On February 15, 2025, two law professors dropped a legal bombshell. Just three weeks before, President Donald Trump had signed an executive order attempting to unilaterally deny birthright citizenship to the children of visa holders and undocumented immigrants despite the Constitution’s clear mandate that virtually everyone born on US soil is an American citizen. In quick succession, four federal district court judges blocked the order, with one deeming it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Into this righteous consensus rode Ilan Wurman, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, arguing in the pages of the New York Times that, actually, Trump might have a point.
Legal scholars and historians reacted with horror, not because the article, co-written with Randy Barnett of the Georgetown University Law Center, had uncovered some secret truth that would crack the traditional view of universal birthright citizenship, but because their argument against this cornerstone of American democracy was deceptive. Critics decried Wurman and Barnett’s case as “wrong and dangerous,” pointing to their misreading of historical sources and reliance on evidence that contradicts their thesis. One constitutional law professor went so far as to call their op-ed “hackery by amateur historians who misstate the legal history and twist their own argument.” He and others warned that the article’s revisionist arguments and prominent platform risked leading the public to falsely believe that there was a serious debate at play.
Despite its glaring flaws, the Times opinion piece was the opening round in what would be a year-long campaign to upend conventional wisdom, muddy the truth, and ultimately help the Trump administration’s radical anti-immigrant agenda across the finish line at the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, when the justices hear oral arguments over the president’s effort to rewrite the Constitution and limit birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, the position advanced by Wurman and a handful of controversial legal scholars will get its day in court.
Its interesting how the left who want a social safety net and a minimum wage now desire illegals and high levels of immigration. Even Bernie Sanders had once called it a plan by the Koch Brothers to debase salaries and undermine unions.
After the inflation it was done in many countries to cease wage pressure, as inflation causes wage pressure via more consumption of goods and high demand, on account of the grown money supply.
By debasing the salaries you entrench the created asset inequality and prevent cost of living adjustments from keeping pace with inflation, which the left then bemoan and call the rich greedy; as if they were the ones debasing their workers salaries and inflating their own asset values.
Except your whole argument requires migrants to still be getting paid sub-minimum wages and denied access to the social safety net which obviously isn’t something anyone left of center supports. Instead of advocating for the state to harass poor brown people yet again why don’t you direct some of your rage towards the employers who profit off of their exploitation instead.
Why wouldn’t an illegal be paid less than minimum wage, that’s the entire point of hiring them.