Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered a candid real-time reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision on birthright citizenship during a speech at “The Villages” on Tuesday.
He said a big part of the ultimate outcome will depend on the ruling’s scope– did they block Trump’s action procedurally because it was done by executive order or are they ruling on the 14th Amendment itself?
“If they said that there’s nothing you can do short of a constitutional amendment to limit, then that’s going to be a really devastating decision,” he said, which turns out to be the correct read. He followed up on Twitter:
Look, I haven’t had an opportunity to read that opinion. I don’t know whether they have at least given Congress an ability to legislate something differently.
But when they did the 14th Amendment, what they were trying to do was overturn the Dred Scott decision. The Supreme Court in Dred Scott said Dred Scott wasn’t a citizen because he was black. He couldn’t sue. And Lincoln rejected that.
And so what they wanted to say is, wait a minute, no, you’re a citizen regardless of race, and we’re going to correct that injustice. That was the purpose of it.
It was not to have people show up from China for two weeks, have babies, get them citizenship, and then go back to China.
I mean, how ridiculous has this become? And even though they didn’t really conceive of illegal immigration at the time, because transportation was more difficult — it wasn’t as easy to come to a country illegally as it has historically been to the United States, particularly when Biden was in — they never would have thought that somehow people coming in against the wishes of the people who are responsible for electing people and writing the laws, that you come in against the law, have a kid, and somehow that’s an American citizen as well.
So I think, in terms of the original understanding, they never conceived that it would end up being this way.
Now, I was predicting this was going to come out this way, unfortunately, because I just remember, when I was in law school, they drum it into you: It’s already been decided. Anyone that steps foot, you do that, it’s automatic. That’s the original understanding. And a lot of people — I mean, I just assumed that was correct.
Then when you actually read and you study the debates and you understand what they were trying to do, I don’t think that’s how it was originally understood.
So the question’s going to be: Did they say, as a matter of Constitution, that you could never limit birthright citizenship, even statutorily? Because if they said that, then it’s not just the fact about Trump doing it through executive order. Then it’s basically saying we could vote overwhelmingly to say no birth tourism, you have to be lawfully present here, otherwise it doesn’t apply, and basically they’re going to tell you, you’re out of luck.
Now, it may be that they ruled that Congress could enact those changes, but you just can’t do it through executive order, which effectively was what the president did. He issued an executive order. He said we don’t recognize citizenship in these cases, particularly the birth tourists and people that have come to the country illegally. And maybe that’s not the case.
So we’ll have to look to see that. It’s not surprising that the decision came out that way. You could just tell from kind of the oral arguments.
I would imagine — was it 7-2? Did you guys see what it was?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 6-3.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: 6-3. Alito, Thomas, and who else in the dissent?
So, you know, these things, Alito and Thomas are on the right side. I mean, you don’t even have to know the thing. You just know, no matter what happens, they’re going to be on the right side of it.
Almost got it.
Sorry, this is real-time news, guys. We’re doing the best we can. Sorry, this is real-time news, guys. We’re doing the best we can.
No, no. Well, I knew that he would do that, yeah. The case will have a syllabus where they’ll list it out on the front page or one of the first pages, who’s doing it. Anyways, 6-3.
Okay, all right. So we’ll have to see.
Look, if they said that there’s nothing you can do short of a constitutional amendment to limit, then that’s going to be a really devastating decision. If they said, can’t do it through executive order, but you can do it through Congress — I’m not saying this Congress that hasn’t done much is going to necessarily come on and do it — but at least you have an avenue where you can run on this.
And I think it’s really, really important.
You know, I look around the country, and we’ve had people — and you see it in some of these election results — some of the people that have been brought in over the last 20, 30 years, they don’t like the country. They want to import where they came from, which, you know, some of these countries are really messed up, and ultimately expect us to change to go in that direction.
And I just think that, first of all, that’s not the way I would want to live. But second of all, how ridiculous. I mean, imagine if some of us showed up in France and we just showed — oh yeah, you got to start doing — they would laugh at you, right? I mean, that’s just not the way it is.
So this birthright is an issue in terms of people can come. If you have kids, it’s hard for them to remove you at that point, and that’s definitely been gamed. There’s no question.
But it’s a larger issue about not just illegal immigration, but who is legally being let into the country and are the folks people that are rejecting the American way of life? And I think, unfortunately, we’ve seen that in larger numbers over the years.
In any event, we will look at that decision, and we may have some more comments on it as we go forward.
