Elect Mike Morrell CAGOP Chairman

By Robin Itzler

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK

CALIF GOP: In 2025, we need new leadership. Elect Mike Morrell CAGOP Chairman. 

In a few weeks, the Republican Party of California (CAGOP) will be holding its convention to elect a new chairperson. Patriot Neighbors endorses Mike Morrell for CAGOP Chair!

Since 2019, the CAGOP has been led by Chair Jessica Patterson and Vice Chair Corrin Rankin. Many America First Patriots have been very disappointed with their leadership. Now Vice Chair Corrin Rankin wants to be elected chair. As Albert Einstein famously said of stupidity: “Doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

The current Patterson/Rankin establishment leadership is not what California needs today. Here is one of many examples that show how out of touch Patterson and Rankin are with their base. This is from Steve Frank, editor of California Political News & Views, the leading site for California politics. 

In September 2023, the California Republican Party held a convention. The agenda was to be voted on for approval. A motion was made to amend the agenda, to allow a vote to ENDORSE President Trump. I now have a copy of the record of the vote. Every delegate who voted, shows either a YES, to allow the endorsement or NO to OPPOSE the endorsement. Here is how some in the leadership

Jessica Patterson—NO, to OPPOSE endorsement
Corrin Rankin—NO to OPPOSE endorsement
Shawn Steel—NO to OPPOSE endorsement
John Dennis—NO to OPPOSE endorsement
Harmeet Dhillon—YES, to allow endorsement
Laurie Wallace—YES to endorse
Randall Jordan—YES to Endorse
Randy Berholtz—YES to Endorse
Johanna Lassaga—Yes to endorse

This will give you an idea of who supported Trump, by vote and who did not vote for him, when it counted.  The CAGOP needs new leadership in these dynamic MAGA times. Let’s elect Mike Morrell chairman at the state’s March convention!

Click here to learn more about Mike Morrell!

Birthright Citizenship

By Terry Payne

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK

What’s the citizenship status of the children of illegal aliens? That question has spurred fierce debate over the 14th Amendment. The post-Civil War 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, extended citizenship to freed slaves and their children.

There are key themes from the debate:

1. “Birthright” champions claim that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are here illegally.
2. The amendment’s original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.
3. Birthright citizenship has been implemented by executive fiat, not because it is required by federal law or the US Constitution.

The 14th Amendment, Section 1, doesn’t say that all persons born in the United States are citizens. It says, that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of “birthright” citizenship.

“Birthright” citizenship supporters’ position that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen ignores the text and legislative history of the 14th Amendment. Citizenship activists erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike.

But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual. The fact that a tourist or illegal alien is subject to our laws and our courts if they violate our laws does not place them within the political “jurisdiction” of the United States as that phrase was defined by the framers of the 14th Amendment.

Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included not owing allegiance to any other country. John Eastman, former dean of the Chapman University School of Law, clarified that many do not understand “the distinction between partial, territorial jurisdiction, which subjects all who are present within the territory of a sovereign to the jurisdiction of that sovereign’s laws, and complete political jurisdiction, which requires allegiance to the sovereign as well.”

In the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that this qualifying phrase was intended to exclude “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign states born within the United States.” This was confirmed in 1884 in another case, Elk vs. Wilkins, when citizenship was denied to an American Indian because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United States.

American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. There would have been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, and no matter the citizenship status of their parents.

U.S. immigration law (8 U.S.C. § 1401), that defines who is a US citizen at birth, simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment, including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” So, current immigration laws don’t substantiate claims that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen.

The State Department has erroneously interpreted statute 8 U.S.C. § 1401 to provide passports to anyone born in the United States, regardless of whether their parents are here illegally and regardless of whether the applicant meets the requirement of being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. Consequently, “birthright” citizenship has been implemented by executive fiat, not because of federal law requirements or the U.S. Constitution.

We are only one of a ridiculously small number of western countries that provides “birthright” citizenship. Granting such citizenship is not based on federal law requirements or the U.S. Constitution, but, determined upon an erroneous executive interpretation. Congress should clarify the original meaning of the 14th Amendment and associated U.S. immigration laws and reverse this unconstitutional and unlawful practice.

