David Brooks:
The European countries, by and large, do not. Asian countries, by and large, do not. African countries, by and large, do not. If you look at the countries around the world that have birthright citizenship, they tend to be in the Americas.
And that’s because we saw ourselves as a certain kind of country, as a country that welcomed a lot of people, and a lot of people came here and then their kids were born here and we said, welcome, you are one of us. And that, again, just like the foreign policy, is a longstanding tradition of America and its certain conception of what America was.
You go to non-birthright citizenship, which will not happen, by the way, because it’s so unconstitutional — it’s not even a little unconstitutional. It’s major league unconstitutional. And — but you’re looking at a European-style conservatism, not an American-style. And, again, that’s Trump really breaking with a lot of traditions here.
I was struck by Brett Kavanaugh asked the solicitor general on the Supreme Court, suppose a baby is born. What’s going to happen to that baby without birthright citizenship?
