Yesterday, Trump swore to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," which requires him to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed. " Russell Contreras at Axios:
President Trump has signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. — a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and affirmed by the Supreme Court more than 125 years ago.
Why it matters: Trump is acting on a once-fringe belief that U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants have no right to U.S. citizenship and are part of a conspiracy (rooted in racism) to replace white Americans.
The big picture: A coalition of civil rights and civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit on Monday night in an effort to halt the executive order.The order is also expected to face legal challenges from state attorneys general since it conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and the 14th Amendment — with the AGs of California and New York among those indicating they would do so.
Context: Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment was passed to give nearly emancipated and formerly enslaved Black Americans U.S. citizenship."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," it reads.
Zoom in: Trump signed the order on Monday, just hours after taking office.
Reality check: Thanks to the landmark Wong Kim Ark case, the U.S. has since 1898 recognized that anyone born on United States soil is a citizen.The case established the Birthright Citizenship clause and led to the dramatic demographic transformation of the U.S.
The Founding generation believed that oaths have consequences, binding those who took them to a course of action. And so, in the summer of 1787 delegates to the Constitutional Convention knew from the outset that whatever they came up with would include oaths. The famous “Virginia Plan,” a 19-point checklist offered up as a starting point for debate, proposed that all governmental powers within the states “be bound by Oath, to support the articles of Union.”
The final text mentions oaths three times. The Bill of Rights would add one more mention, the 14th Amendment yet another. Article VI of the Constitution empowers Congress to draft an oath for every single officeholder in the nation — federal, state and local — which they did immediately. The first thing signed into law by Washington was the Oaths Act. Every elected or appointed government official in a state or federal role would henceforth “solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”
That oath was hugely important. Though it was rewritten by Congress in the wake of the Civil War, as Americans grappled with allowing former Confederates into federal service at all, that oath of office is still with us, for public servants low and high. I took it when I began work at the Library of Congress, incoming Vice President JD Vance will, too, and millions more have spoken the same words.
But only the president takes an oath written into the Constitution. A first draft had the incoming president swear simply to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States of America.” The last two words disappeared as the oath took shape, with James Madison and George Mason adding “and will to the best of my judgment and power, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
It sat that way until the closing days of the Convention. Washington’s copy, marked up as it received its final changes, shows him scratching out the words “judgment and power” and writing in the word “Abilities” (the final version actually used the word “ability”), a change the delegates must have made for concision, and the text was complete. He would be the first to speak those words.
