Demand Congress use its “power of the purse” to hold Trump accountable
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
The President of the United States does not have unlimited authority to decline congressional appropriations and decide what gets funded and by how much depending on his whims and which political adversaries he wants to punish.
By hijacking congressionally appropriated funds, Donald Trump and Elon Musk (and his unqualified, unscreened team) are yanking funding from people and programs in our communities―which will have a real impact on many of our neighbors as they face frozen funding for critical human needs programs that people rely on to survive.
Congress must stand up to stop this lawless power grab.
Editor’s note: This piece was first published on Bruce Lesley’s personal Substack blog named “Speaking of Kids” on February 17, 2025 and is cross-posted with permission. Bruce is the President of First Focus on Children and a board member of the Coalition on Human Needs.
On Sunday, while trying to enjoy a women’s college basketball doubleheader, I saw President Trump’s post on birthright citizenship and had to respond and correct the record. That will surprise people who know I am typically an opponent of myth versus fact responses, as it forces a repeat and unintentional reinforcement of the false frame.
However, sometimes it is just necessary.
Most legal analyses of President Trump’s Executive Order 14160 find that it violates the Constitution’s birthright citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Those arguments are critically important to the lawsuits filed against the Executive Order (EO), which will likely reach the Supreme Court.
But there is another court – the court of public opinion – which is often overlooked. Right now the public appears to firmly support protecting birthright citizenship. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll finds voters support “keep[ing] birthright citizenship in place” by an overwhelming 71-29% (+42%) margin.
However, the rhetoric of birthright citizenship opponents has picked up dramatically (see Trump’s post and search for the term on social media), while defenders rely almost exclusively on the argument that gutting it would be unconstitutional. Again, the constitutional arguments are critically important, but defenders of the Fourteenth Amendment also need to explain the importance of birthright citizenship, or support will drop.
In fact, a more recent NRP/Ipsos poll finds opposition to “ending birthright citizenship” to be 54-31% (+23%). With the President on the offensive, other polls show rising support for ending birthright citizenship.
What is often neglected and invisible in that debate – but should be a major focus – is the real-world impact that the EO would have on harming one group of people: BABIES.
Babies are literally the target.
Source: Children’s Defense Fund
The Constitution Protects Babies – But Trump’s Order Attacks Them
The Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause is a constitutional promise: that every baby born on U.S. soil is a full and equal citizen – with the exception being the children of foreign diplomats who are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.
Therefore, the Constitution protects babies from discrimination based on their parent(s)’ status, origins, race, ethnicity or circumstance. It says that in America, every child matters.
But President Trump wants to rewrite that constitutionally protected promise – turning citizenship from a birthright into a “profound gift” to be bestowed at his discretion and choice. Trump wants to fundamentally change the meaning of citizenship in this country to one more focused on exclusion based on factors related to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and circumstance.
Trump’s legal team has argued that the EO is about fixing the immigration system and addressing threats to national security and public safety. But let’s be clear: birthright citizenship is about the equal protection of babies and has an important history related to the overturning of the infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857.
So, does the Administration seriously believe that babies pose a greater national security and public safety threat than terrorists, cults, criminals, pedophiles, or felons?
Exactly What Laws Did Babies Break, or Gates Did Babies Crash?
In the President’s post, he rails against “modern day ‘gate crashers’” and people who “break the Law” as justification for gutting the Constitution’s birthright citizenship clause.
First, babies do not break laws or crash gates.
So, what law do the President’s lawyers believe babies have violated to justify excluding them from citizenship and to target them for harm? It’s like imposing fines, community service, or other punishment on a baby for a parent’s traffic violation. It defies reason and violates another core legal principle: due process.
The Founders Are Not “Spinning in Their Graves” Over Birthright Citizenship, But They Would Be Over the Power Grab
Trump also claims the “Founding Fathers are “spinning in their graves” at the idea of birthright citizenship. But that simply false. Birthright citizenship has existed since the nation’s founding.
Birth…derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States….
The Founders would not be “spinning in their graves” over birthright citizenship. They would be spinning at the idea that a president could gut a constitutional right with an executive order.
The Founders designed our Constitution to prevent such abuse of executive power.
It Is the Future of Babies and Our Nation That Would Be “Taken Away”
Trump frames this debate as if something is being “taken away from us” by giving babies citizenship. But the truth is that it’s babies – and America’s future – that would be taken away by this Executive Order.
