Birthright Citizenship - Letter to the Editor

Excerpt from the LTE:

The administration’s birthright executive order is just one piece of a coordinated attack on everyone born here, not just immigrant communities. This is not the first time that the president has flouted the U.S. Constitution and rule of law, but the idea that any
president believes he can dictate who is and is not an American is not only wrong, it is dangerous.

The fight to deem who is “worthy” of citizenship is as old as our nation and part of a long history of racism and exclusion. This included the Naturalization Act of 1790, which allowed only immigrants who were “free white persons” to become citizens, and the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to people of African descent.

If we are to believe in American exceptionalism, then we should believe that an America that fosters, nurtures and invites immigrant communities to thrive is exceptional. And if jus soli or “right of the soil” is an exception, as Rappaport suggests, I support America being exceptional.