. It loses its essence and its unique character that provides reliability for the community. For families, and to a lesser extent friend groups, their power is in their exclusivity.

The idea that a nation should be exclusive is currently being challenged in the public mind and square. Why would a nation need to be based, as least in part, on a principle of exclusivity? It is because nations, not unlike families, need to have some sense of identity, even purpose. When a group of people is defined as everyone and anyone, that actually means that it is no one. If everyone comes and goes as he pleases, there is a void of identity, collective belonging, commitment, responsibility, and accountability. Citizenship is a commitment.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/its-not-unreasonable-to-be-worried-about-disease-and-the-caravan/

We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this problem.

We live in bizarro times. Suddenly, it is controversial to state obvious, neon-bright truths. This week, it has become newsworthy to observe that illegal border-crossers who circumvent required medical screenings are a threat to America’s public health and safety.

Just look at these hyperventilating headlines and tweets.

From Newsweek, which is supposed to, you know, report actual news of the week: “‘We don’t know what people have’: Laura Ingraham calls migrant caravan a health issue.”

And from the Daily Beast: “Fox & Friends Host Brian Kilmeade Fears ‘Diseases’ Brought by Migrant Caravan.”

This is not “news.” It’s propaganda recycled and regurgitated by lazy political operatives masquerading as journalists. At least the Newsweek writer gave credit to his zealous hitmen sources: “Ingraham’s comments,” he dutifully wrote, “were first highlighted by Media Matters for America.”

MMfA is a militant left-wing oppo-research outfit funded by progressive billionaire George Soros. Somehow, not-really-Newsweek forgot to mention this fact. (Alas, mentioning Soros subsidies has also become a forbidden act this week, but that’s another story.) The determined intent of these “news” pieces is not to inform readers but to inflame them with the dog-whistle assumption that conservatives, Fox personalities, and ordinary Americans who worry about diseases from immigration are de facto racists.

On cue, tennis star and celebrity leftist Martina Navratilova barked at Fox News’s Kilmeade on Twitter: “YOU ARE THE DISEASE! the migrants are not the problem, trump and his sycophants, like you, are the problem. Stop spewing fear and prejudice.”

Comedian John Henson tweeted: “Brian Kilmeade is spreading the disease of intolerance every single day . . .”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/would_the_american_left_suborn_an_invasion.html

Sometime in the 1960s, as I recall, a prominent person in the news made the sarcastic statement that if an enemy invasion army were to land on our shores, the ACLU would meet the soldiers on the beaches to protect their rights. The ACLU quickly protested, averring that, patriots all, they would do no such thing. Being a parody writer myself, I once wrote a fictional piece about the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) in which an ACLU lawyer sought an injunction against American armed resistance. He stated, “As soon as those Japanese aircraft entered American airspace, their pilots were entitled to the full protections of the United States Constitution, including the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.”

Today, we are living parody. A massive parade of foreign nationals is marching toward our border, its members openly proclaiming that they intend to illegally enter our country. They have already stormed and breached the southern border of Mexico in a glaring preview of their defiance of law, so they are clearly to be believed.

And where is the American political left? Are leftists decrying the violation of our national sovereignty? Are they demanding that our government protect its citizens from encroachment? Of course not. They are the parody. They of the left are seeking ways in which to prevent the administration from doing any of that.

This is President Trump’s PATCO moment. Remember that? Soon after President Ronald Reagan took office, in 1981, members of the unionized left organized a strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. They were adamant that their demands be met, or else PATCO would shut down all air traffic in the United States. Reagan gave the union members 48 hours in which to return to work or be irrevocably fired. You can’t do that, the striking controllers jeered. Twenty-four hours later, they were all fired, and not one of those who continued the illegal strike has been rehired. Shortly afterward, PATCO ceased to exist.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271766/trump-connects-dots-dangers-illegal-immigration-michael-cutler

President Trump has publicly expressed concerns about the nature and nationality of the individuals heading towards the U.S. in the supposed “Caravan of Migrants.” Consequently he ordered that the military provide active duty members of the Army to assist with efforts to secure the U.S./Mexican border.

Trump warned that embedded within that organized mob of foreign nationals are members of transnational gangs such as MS-13 and individuals from the Middle East who may be involved in terrorism.

The talking heads on the supposed “journalists” from the mainstream media, and such brilliant television personalities as the panel on the television program “The View” have derided the president, claiming that he had no justification for making those statements and, essentially accused him of lying to fire up his base of right wing conservatives.

In reality, President Trump is connecting the dots, but the globalists and the radical Left don’t like the picture that the connected dots create, so they attack him.

By now this tactic of attacking the President is not a surprise. If President Trump were to say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it is likely that the Radical Left would trot out a supposed astrophysicist who would find a way to claim that the President was wrong.

Each day the President is given a security briefing where he is provided with intelligence from the intelligence community. It is entirely likely that during those briefings the issue of the nature of the foreign nationals heading to the United States was a topic.

Of course I am only speculating about whether or not the President’s Daily Briefing has provided President Trump with information about the nature of the members of the caravan. What is not speculation is the fact that the Border Patrol has been encountering and arresting illegal aliens from countries from around the world who attempted to enter the United States without inspection when they were apprehended.

