Sometimes the most radical departures from constitutional principle happen under the illusion of protecting it.
That’s exactly what we’re seeing now in the legal chaos surrounding the Trump administration’s effort to end automatic birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.
A federal judge has blocked the executive order, citing potential "irreparable harm" to children who may lose citizenship.
But what’s being harmed most is the Constitution itself.
Because if you interpret the 14th Amendment as a blanket guarantee of citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil — regardless of their parents’ legal status — you are ignoring not just the original text, but the spirit of the amendment itself.
As I wrote in my May 2025 commentary for Newsmax, the 14th Amendment was never meant to be abused in this way.
It was written in the aftermath of slavery, to ensure former slaves and their descendants were recognized as full citizens of the United States.
It was not crafted to allow people who violate our immigration laws to then leverage our Constitution to their benefit.
The key phrase here is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."
That clause wasn’t just decorative. It was added for a reason — to clarify that only those who owed full, political allegiance to the United States were entitled to automatic citizenship.
This is where the modern interpretation has gone completely off the rails. Judicial activism, not textual fidelity, has expanded the 14th Amendment beyond recognition.
The courts have turned what was intended as a narrowly crafted provision of post-Civil War justice into a global entitlement program — one that incentivizes lawbreaking, creates perverse immigration incentives, and stretches public resources beyond reason.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a fringe concern.
According to some estimates, over 150,000 babies are born each year in the U.S. to illegal immigrants.
That’s not a rounding error.
That’s a systemic abuse of a constitutional provision meant for an entirely different purpose. And the cost isn’t just financial — although the burden on American taxpayers is staggering — the cost is also cultural and legal.
It erodes the very idea of citizenship as something meaningful, earned, and tied to shared responsibility.
This is where I find common cause with President Trump.
I don’t always agree with him on every issue, but on birthright citizenship he's absolutely right. His executive order, issued on day one of his second term, represents a bold attempt to restore constitutional sanity to our immigration system.
He's not revoking citizenship arbitrarily; he's restoring the original boundaries that the Founders and Reconstruction-era lawmakers put in place.
Even today, there is no law on the books that allows the children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants. As there was in Roe v. Wade 401 U.S. 113 (1973), there was only a U.S. Supreme Court ruling; there was no law there either.
Yet, for decades we were told it was "the law of the land."
The same holds true for birthright citizenship.
There's no law that grants it.
The closest we ever came to it was a Supreme Court ruling in 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), which said that a child born to non-citizen parents who were legally present in the U.S. was a U.S. citizen.
Again, this is not a law; it was a ruling.
No one seems to care about that or the fact that the authors of the 14th Amendment had the offspring of former slaves in mind when they authored it.
Unfortunately, those legitimate efforts to enforce Constitutional law are now being blocked by federal judges who have no business dictating immigration policy.
The Constitution assigns that power to Congress.
The president is given authority to enforce those laws. The judiciary’s role is to interpret the law — not rewrite it to align with progressive ideology or globalist sentiment.
What’s even more troubling is that these judicial blocks are being applied nationwide.
A single district court judge can now effectively overrule the elected executive and paralyze federal immigration enforcement.
This is not checks and balances.
It’s judicial tyranny.
And if it continues unchecked, it will render our constitutional system unworkable.
The recent CNN report covered the escalating legal and political battle over this issue.
Some states are suing the federal government, claiming the executive order is unconstitutional. But those lawsuits ignore a central point: the current interpretation of birthright citizenship itself is an unconstitutional distortion.
Perhaps more accurately, a bastardization.
It’s time for conservatives — and more importantly, constitutionalists — to speak clearly: no one has a "right" to manipulate the fourteenth Amendment for personal gain.
Citizenship should not be a reward for violating U.S. law.
And we must resist the emotional manipulation that often accompanies this debate.
It’s not heartless to defend the rule of law.
It’s not racist to want citizenship grounded in allegiance, not geography. It’s not cruel to expect that those who wish to become Americans follow the process legally.
I have always believed that immigration is a source of American strength — but only when it is lawful, orderly, and respectful of the system that makes America free.
That system is built on the Constitution, not on convenience.
As we move forward, Congress should act to clarify the meaning of the fourteenth Amendment. Legislation like the Birthright Citizenship Act would codify the original intent — that only those born to citizens or lawful permanent residents should receive automatic citizenship.
This would not eliminate naturalization.
It would not render people stateless.
It would simply restore the balance that was lost through decades of judicial overreach.
It’s important to note, however, that any new and settled interpretation of the 14th Amendment won’t automatically nullify or retroactively revise past applications of birthright citizenship.
Those cases — many of which have accumulated over decades — must be dealt with individually, often through separate legal or legislative processes.
The sheer scale of this challenge is staggering.
The amendment has been so bastardized over the years that it would require a herculean effort to sort through the multitude of existing examples —some of which involve high-profile individuals.
Republican voters must be mindful of this complexity.
Fixing the future is crucial, but the past is messier than many would like to admit.
In the meantime, President Trump’s executive order deserves support, not obstruction.
The president is doing what the courts refuse to do: defend the Constitution as written.
Ultimately, the question is this: do we want to be a nation of laws, or a nation of loopholes?
Do we believe citizenship means something — or is it just a participation trophy for being born in the right hospital?
I choose the former. And I believe most Americans — when given the facts — will too.
Let’s restore the fourteenth Amendment to its rightful place.
Let’s stop treating our Founding document like a game of semantic Twister.
Let’s once again affirm that American citizenship is a privilege — one that comes with duties, not just rights.
Jim Renacci is a former U.S. Congressman, businessman, and conservative leader dedicated to putting America first. Read More of His Reports — Here.
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