[bjnews.com/opinion]DIAO Daming: Trump Plan to Abolish “Birthright Citizenship”, Which Is the Intention of the Drunkard Lies Not On the Wine, But On Other Purposes

On October 30th, US President Trump once again spoke in an interview with the media: he will sign an executive order to overthrow the long-term "Birthright Citizenship" in the United States and completely abolish "landing nationality."

This statement is tantamount to throwing a blockbuster in the public opinion circles of the United States and the world, which immediately triggered a controversial response.

What is most puzzling is that in the face of the “Birthright Citizenship” clearly defined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Federal Constitution, Trump is not clear that his administrative order will be accused of unconstitutional? If he knows this, what is Trump plan?

Objectively speaking, although it sounds quite extreme, the abolition of "landing nationality" has long been proposed within the conservative camp in the United States, far from Trump's whim.

In the interpretation of immigration policy in the State of the Union Address in 2018, the Trump government publicly opposed the so-called "chain immigration", which is a chain reaction based on kinship, and eventually a US nationality may burst into a family immigration into the United States. This completely contradicts the concept of "relative immigration" in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, but it cannot contain the development trend of the US population diversification.

In other words, the high fertility rate of ethnic minorities such as Hispanics with legal or illegal provinces has make white Americans losing their majority in the next few decades, which is almost a foregone conclusion. As a result, the focus of all issues turned to the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Federal Constitution, which was ratified in 1868, that is, the rigid provision of American citizenship born in the United States.

If this rule is completely abolished, not only can the so-called “anchor baby” attracting chained family immigrants from the conservatives be removed, but at the very least, the current dominant position of whites can be maintained for as long as possible.

In this sense, Trump’s “fantasy theory” has a big market among conservatives. However, under the pressure of “political correctness” and “unconstitutional risk”, Republican politicians may not dare to disclose clamor.

Nowadays, Trump has broken the secrets and said political views that conservatives have been lingering in their hearts for a long time and want to say and dare not to say. This expression of "true temperament" will obviously consolidate the basics of the Republican Party in the midterm elections. As a result, there was a high-profile, like South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who immediately announced a high-profile response to the same subject legislation in the Congress and the Supreme Court.

However, from the reality of the political process, if Trump actually signs this administrative order, he will immediately face unconstitutional prosecution, and then enter the judicial process in full, and such a highly controversial issue is extremely easy to get to the Federal Supreme Court. Although the Federal Supreme Court has fully ensured the political dominance of conservatives after Cavalno's inauguration, it is not easy to get support for the administrative order that completely overturns the federal constitutional amendment.

And this may be what Trump wants to see: after losing the House of Representatives and entering the "squatting state", Trump can completely use the " Birthright Citizenship " dispute as a wedge issue, so as to firmly control the conservatives, especially the white voters, even launched a national political campaign to revise or even overthrow Article 14 of the Federal Constitution, thereby adding weight to its 2020 election agenda.

In other words, Trump is not at all convinced this time: what he really wants is actually to dominate the political agenda, and abolishing the "Birthright Citizenship" is not the first goal.

It is undeniable that even if these conservatives can finally “unplug” the so-called “anchor baby”, the development trend of legitimate population with American nationality will inevitably form the structure of a majority-free population. In this sense, any political figure, whether the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, should construct a more diversified structure of the country and policy system, rather than a meaningless counter-trend.

(The author is the research fellow of NADS and associate professor of the school of international relations RUC.)