Read Misuse of the 14th Amendment by Susan Daniels.

The Battle of Birthright: Trump’s Quest to End ‘Birth Tourism’

But open borders advocates fiercely fight back.

By James Fite | Jan 24, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags:  Articles, Opinion, Politics

Jus Soli – “right of the soil” – is the birthright of US citizens … but what qualifies one for inheritance? In one of many Inauguration Day executive orders, President Donald Trump answered the question: If both your parents are here illegally, then the automatic conference of citizenship defined by the 14th Amendment isn’t for you.

Simple, right? Not exactly. Just three days later, on January 23, a federal judge issued a temporary stay against the order. As it turns out, this issue won’t be resolved so easily. Trump should have expected this immediate challenge – in fact, perhaps he did, and queuing up the legal battle was all part of the plan.

An Issue of Birthright

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The idea of automatic birthright citizenship applying even to the children of illegal aliens stems from the wording of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Section 1 reads:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and 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 any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Those who believe in birthright citizenship for the offspring of illegal aliens born in the US – often derisively called “anchor babies” – argue that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” means literally everyone, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” they argue, means subject to the laws of the land because they happen to be here.

Those who oppose, on the other hand, argue that the part about jurisdiction means those who owe allegiance to and are beholden to only the United States, excluding the children of foreign nationals who are citizens of other countries. The president falls into the latter camp.

“The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift,” Trump declared in the executive order. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” he continued. Such persons are later defined as those born in the US when neither parent is a US citizen and the mother is in the country illegally at the time of birth or under a legal but temporary status, like a visa for work, school, or travel.

Trump’s order declared that no US department or agency would issue or recognize citizenship for these people, to take effect February 19. The order didn’t make it anywhere close to that effective date. In just three days, US District Judge John C. Coughenour issued a temporary stay and told a Justice Department lawyer: “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

Defining Inheritance

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” Judge Coughenour said. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one.”

Clear, however, is perhaps not the best word to describe the issue.

A “plain reading” of the 14th Amendment could be used to support either argument, depending on how one defines “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” There are, however, deeper questions – including regarding the validity of the 14th Amendment itself.

After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts established Union military rule over the defeated Confederacy, dividing all the rebellious states but Tennessee into five military districts tightly controlled by Union generals. The end of the war meant the Confederate states must remain in the Union, but in order to rejoin and once again govern themselves (more or less), they had to – among other things – ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The Reconstruction Amendments were effectively ratified at gunpoint, and the 14th, at least, has remained controversial to this day.

Barring another amendment or some extreme (and unlikely) action by the Supreme Court, however, the 14th Amendment will remain in force regardless of the validity of its origin. A much better argument against birthright citizenship for the children of illegals was made by the man who introduced it into the Senate in 1866.

“This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States,” Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan said on the Senate floor. “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

Based on the punctuation and word usage, many argue that this only applies to the children of ambassadors or foreign ministers. The best refutation of that interpretation, however, quickly followed in the general discussion at the time. “I presume the honorable Senator from Michigan does not intend by this amendment to include the Indians,” said Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin.

“Indians born within the limits of the United States, and who maintain their tribal relations, are not, in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” Mr. Howard clarified. “They are regarded, and always have been in our legislation and jurisprudence, as being quasi foreign nationals.”

All Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924 through the Indian Citizenship Act, but the very necessity of its passage almost 60 years later simply demonstrates that Mr. Howard’s interpretation was, in fact, the standard understanding. And it was Mr. Howard’s version of the amendment that the Senate and the House adopted and that went into the Federal Register as the 14th Amendment.

Senator Howard’s argument was that, as a foreign national subject to the rule of another authority before the US government, Indians were excluded from this automatic birthright citizenship. Applying that logic to modern birth tourism would suggest that babies born on American soil to illegal aliens – or, for that matter, even foreign nationals here legally but without being naturalized citizens – are not, in fact, US citizens.

