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Donald Trump (along with Ted Cruz and (depending on the day) Scott Walker) want to deport children of illegal immigrants born in America. You can't do that. They are legal Americans. The country has defined American citizenship. You get American Citizenship when you are born in this country - or become naturalized. Neither Donald Trump, nor Barak Obama, nor the Tooth Fairy gets to change that. Unless you change the Constitution.
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You may not like it. You may think that millions of pregnant women are rushing over the border as soon as their water breaks. But that doesn't change the truth. I don't like being 56 - that doesn't make mean I can decide to suddenly be 28.
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And that is because we are a country of immigrants. Other countries define nationality differently.
-The Turks that Germany brought to work in the 1950s had children. Those children (in fact, the grandchildren of those original workers!) are Turkish not German, per their laws.
-Japanese brought Korean slaves to Japan in the 1890s. Five generations later, in Japan, they are upstanding members of the community that speak Japanese and live Japanese. However, they are not Japanese. They are Korean citizens.
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America (as in the US of) doesn't define Americans geographically. We have actually passed a law that says if you are born in this country - regardless of who your parents are, you are an American. And, if you are the child of an American, you are an American. See we don't have nationality based on heritage because then only Native Americans would be Native Americans.
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The laws were made so that in America, unlike Britain, which we fled, all Americans were born equal. (Yes, not women or blacks but you know what I mean.)
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The country even, in fact, enshrined this into law INTO our Constitution with the 14th Amendment. We did this because some people (cough-Southerners) wanted to say freed slaves were not American citizens - so deport them. But you aren't allowed to "deport" American citizens. So the government had to explicitly call out what made an American an American.
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Now, I know Donald Trump is the walking talking id of pissed off old white guys. But, even the Trumpster doesn't get to make up laws. Even as President he doesn't get to make up laws that contravene the US Constitution. He should know better. And so should Ted Cruz.
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Maybe not Scott Walker, he is a few tacos short of a lunch special.
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You know when that particular law changes? Not when the Trumpster says so. There is, in fact, a legal way to change that law. You get 2/3s of the House of Representatives and 2/3s of the Senate to pass a Constitutional Amendment redefining citizenship some other way. Then you get 3/4s of the states (in our present case that would be 38 states) to approve it and THEN it becomes the NEW law.
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THEN you can deport all the (newly-born) people you don't like at will. Of course, not the millions here who are citizens now - regardless of their age or their parents status.
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Why? Because you cannot retroactively make people illegal. The Mormons learned that after trying to take away my marriage rights from California. No matter how much you hate someone or what awful things you try to do to them (I'm still looking at you, Mormons, on this one) - you don't get to declare them retroactively illegal. Icky - sure. Illegal - not so much.
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So enjoy the buffoon. Seriously, he is a crack up. And the train wreck of Republicans trying to rein the Donald in, while still taking advantage of his schtick is as mesmerizing as watching an Arizona haboob coming. But remember, in the Donald's case, it is bullshit masquerading as fine cuisine.
