ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- The fact that the United States is celebrating its 250th birthday has me feeling nostalgic for a long-forgotten time when Republicans were different people with a whole different set of beliefs.

I miss the good ol' days when self-described conservatives praised immigrants for their optimism and hard work, supported those with legal status, interpreted the Constitution strictly as written, opposed judicial activism, recognized the need to restrain executive power and valued U.S. citizenship enough not to try to cancel it on a whim.

All that is gone now. Republican President Donald Trump and his two most loyal sycophants on the Supreme Court -- Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito -- believe that the way to save the United States is to destroy what makes it special.

One of these special things is the guarantee that anyone who comes to these shores seeking opportunity, fleeing persecution, or thirsting for freedom gets to wipe the slate clean and start over in this land of second chances. Part of that promise is that your children -- if they are born on U.S. soil -- get a fresh start to make it on their own as U.S. citizens without being saddled with the mistakes of their parents.

Holding children accountable for the sins of their parents was the way of Old Europe. The Founding Fathers wanted no part of it.

Two hundred and fifty years later, in deciding the case Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court made clear that it feels the same way. By a vote of 6 to 3 -- with three conservatives siding with three liberals -- the Justices struck down as unconstitutional an executive order from Trump declaring children of undocumented immigrants ineligible for U.S. citizenship even if they are born on U.S. soil.

Thus, the justices reaffirmed the idea of birthright citizenship as spelled out in the 14th Amendment. It reads: "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 ... "

Nativists don't like that language, and that's fine. A lot of liberals don't like the language behind the Second Amendment. But they don't get to change that either.

Undaunted, those on the right have concocted crazy arguments like arguing that children of undocumented immigrants aren't citizens because they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of U.S. authorities.

That will come as news to these children as they grow up and register for the Selective Service System, pay taxes, follow traffic laws and otherwise bow to the jurisdiction of local and federal governments.

Also -- while many Americans believe that birthright citizenship goes back only as far as the post-Civil War period when, in 1868, those who authored the 14th Amendment sought to grant full citizenship rights to freed slaves -- the concept of jus soli (right of the soil) is rooted in American law. Much of that system of jurisprudence derives from early English common law and goes back to colonial days

Chief Justice John Roberts said as much in his majority opinion. Roberts noted that when babies were born in the American colonies, they automatically became subjects of the British crown. After the American Revolution, the concept of "subjects" was replaced by "citizenship." The colonists wanted to populate their new country with people who would no longer be loyal to Great Britain. And so, Roberts wrote, the authors of the 14th Amendment weren't dreaming up something new during Reconstruction but rather seeking to codify in the Constitution an existing concept that dated back to 1776.

Joining Roberts in the common-sense chorus were Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Conservatives blasted all three traitors, but they saved their ugliest attacks for Barrett. Some disparaged her as a "DEI hire." The implication was that she only got this far because of her gender. These sexist comments tell us much about who we're dealing with, and none of it is pleasant.

By the way, for his part, Trump has a lot of nerve badmouthing people who are in this country illegally. He is still the biggest outlaw in the land. He breaks the law with regularity, as he did with the illegal and cruel executive order that started all this.

These are hard days for America. She needed this win. To celebrate her 250th birthday, six justices came up with the perfect gift: a decision that proves we're still the country we remember.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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