On February 15, 2025, two law professors dropped a legal bombshell. Just three weeks before, President Donald Trump had signed an executive order attempting to unilaterally deny birthright citizenship to the children of visa holders and undocumented immigrants despite the Constitution’s clear mandate that virtually everyone born on US soil is an American citizen. In quick succession, four federal district court judges blocked the order, with one deeming it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Into this righteous consensus rode Ilan Wurman, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, arguing in the pages of the New York Times that, actually, Trump might have a point.
Legal scholars and historians reacted with horror, not because the article, co-written with Randy Barnett of the Georgetown University Law Center, had uncovered some secret truth that would crack the traditional view of universal birthright citizenship, but because their argument against this cornerstone of American democracy was deceptive. Critics decried Wurman and Barnett’s case as “wrong and dangerous,” pointing to their misreading of historical sources and reliance on evidence that contradicts their thesis. One constitutional law professor went so far as to call their op-ed “hackery by amateur historians who misstate the legal history and twist their own argument.” He and others warned that the article’s revisionist arguments and prominent platform risked leading the public to falsely believe that there was a serious debate at play.
Despite its glaring flaws, the Times opinion piece was the opening round in what would be a year-long campaign to upend conventional wisdom, muddy the truth, and ultimately help the Trump administration’s radical anti-immigrant agenda across the finish line at the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, when the justices hear oral arguments over the president’s effort to rewrite the Constitution and limit birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, the position advanced by Wurman and a handful of controversial legal scholars will get its day in court.
Same playbook invented by the tobacco industry in the 60s. Find a hack that will say something that sounds like it supports your advantage, despite everybody else in the field saying the opposite. Present it as a genuine debate taking place.
Only that, this time, everybody can read the plain meaning of the text, and the final goal is much more far-reaching than just preventing the children of non-citizens from getting citizenship by birth.
One judge called it the easiest decision he’d ever had to make. Can’t wait to see what the mighty law scholars of the Supreme Court will decide.
If they actually wanted to lower immigration rates they would help to make the countries these immigrants are coming from better places. So much so that there wouldn’t be a desire to find a better life in the U.S.
Just like if they REALLY wanted to stop people coming here illegally to work they would go after the companies knowingly employing the illegal workers instead of the workers themselves. If they REALLY wanted to lower teen pregnancy they would provide robust sex-ed classes and free contraception instead of preaching abstinance-only.
It’s so depressing for me, we already have solutions that have even been shown effective in other states. Yet we simply will not do them.
Because, as usual, the stated goal is a lie.
Exactly. Fascists very rarely operate in good faith.
This article highlights the real problems with these originalist philosophy: they are bad historians. These are legal experts and have lots of skills in this area but none in historical research. They cherry pick bad sources to make their point. Real historians could be useful but that are never consulted
This shouldn’t be the point of overturning laws based on obscure laws and notes from hundreds of years ago. It’s ridiculous
It’s worse than that. Any historian will tell you that the work of historians is basically gathering clues and hints to piece together a coherent story that fits all the data. Which is fine, except when you’re using that story to interpret legal doctrine. The very foundation of originalist philosophy, that we should interpret law according to history, is flawed because history can never be perfectly known or understood. We might have extremely good data and knowledge, we might have a NEARLY perfectly accurate story of what happened. But “nearly” isn’t enough, and it’s that very flaw that fascists use to exploit originalist philosophy to push their own agenda.
That’s true that there’s isn’t one “truth” but there are things more true than others. That is the problem is if you come with an agenda you can cherrypick to get the history to match what you want
These are legal experts and have lots of skills in this area
Nah, they’re hack idiots who couldn’t reason their way out of a haunted house and cover up that fact by just throwing fancy words and empty latin phrases at stuff until normal people just give up and assume they must be smart and serious people. Translate their arguments to 8th grade English and they sound dumb as shit because they are dumb as shit.
Its interesting how the left who want a social safety net and a minimum wage now desire illegals and high levels of immigration. Even Bernie Sanders had once called it a plan by the Koch Brothers to debase salaries and undermine unions.
After the inflation it was done in many countries to cease wage pressure, as inflation causes wage pressure via more consumption of goods and high demand, on account of the grown money supply.
By debasing the salaries you entrench the created asset inequality and prevent cost of living adjustments from keeping pace with inflation, which the left then bemoan and call the rich greedy; as if they were the ones debasing their workers salaries and inflating their own asset values.
Except your whole argument requires migrants to still be getting paid sub-minimum wages and denied access to the social safety net which obviously isn’t something anyone left of center supports. Instead of advocating for the state to harass poor brown people yet again why don’t you direct some of your rage towards the employers who profit off of their exploitation instead.
Why wouldn’t an illegal be paid less than minimum wage, that’s the entire point of hiring them.
I don’t dispute that the US Constitution puts birthright-citizenship on good footing.
I’m disputing that citizenship is binary: that’s the wrong principle.
Irresponsible-citizenship & responsible-citizenship NEED to be treated differently.
I consider Bernie Sanders a US Hero, but Trump I wouldn’t allow to vote, given his behaviors.
Graduated-citizenship ought be a real thing.
Not responsible? No vote.
Not accountable? No election/authority.
Enemy-agent? No citizenship.
_ /\ _
You are saying it’s okay for you to be stripped of your rights by others. It doesn’t matter who is on what side, it will eventually be seized by a Trump style cruelty leader who uses it to strip the wrong people of rights.
Think it through from the perspective of people who capture the government for personal use. Whenever the right gets into office it always becomes personal.
Jim Crow 2.0
Bait so bad even downvoted itself
I think we should limit votes to people* who own no less than 10000 acres of arable land.
*men
that is one of the best things about the constitution. we can and have changed it.
No.
citizens repect the constitution, patriots defend the constitution, traitors violate the constitution.