The Battle Continues

Judge Coughenour’s two-week stay, which he says is necessary to give time for both sides to make their arguments, expires before the order was supposed to take effect on February 19. That, perhaps, is the oddest part of the ruling. Otherwise, an immediate challenge and fairly quick ruling in a lower court was far from unexpected. An appeal has already been filed, and this case seems likely to work its way all the way up to the US Supreme Court. One might even be forgiven for assuming the president expected and even planned for it in order to get a ruling from a High Court he believes will decide in his favor.

For Discerning News Hounds

The Supreme Court did historically rule in favor of Trump’s interpretation of birthright citizenship – until it didn’t. In the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases, both the majority and the dissent agreed that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excluded the children of citizens or subjects of foreign states, even if born in the US. This was reinforced in the Elk v. Wilkins decision of 1884, which stated that an Indian born on a reservation was not a citizen of the United States.

In 1898, however, the Supreme Court reversed that position in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, establishing birthright citizenship for anyone born in America, regardless of the parents’ citizenship status. Which way today’s High Court will rule, however, is anyone’s guess – and President Trump seems to be betting on himself.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From James Fite Editor-at-Large

DEVELOPING: Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order

Stay tuned for more as this story develops. 

By Liberty Nation Authors Jan 23, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants. On Thursday, January 23, US District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled in a case brought by four states – Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon – that argued the 14th Amendment and existing US Supreme Court case law ensure birthright citizenship.

The EO was signed on Inauguration Day and was slated to take effect on February 19. While Trump and many others interpret it as not applying to the children of illegal immigrants because they don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the US government, the lawsuit argues that it does – and that American courts have interpreted it this way for nearly century.

• The Misuse of the 14th Amendment, By Susan Daniels Jan 22, 2025 -  “The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people, protect the civil rights of all citizens, and guarantee equal protection under the law. The amendment was ratified in 1868, two years after the Civil War.” I don’t think the Founding Fathers imagined people would come here to take advantage of our government systems by giving birth and going back home..........
• Day 3, Trump Golden Age: ...and just like that, illegal border crossings are down to 420 in a day - January 23, 2025 by Monica Showalter -  Three days into President Trump's term of office and the Border Patrol is reporting they've got ... 420 illegal border crossings to deal with across the 2,000-mile border, not 12,000..........Now there are reports of caravans turning around. Some migrants are telling the press they're planning to go home.  The sob stories are flowing -- and as Todd Bensmann notes, none are verified through actual reporting......
• Pregnant Migrants Seek C-Sections Before Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Deadline - By Alana Mastrangelo 23 Jan 2025 -  President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birth citizenship for children of migrants has reportedly prompted a rush for C-section births by pregnant illegal migrants and visa workers. Dr. S D Rama, who operates a maternity clinic in the United States, told Times of India that a significant increase in pre-term delivery requests has been seen following President Trump’s Monday executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal migrants. Indian women in their eighth or ninth month of pregnancy are now scrambling to schedule C-sections before the February 20, when President Trump’s order is set to go into effect......
• Imaginary birthright - January 24, 2025 by Bill Ponton - President Trump’s decision to end birthright citizenship is challenged in court, but the whole argument is ludicrous........  The most laughable element of Bonta’s argument is his contention that the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted to enable what we see today.  I contend that if the framers were alive today, they would be scratching their heads in bewilderment about our present predicament. They might even call up the Union army thinking that Mexico was trying to reconquer its lost territories.
•  Tom Homan Is Right: Babies of Criminally-Present Aliens Are Not Citizens -Paul Dowling - The lawmakers who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment never dreamed of the lengths to which future Democrats would go to twist the authorial intent of the amendment into a wrongheaded policy harmful to Americans. .............So, here is what the Constitution says about birthright citizenship: “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.” The wording makes it clear that persons born in the U.S., but subject to the jurisdiction of another country, are not American citizens. In other words, babies born to foreign nationals who are subject to the jurisdiction of Mexico are Mexican citizens, because they, like their parents, are subject to the jurisdiction of Mexico -- not the United States.