Trump to O'Reilly: The 14th Amendment is unconstitutional

Politico ^ | 8/19/15 | Nick Gass

[jimbo123]

Donald Trump clashed with Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night over the part of his immigration plan that would take away citizenship from the children who were born in the United States but whose parents came to the country illegally.

Under the 14th Amendment, O’Reilly told Trump on “The O’Reilly Factor,” mass deportations of so-called birthright citizens cannot happen.

Trump disagreed, and said that “many lawyers are saying that’s not the way it is in terms of this.”

“What happens is, they’re in Mexico, they’re going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby,” Trump said, telling O’Reilly that the lawyers said, “It’s not going to hold up in court, it’s going to have to be tested.

[Walrus]

That just might be the stupidest headline, ever.

The 14th Amendment, or any other amendment, is part of the Constitution and, therefore, cannot be “unconstitutional”. It can be ill-advised and it can be repealed by a subsequent amendment, but it cannot be termed “unconstitutional”.

[gdani]

Trump saying the 14th Amendment is unconstitutional & will not hold up in court is one of the most truly idiotic things I’ve ever heard a presidential candidate say.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Precisely.

There are those who read the Constitution.

Then there are those who read into the Constitution.

People do the same thing with the Bible.

[Gaffer]

I have no objections against his candidacy at present. In a lot of respects I am happy about it because he has changed the narrative and reintroduced the word “illegal” to those blind bats of this country.

On the face of it, an Amendment to the Constitution CANNOT be Unconstitutional because it IS the Constitution.

That said, I understand what he means about it. It is all about the interpretation of the wording “....under the jurisdiction of....” is where I think liberals who want votes and RINOs and the CoC and bidness who want cheap labor have taken this amendment (meant for other reasons, BTW)that an effing illegal dropping a perpetual entitlement mouth to feed fits that intention.

Illegals, I’ll say it again - ILLEGALS, are not “under the jurisdiction of” except to the extent that they don’t belong here as citizens to start with and have no rights with respect to the regulation of ‘citizens’ except that they should be summarily thrown out. The only extension of this meaning would be ‘criminal’, ‘undesirable’ or ‘refuse’ that sure as heck isn’t anything connected with citizen in my book.

This amendment has had no real case concerning it’s bastardized interpretation to include illegal anchor babies. At some point it will. It is therefore our duty to make sure that a Bush, or a Clinton, or any other RINO never gets into that office lest he appoint some quisling RINO/Wise-whatever to the vacancy that decrepit senile RBG leaves when she gives it up.

[Jane Long]

BTTT.

[BradtotheBone]

Trump said the way the amendment is being interpreted is unconstitutional.

[isthisnickcool]

I support Trump.

Why?

He’s Batman.

[dforest]

I listened to the whole thing. Trump did not use “unconstitutional”.

[iontheball]

Notice how the headline rewrites what was said. I do not recall Trump saying the 14th Amendment was unconstitutional. The media purposely set up these straw men headline to ridiculize (my term) their enemy (Trump). Then they proceed with their twisted narrative behind the fake headline.

[Genoa]

Trump said the way the amendment is being interpreted is unconstitutional.

OK. This is a distinction that is lost on the fine minds at Politico. They think that once an amendment is there, it's fair game for the courts to interpret any way they please.

[BradtotheBone]

Trump never said the 14th amendment is unconstitutional. He implied that the interpretation of it to enable birthright citizenship from illegal aliens is.

[dforest]

Yes it is. But you see, he didn’t say what the headline claims.

This is Politico and you got punked.

[dforest]

Trump did not say what this headline is claiming.

[nikos1121]

“If denying birthright citizenship seems like an offensive proposition to some, it can only be because we’ve lost our sense of what citizenship should be – the concept of national allegiance inherent in it. If a couple who are nationals of Egypt enter our country and have a baby while they are here, why is it sensible to presume that child’s allegiance is to the United States rather than Egypt? If the baby of an American couple happened to be born while they were touring Egypt, would we not presume that the child’s allegiance was to the United States?”—Andrew Mccarthy

[nikos1121]

And Judge Napolitano ALSO gets it wrong.

Fox News is inundated with morons that offer opinions, such as Dana Perino.

[nathanbedford]

I think O'Reilly and Trump were talking at cross purposes over each other which is hardly surprising when two world class egos occupy the same soundstage. O'Reilly was talking about deporting what he accepts to be about 11 million illegal aliens and Trump was still talking about birthright babies.

The question for me is whether Trump continued to talk about birthright babies when the question had to do with mass deportations because he wanted to avoid answering the question about mass deportations. He's in a bind there. To keep us pleased he must lead us to believe that the millions of illegal aliens will somehow be removed but he must avoid the boxcars to concentration camps image if he is not to lose the squishy middle. I want to be fair to Trump, but I also want to observe that nowhere in his immigration paper does he call for mass deportations. He calls for deportations of criminals and those who come over the wall but he does not explicitly say he will engage in mass deportations-and when O'Reilly asked him about it he talked about birthright babies.

For the record I am all for ways of getting around the present interpretation of the fourteenth amendment. I am aware of Mark Levin's arguments. But I think the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction" means that people over here illegally are subject to the jurisdiction of the nation, in that they can be seized and deported or seized and incarcerated. Normally, you can't have control of the person unless you have some sort of jurisdiction over the person and over the subject matter. A diplomat, or a diplomat's newborn, would not be subject to the jurisdiction because it is specifically exempted by treaty and therefore cannot be punished but only the provisions of the treaty invoked which, of course, usually involves ejection from the country.

[libstripper]

I saw the exchange. The headline is a false characterization by a half-educated hack. Trump simply said the present interpretation of the amendment will need to be challenged and may well be found to be wrong. Indeed, several scholarly articles were posted here on the same issue. Trump took an entirely defensible position. The whole bit about repealing the Fourteenth Amendment is just an alarmist straw man.

[Gaffer]

I thought that might be the case, but it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. Out in the real America, people tired of the illegal invasion certainly aren’t in agreement with any semblance of “illegals dropping babies” here is citizen-worthy.

They have lost the narrative now, frankly. That’s why nothing they say or do matters now.

[Genoa]

But A14 does seriously need to be qualified to prevent abuses like abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, anchor babies, etc., etc. It is hopelessly vague. The men who wrote it had no idea what the capacity for abuse by future judges would be.

[Liz]

The 14th Amendment was one of three changes to the Constitution during and after the Civil War era known as the Reconstruction Amendments:

The 13th abolished slavery, the 15th prohibited the states from denying the vote to anyone based solely on race.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s website has a detailed article from a Columbia University history professor on how the amendment came to be, placing it in historical context.