Who Get's to Be an American?

 On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump issued nine executive orders, all of which were either unnecessary, unwarranted, or unconstitutional. The sixth order announced—Executive Order 14160: Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship—besides being a misnomer, is the subject of this post.

First off starting  (as my grandmother used to say), a constitutional amendment cannot be repealed or rewritten by executive order. Only a new constitutional amendment—requiring two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states—can change an existing amendment. That has happened only once: the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

The primary problem with trying to end birthright citizenship is that 98 out of every 100 Americans can trace their lineage to someone who was not an American citizen, not born on American soil. That necessarily means that, without the concept of birthright citizenship, the only Americans whose citizenship couldn’t be questioned would be those descended from Indigenous peoples, whose presence predates the United States itself. Birthright citizenship is how nearly every American story begins.

The 14th Amendment, drafted after the Civil War, guaranteed citizenship to formerly enslaved people and declared that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens. For more than 150 years, it has been the bedrock of inclusion and belonging.

Donald Trump, however, falsely claims that it was meant only for the “babies of slaves.” Besides that being yet another example of his limited vocabulary and childlike understanding of things in general and the Constitution in particular, the idea is dangerously wrong. If constitutional meaning can be warped for political gain, then no right is safe. It sets a precedent for attacking other amendments, such as the 13th, which abolished slavery.

The Constitution is not a menu; it's not multiple choice. Rights are not optional or selectively applied; there is no line-item veto on the Constitution. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of it you want to follow. Doing so undermines the entire system. That’s not how democracy works.

Eliminating birthright citizenship wouldn’t stop immigration or fix the border. But it would create a stateless class of children, deepen social divides, and send a chilling message: that millions of people born here aren’t truly American.

This isn’t about border enforcement, it’s about control. It’s about drawing lines between "us" and "them." And with Trump, those lines keep shifting, because he keeps redefining who "them" is (I'm sorry, I misspoke, who the "thems" are).

America has thrived because it could absorb differences, offer opportunities, and extend belonging. Birthright citizenship isn’t just a legal status. It’s a declaration of our national character.

It isn’t broken. It’s the foundation.

And if we let anyone chip away at that foundation by executive decree, we risk more than a constitutional clause—we risk a constitutional crisis.

We risk losing the very idea of America itself.

I'm just saying.