The first week of the country’s new administration, said Colorado State University-Pueblo professor Eddie Lucero, may one day be an entire study in political science.
What Lucero is talking about is how the new President wasted no time in assembling a massive stack of executive orders on everything from erasing the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the United States and provides equal protection under the law, to one narrowly defining gender.
But it is Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for abolishing the citizenship of millions of Americans—including those not yet born—that has garnered much of the attention.
Without a 14th Amendment, millions of undocumented immigrants now in the country, along with their children born here, Trump’s executive order would threaten their U.S. citizenship. While their citizenship is safe for now, the matter may linger in the courts for years.
Lucero said by signing this executive order, Trump has “brought politics into the classroom.” The Los Angeles transplant said recently a student, “from a marginalized group,” recently came to his office worried about the new presidency. “She was concerned,” he said, “about what it would mean for her” and how it would affect her future. Lucero said he understands the apprehension.
His own parents, he said, immigrated from Mexico to California before he was born. Many who have repeated this long pattern of immigration, Lucero said are so concerned about Trump’s plan that a lot of them, he said, are now “sending their kids to school with their passports” to show proof of citizenship in case immigration officials show up.
But Trump’s executive order goes well beyond new immigrants. The wording in his decree for ending the 14th Amendment also includes removing citizenship from Native Americans, a group often referred to as ‘the original Americans.’
A narrowly defined section of the executive order states that because Native Americans are subject to the laws of their nationor tribe and are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, that, Trump believes, renders their claim to citizenship moot.
Trump’s desire to erase the 14th Amendment was essentially ridiculed by a Seattle federal judge who blocked it. “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” he said. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”
Lucero says the ruling striking down Trump’s threat should stand for now. But it is quite likely that the administration will pursue the matter all the way to the Supreme Court despite the unambiguous and emphatic words of Federal Judge John C. Coughenour.
Trump almost immediately reacted to the ruling and the judge, saying there are “no surprises with that judge.” Coughenour was appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan.
Lucero said Trump’s executive orders along with subsequent actions that included dismantling of the government’s DEI office, gender ruling and the 1965 Civil Rights Act requiring equal opportunity for minorities and women is a ‘dog whistle’ to his base affirming his positions.
“I think the research show that Latinos are viewed as ‘other,’” that is, not real Americans. “It’s something we have to deal with as a society. But we have been here from the very beginning.”
Lucero said political science classes have already spent a lot of time discussing what he calls a “chaotic” first Trump administration. This time, he predicts, “we’re going to see more fascinating stories.” And that, he said, is a good thing.
“At the end of the day,” said Lucero, “as a political science professor, I always do my best to present the facts to the students and let them decide (the issues) for themselves.”
