'Alarm bells' ring as Trump resurrects racist arguments in major legal case: experts

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The 14th Amendment is clear to me and the arguments being raised by trump are weak. The authority cited by trump's DOJ is really weak.

'Alarm bells' ring as Trump resurrects racist arguments in major legal case: experts

— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-03-30T14:30:15Z

https://www.rawstory.com/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-2676636588

The Trump administration is relying on legal arguments developed by Confederate officers and 19th-century xenophobes to challenge birthright citizenship in a Supreme Court case expected to be decided by summer, drawing criticism from legal scholars who say the administration is recycling deeply racist historical precedents.

The administration's Supreme Court brief cites Alexander Porter Morse, a Confederate officer and Louisiana attorney who advocated for legalized segregation in the 1896 case that established the "separate but equal" doctrine that propped up Jim Crow laws, reported the Washington Post.

"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," the Post reported. "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 administration also relies on arguments from Francis Wharton, a legal scholar who wrote that Chinese immigrants were insufficiently "civilized," and George D. Collins, a San Francisco attorney whose career ended in scandal.

Lucy Salyer, a University of New Hampshire history professor, expressed concern about the administration's approach. "If you know the history and the broader context of what they were trying to achieve, it does ring alarm bells," she said.

[Gaugamela]

1. Hmm. "Insufficiently civilized". . .

?

[MustLoveBeagles]

7. This

[dalton99a]

10. +1

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. Krasnov just has to rely on his

19th-century confederate SCOTUS to back him up.

[LuvLoogie]

3. I shared this on my FB feed. This is my comment accompanying the post.

Alarm bells?

LOL. This was the core of what he ran on. It is his most popular policy among the MAGA. It's why most of them voted for him--six times. It's why he is still supported by 10s of millions of the real Americans calling themselves Christian Patriots. It is the engine that drives Manifest Destiny.

Alarm Bells?!

Y'all been hittin' snooze these last several centuries in the "Greater North America."

[spanone]

4. Born in the USA.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

[ChicagoTeamster]

5. Well even his past public statements on immigration, shithole countries, Peurto Ricans as immigrants, are racist

He knows Puerto Ricans are US citizens, he just dismisses them as not American out of racism. Same with the Obama birth certificate, the Central Park 5, and publicly saying that he wants more immigrants from Norway and Sweden. His white genocide in South Africa narrative for bringing white South Africans to the US was egregious but not surprising considering Trump took a lot of money from Musk and Thiel.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship

An argument heading to the Supreme Court is built in part on a post-Civil War campaign that scholars say was steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism.

Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship

An argument heading to the Supreme Court is built in part on a post-Civil War campaign that scholars say was steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

— Kathleen Bush-Joseph (@kathleenbush.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T11:34:12.673Z

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

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.....

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.

The campaign against birthright citizenship also relied on rising anti-migrant feelings. The push backfired in 1898 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a man born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco was a U.S. citizen, enshrining birthright citizenship as the law of the land.....

The justices ruled the 14th Amendment applied to Wong Kim Ark and virtually all people born in the United States. The precedent has stood for over a century and was infrequently challenged before Trump issued his executive order.....

CALDA also argues in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Trump administration “recycles” arguments by Morse, Wharton and Collins. It points out 19 instances in which the government’s brief cites the same treatises, cases, laws and legislative history as the Collins and government briefs in the Wong Kim Ark case.

trump is a racist and wants to deny citizenship to person born in the United States. trump has to cite theories from some racist assholes to support his argument. Hopefully the SCOTUS will reject this argument

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. 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.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Former Trump lawyer John Eastman arriving at the Supreme Court for the birthright citizenship debate.

This made me smile

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. 'Fidgeting' Trump had to be moved during Supreme Court hearing: ACLU attorney

trump is too stupid to understand the concepts being discussed. trump could understand that his attorney was NOT doing a good job and that the Justices were not buying what his attorney was trying to sell

Donald Trump's unprecedented appearance at the Supreme Court encompassed both a request that his seat be moved and the reported inability of the president to hold still while lawyers made their case before the nation's highest court.

— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-04-02T20:55:24Z

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fidget-supreme-court/

Appearing on MS NOW with host Jonathan Lemire, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero stated the president sat right in front of him, so he had a ringside seat to watch the president react to arguments over his attempt to override the 14th Amendment on birthright citizenship.....

“Could you see him from your vantage point? If so, what was he like?” MS NOW’s Lemire asked.

“He was six feet in front of me... he was literally right in front of me,” he recalled. “I was one row behind him, the Secret Service and then the president, so I could watch him entirely throughout the argument. Some of the press reports also got it wrong. Some of the press reports said that he left after the government had its case; the president sat through at least 10 to 15 minutes of our argument.”

“I could see him fidgeting in the chair. I literally could see him, he was literally in my line of vision,” he added. “And when our legal director, Cecillia Wang, made her opening statements, and then when she began to answer questions from the justices, you could see he started getting restless. His shoulders slumped a little bit.”

“I think he was there, clearly to intimidate the justices,” he added. “When they first had him, they sat him on the very end of the front row. And then the Commerce Secretary, Mr. [Howard] Lutnick got up and told the security guards that Mr. Trump would like to be seated more centrally in the courtroom. So they moved him literally right in front of us.”

“And then it was clear that he was endeavoring to put his thumb on the scale. He was endeavoring to glower at the justices to kind of intimidate them, almost defy them to rule against him,” he continued. “And what was remarkable, and this really is a testament that our system of checks and balances is working, that it's a coequal branch of government. Donald Trump is a guest in the Supreme Court. This is Chief Justice Roberts’ house. And there was not a mention, they did not miss a beat when he walked in, the courtroom got quiet. When he walked out, no one missed a beat.”