Without birthright citizenship:
Every one of the 3.6 million babies born annually in the U.S. would have to apply for citizenship.
Babies would face bureaucratic hurdles to access basic needs like health care, nutrition, and child care — at their most vulnerable moment.
A massive new federal bureaucracy would decide which babies “belong” here and which do not.
Hundreds of thousands of children could be left stateless, which would leave them vulnerable to exclusion, exploitation, and stripped of their opportunity for life.
The harm would not just be to babies – it would also harm our nation’s future.
As The Atlantic’s Gil Guerra explains, ending birthright citizenship would squander America’s demographic strength, which are millions of U.S.-born children who are future workers, innovators, and leaders. While rivals such as China and Russia face population decline and aging workforces, America’s policy of birthright citizenship provides a demographic advantage.
Trump’s Executive Order Would Hurt ALL Babies – Not Just Some
Trump’s EO was written to deny or strip citizenship from children based on the citizenship or immigration status of their parents, but the reality is that it also would harm every child born in the U.S.
By ending automatic citizenship for all U.S.-born children, every parent would have to prove their lineage and legal status before their child could gain citizenship. All 3.6 million babies born annually in this country would face a quagmire of paperwork, lawyers, and bureaucracy – the very bureaucracy that Trump claims to despise.
Such delays would prevent newborns from receiving vital health, nutrition, housing, and child care services. At the most important time in the lives of a child, they would face potentially life-threatening delays in receiving the services they need.
Trump’s Bureaucratic Nightmare — No Rules, No Answers, and No Rights
According to Trump’s EO, the babies that would have been the first impacted would be those born on Wednesday, Feb. 19, and beyond.
But no one knows how it would work and nobody has bothered to explain. The EO simply directs federal agencies to “take all appropriate measures” to enforce it.
Imagine the confusion and the chaos in hospitals, schools, and child welfare agencies. This radical change would throw newborns — already the most vulnerable members of society — into legal limbo.
Attacking the Constitution is bad enough, but it is irresponsible to have failed to outline how any of this would even work before launching this radical change to our nation’s practice of determining citizenship at birth for the last 150 years, such as:
Determining the citizenship status – citizen, legal immigrant, or undocumented – of parent(s) at the moment of a child’s birth;
The paternity and citizenship status of an unwed father;
Disputes over the paternity status of a baby;
The status of a baby given up for adoption;
The status of a baby who was conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intrauterine insemination (IUI);
Determinations in case of birth via surrogacy;
The determination of a baby’s status with same-sex parents;
The establishment of a new bureaucracy or agency to make such determinations;
The appeals rights available to a baby or child;
The citizenship of a child whose parents failed to apply for citizenship of the child;
The eligibility status of children for programs like Medicaid, WIC, or the Child Tax Credit, who are in limbo awaiting a citizenship determination; or,
The plight and future of babies and children who would be denied citizenship status, and thereby, might be subjected to deportation or become stateless.
These are NOT hypotheticals. They are the real-world consequences of attacking children’s rights and not even considering the devastating consequences it would have.
Quite frankly, it is akin to taking down federal agencies and firing people based on keywords and search terms rather than understanding what services the government performs.
Fortunately, Judges Are Blocking Trump’s EO…For Now
These judicial rulings protect the Constitution, as they should, but also:
The 3.6 million babies who will be born in the U.S. this year.
Families and taxpayers from chaos, confusion, increased costs, and a raft of bureaucratic and legal complexity.
The nation from creating a growing underclass of stateless citizens who are denied the ability to reach their full potential and are, instead, subjected to exploitation and abuse.
This Is a Test of Our Values — And Children Should Not Be the Ones Who Suffer
Stripping birthright citizenship doesn’t “secure” America. It undermines America’s core promise: that every child, born here, belongs here.
This fight is about more than policy. It’s about our children.
Newborns – who deserve support and stability, not statelessness.
Babies – who deserve protection under the law, not exclusion from it.
Children – who deserve to be seen as children, not political targets.
We cannot let political theater dismantle constitutional protections for children. And we cannot let children become collateral damage in a political fight.
Birthright citizenship has been a cornerstone of America’s promise for generations. We must defend it — to protect the Constitution, to protect today’s children, to protect the children yet to come, and to protect our nation’s future.
