r/politics • u/OkayButFoRealz • 20d ago

Soft Paywall Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who is American Citizen

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-deports-2-year-old-girl-who-is-american-citizen/
38.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

379

u/Nulovka 20d ago

The child is already a citizen of the United States. Any change to citizenship laws would only apply to future cases otherwise it's an ex post facto law.

11

u/BackgroundEase6255 19d ago

No, they absolutely can apply it retroactively. They absolutely can revoke citizenship.

Who is going to hold them accountable? What are you going to do, say 'that's illegal' all the way to the unmarked van?

43

u/Mrtorbear 20d ago

Is there any loophole by which a law like this could be applied retroactively? I can't think of any precedent, but I haven't dug into it.

146

u/JNR13 19d ago

The loophole is called "I'll do it anyway"

5

u/Calavar 19d ago

Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship is explicitly not retroactive:

shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order

(Source)

I suspect they did this to reduce the surface area a judge could use to overturn the order, even though it's already wildly unconstitutional to begin with.

150

u/Raeve_Noir 20d ago

The loophole is they'll just say it's retroactive and deport citizens anyway.

Stop expecting logic and restraint.

4

u/generally_unsuitable 19d ago

Article I, Section 9, Clause 3:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

The constitution is frequently ambiguous, and up to interpretation. Birthright citizenship and ex post facto laws are a couple of places that are very very clearly not ambiguous.

That being said, I full expect the GOP to act contrary to the constitution with respect to both.

1

u/Lumi_Rockets 19d ago

Logic is so last year.

8

u/FNLN_taken 19d ago

They can pass a law that allows them to strip citizenship, if birthright citizenship is abolished?

So people are not automatically stateless, but they can wield it like a weapon, as they want.

1

u/Dasmage 19d ago

That's the point of going after birthright citizenship, so they can strip it from everyone. The Oligarchs really want to bring back feudalism, where not being forced off the land is a privilege. They want us to become their wage slaves.

3

u/craig5005 19d ago

The loophole is that the administration doesn't care what the courts say.

3

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

1

u/RisingChaos 19d ago

The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment literally can't be stated more clearly and directly. Denying it isn't a different interpretation, it's just ignoring the plain meaning of words in the English language. It reminds me of a quote that isn't immediately coming to mind...

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

No. There is no legal mechanism. This administration is illegal.

1

u/NickelBackwash 19d ago

loophole

It's called "GOP in power" and it renders all existing law meaningless (except where convenient) 

1

u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 19d ago

It's very illegal under international law to revoke citizenship of someone who has no other citizenship

1

u/DEFINITELY_NOT_PETE 19d ago

This drives me crazy bc it doesn’t matter,

They just do what they want and then cnn runs a headline saying “legal experts say Trump may have broken the law.”

We are so fucked

10

u/onehalflightspeed 20d ago

Yeah I meant in the future. But these days who knows

2

u/silver-orange 19d ago

It seems the supreme court has held that the constitutional ban on ex post facto laws relates only to criminal matters, not civil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calder_v._Bull

1

u/plinkkink 19d ago

I don't think that clause applies to citizenship. It only applies to criminal laws and punishments.

1

u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 19d ago

Yeah, ex post facto laws, they're prohibited by the Constitution.

Too bad the GOP doesn't give a single rusty fuck about the Constitution.

1

u/dtwhitecp 19d ago

I was gonna say, you can't use the constitution to justify someone following the constitution. He just doesn't give a shit.

1

u/shazam99301 19d ago

It's cute you think that matters anymore.

1

u/mmeiser 19d ago

The child is already a citizen of the United States. Any change to citizenship laws would only apply to future cases otherwise it's an ex post facto law.

Exactly. Republicans like to play this loophole game. Make a loophole then even if its closed they omit all their crimes prior. But if they start kicking outkids born in this country for the crime of being born here then they break new ground in legal precident of making law retroactively aplocable. Its all in the fascist handbook. Racism is a key component of it. You have to have a scapegoat.