“A Triumph Over Racism and Xenophobia”: WaPo Slams Trump on Birthright Citizenship

In a scathing editorial on Tuesday, The Washington Post sharply criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to abolish birthright citizenship, calling it “unconstitutional” and a betrayal of America’s fundamental values.

Trump’s proposal targets the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of parentage. The editorial board emphasized that this right, rooted in English common law and codified after the Civil War, represents one of the nation’s greatest achievements in overcoming racism and slavery.

“The late Post columnist Michael Gerson said it best when he wrote in 2018: ‘Any political movement that regards the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment as an obstacle to its political intentions has earned a great deal of suspicion,’” the board wrote.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, was a direct response to the Supreme Court’s notorious Dred Scott decision, which denied African Americans the right to citizenship. “Its authors intended to undo the Supreme Court’s shameful Dred Scott decision, which held that no person of African ancestry could ever claim U.S. citizenship,” the board reminded readers.

“It offers a clear, simple standard for determining who is an American, by which the color of one’s skin and their ancestry are irrelevant.” Trump and his supporters have argued that the amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children of undocumented parents. The Post called this interpretation false, explaining, “All people living in the United States — even those here illegally — are ‘subject to’ U.S. law.”

Historians agree the board wrote, that the phrase was meant only to exempt two groups: children of foreign diplomats and members of Native American tribes that maintained sovereign status under treaties. Furthermore, Senate debates at the time confirmed that the amendment would apply to children of immigrants, a point that angered white supremacists of the era.

“A triumph over racism and xenophobia, the 14th Amendment also marked the beginning of a global movement to embrace birthright citizenship,” the board added. Trump’s claim that America is the “only” country with such a system is demonstrably false; nearly every nation in the Western Hemisphere follows the same principle.

“By harping on the idea … Mr. Trump might please his base and scare some first-generation Americans, but he also reveals a misunderstanding of the nation’s history — and what makes it great,” the board concluded. The editorial underscores the importance of the 14th Amendment as a pillar of equality and inclusivity in America, warning that attempts to dismantle it would undermine hard-fought progress.