Who’s Next?

This week the Supreme Court agreed to oral arguments on the challenges to Presidential Executive Order, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, which was signed on 20 January 2025, Inauguration Day. This executive order reinterprets provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states: “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.” Instead, the Executive Order asserts “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States.”

The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to every individual born in the United States. The United States is one of roughly 30 countries, including Canada and Mexico, that offer automatic citizenship to nearly everyone born there. Birthright citizenship was added to the Constitution in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was adopted following the Civil War. As the new year approaches, the Supreme Court will hear and decide on the merits of the executive order, and its interpretation of the 14th amendment which seeks to deny birthright citizenship to all born in the U.S. On 21 January 2025, 22 states sued to stop Trump’s block on birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship is one of many issues that the current administration has challenged through Executive Orders, with significant impacts on the lives of individuals as notions of identity and belonging are threatened. If birthright citizenship were the only challenge to safety and belonging, then the arguments that support stripping these provisions could be experienced as isolated. Instead, this is one of many ways that the current administration continues to challenge who belongs in the United States and who can identify as being a citizen.

In past months, the list of groups targeted has grown through Executive Orders and the president’s derogatory comments directed at people groups that are in many of our communities. These actions continue to violate the human rights of many individuals and groups with the stroke of a pen, with hate filled words, and with discriminatory practices.

Human rights groups have been largely ignored in their continued vigilance and attention to the actions of this administration. The second term of the United States president has already undermined human rights in the country and around the world. From women’s rights and reproductive freedom to immigrants’ rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and risks to environmental progress, people are experiencing diminished rights and much remains at stake.  

At a time when groups already living on the margins of our society are experiencing fear and anxiety, the words of the president regarding Somali immigrants has amplified concerns for those living in the United States. The president publicly said he does not want Somali immigrants in the US, telling reporters they should “go back to where they came from” and “their country is no good for a reason”. Hatred and fear are being spewed into our communities and against neighbors from the highest elected office in the United States.

While some have chosen to ignore the words and actions of the president, silence breeds complicity to a course of xenophobia, afrophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and other fear-based responses which are rendering individuals unsafe across the country.

Today the attempts to “make America great again” target potential citizens of the US, newborns, people of color, the poor, the indigent, the unhoused, immigrants – people who are our neighbors, people we love, people who are created in the image of the Divine. The commandment to love is one we must live with intention in a time where many are wondering who will be next on the list of people and communities that find themselves labeled as other with threats to their human rights and dignity. There should be no fear to living with integrity, authenticity and a sense of belonging.