Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship

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Molly Jong-Fast @MollyJongFast
Alexander Porter Morse, a Confederate officer during the Civil War and a Louisiana attorney, argued for legalized segregation in the landmark 1896 Supreme Court case that established the “separate but equal” doctrine and buttressed Jim Crow laws.
He is again playing a key role in a monumental case to be argued before the justices Wednesday: The Trump administration has tapped Morse as an authority in its push to upend long-settled law that virtually everyone born in the United States is a citizen.
Over a century ago, Morse was among a trio of thinkers who spearheaded a failed effort — steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism — to erase birthright citizenship. The Trump administration is reviving their arguments to make its case today, some legal scholars say.


___The Trump administration argues the 14th Amendment does not apply to people in the country illegally or on temporary visas. If the high court agrees, and reverses the long-held interpretation, it could render hundreds of thousands of children born to immigrant parents stateless.

The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War to ensure that the formerly enslaved and their children could become citizens. The amendment overturned the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship to Black people.

Trump administration attorneys cite Morse in their Supreme Court brief to argue the disputed idea that commentators in the 19th century widely agreed that the Constitution “exclude[s] the children of foreigners transiently within the United States” from qualifying for citizenship.

In addition to opposing birthright citizenship, Morse also advocated for limiting the other reconstruction amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed Black people the right to vote.

read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/30/trump-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-case/

[D_Master81]

1. Totally on brand

This checks out. Not surprising at all

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. The man behind Donald Trump's push to end birthright citizenship (suspended attorney John Eastman)

John Eastman has been advancing his fringe interpretation of the 14th Amendment for decades.

The man behind Donald Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T14:08:51.193Z

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/31/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-john-eastman-00851127

Long before John Eastman helped devise Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, he had another pet cause: ending birthright citizenship.....

Yet, when Trump signed his order on the subject last year, he made no mention of the former law school dean and Supreme Court clerk’s long advocacy for the cause. And while the Justice Department’s public briefs closely track Eastman’s arguments, they don’t cite his writings or acknowledge his role as the theory’s leading evangelist.

“This is his issue,” said Linda Chavez, a longtime conservative activist and senior Reagan White House official who has sparred publicly with Eastman on the subject. “I’ve known John forever and this has been a bee in his bonnet for as long as I’ve known him.”....

Eastman has been advancing his fringe interpretation of the 14th Amendment since 2005, racking up more than 100 op-eds, interviews, law review articles, debates, speeches and legislative hearings.....

And Eastman is still battling the fallout from the 2020 election. He helped concoct the theory that Trump could cling to power by having Vice President Mike Pence refuse to count some states’ electoral votes. That didn’t persuade Pence, but did score Eastman a speaking role at Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 rally on the Ellipse, where Eastman aired unproven claims of election fraud.

He subsequently lost his professorship at Chapman University and has been suspended from practicing law in California. He’s appealing a decision calling for his permanent disbarment in that state.

Eastman needs to be finally disbarred. This asshole is a disgrace to the legal profession.