Additionally, my article, Congressional Hearing: Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S. addresses a hearing that was conducted on April 17, 2018 by the House Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee, on the topic, “State Sponsors Of Terrorism: An Examination Of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network.”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/birthright

In 1989, an illegal alien being escorted back to the border gave birth in an Immigration and Naturalization Service van. That child was an American, thanks to our granting citizenship to children born on U.S. soil—a generosity that also extends to children born on any one of 15 islands between the Philippines and Hawaii.

Our promiscuity with citizenship, however “generous” it may seem, effaces the salience of an institution central to the concept of nationhood. That is doubtless what President Trump had in mind when he told reporters from Axios that he intends to sign an executive order that would put a stop to America’s birthright citizenship policy.

The United States and Canada are the only two “developed” countries that retain unrestricted birthright citizenship laws. While many Latin American and Caribbean nations also maintain lenient naturalization laws, it is important to understand them in their historical context. Those laws came about not out of a liberal exigency to bestow citizenship onto foreigners, but rather as a mechanism of empire-building designed subdue indigenous populations by growing the number of Europeans in their midst. “The birthright laws in South America have remained due to low immigration numbers,” explains John Skrentny, a sociologist at the University of California, San Diego.

In other words, if Scots-Irish Americans began caravanning to Mexico, demanding jobs and welfare, and driving up crime rates, odds are good that Mexico would turn “nativist” and amend its constitution to decrease the liberality of their naturalization laws. Indeed, every other Western country that has experienced mass immigration has amended or repealed their naturalization laws in response.

The British did so beginning in 1962, responding to the mass migration of Indians, Poles, and Ukrainians. Parliament in 1981 passed the British Nationality Act, which made it “necessary for at least one parent of a United Kingdom-born child to be a British citizen, a British Dependent Territories citizen or ‘settled’ in the United Kingdom or a colony (a permanent resident).”

Similarly, the French responded to mass migration of Muslim North African immigrants by changing the law to require French-born children of immigrants to apply for citizenship before their 18th birthday. The law has since been eased somewhat thanks to liberal policymakers, but the French still restrict citizenship to children of foreign parents who, at the age of 18, have lived in France for five of the previous seven years.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ending-birthright-citizenship-donald-trumps-immigration-plan/

According to Axios, President Trump is gearing up to sign an executive order that would, in their words, “remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens born on U.S. soil.” There is some ambiguity in this formulation. Will the executive order in question limit birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens, or will it extend citizenship to the children of lawful permanent residents, as in the case of most market democracies that have revised their birthright citizenship rules in recent decades? It is not clear from the video clip provided by Axios on HBO.

In truth, Trump’s response to reporter Jonathan Swan’s question seems rather off the cuff. At first, the president explains that while he once thought bringing an end to automatic birthright citizenship — presumably for the children of any class of non-citizens born in the U.S., whether legally present or otherwise — would require a constitutional amendment, he has since been persuaded that a statute would do, or even an executive order. Pressed by Swan as to whether such an executive order was in process of being drafted, Trump confidently replied that “it’s in the process, it’ll happen.” Will it happen, though? I’m skeptical.

First, I should stipulate that I have in the past argued for an amnesty for the long-settled unauthorized-immigrant population that would be accompanied by a constitutional amendment that would do two things: (a) grant Congress the authority to revise the rules around automatic birthright citizenship and (b) allow naturalized U.S. citizens who are otherwise eligible to serve as president. I’ve since changed my mind.

Though an amendment along these lines would have a hard time clearing the high hurdles we rightly put in the way of new constitutional amendments, it struck me as a tough-minded but ultimately fair way to address a serious and legitimate concern often raised by critics of an expansive amnesty: that such an amnesty would encourage further unauthorized inflows, future unauthorized immigrants would form families in the U.S. (including native-born citizen children), and these mixed-status households have long been among the most sympathetic cases, as most Americans are, for good reason, reluctant to divide families. If mixed-status households are a barrier to stringent enforcement, revising the rules around automatic birthright citizenship seemed like a legitimate solution — indeed, a solution that has in the past appealed to partisans of more open borders.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-end-birthright-citizenship-by-executive-order/

On substance, I believe President Trump is right on birthright citizenship — the 14th Amendment does not require it. I do not believe, however, that the president may change the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has been in effect for decades, by executive order, as he is reportedly contemplating.

My friend John Eastman explained why the 14th Amendment does not mandate birthright citizenship in this 2015 New York Times op-ed. In a nutshell, the Amendment 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.” The highlighted term, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was understood at the time of adoption to mean not owing allegiance to any other sovereign. To take the obvious example, if a child is born in France to a married couple who are both American citizens, the child is an American citizen.

I won’t rehash the arguments on both sides. With due respect to our friend Dan McLaughlin (see here), I think Professor Eastman has the better of the argument. As I have observed before, and as we editorialized when Donald Trump was a candidate (here), this is a very charged issue, and it is entirely foreseeable that the Supreme Court (to say nothing of the lower federal courts teeming with Obama appointees) would construe the term jurisdiction differently from what it meant when the 14th Amendment was ratified.

For today, the more narrow question is: Assuming arguendo that the 14th Amendment does not require birthright citizenship, is our practice of conferring it merely an executive policy that the president has the power to change by executive order?

I don’t think so.