2019 Was the Year We All Became Un-American
The Trump administration spent much of this year challenging who has a right to call themselves a citizen
America beckons, the saying goes, but Americans repel. And so it was in 2019, the year that our public officials and everyday Americans alike rediscovered — and exploited — the fact that they could easily challenge the identities of their fellow citizens. This year we saw, again and again, that there is nothing — no piece of paper, no legal status, no position in Congress, no lifetime of service — that fully protects a person from being called un-American.
This year, continuing his tradition of threatening the status of citizens he considers less than, Stephen Miller, a senior policy advisor to President Trump — and a frequent email correspondent with Breitbart — said the White House would be “looking at all legal options” on the seemingly settled question of our longstanding policy of granting birthright citizenship. Miller noted some legal scholars exclude those whose parents were in the United States temporarily from the provision in the 14th amendment that reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” — and that the administration was looking to change the interpretation of the…
