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Michael Popak
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Tom Homan
Have you ever heard of a Chinese American from the 1800s named Wong Kim Ark? That's okay. Tom Homan, who's gonna be Donald Trump's border czar, hasn't heard of him either, nor the United States. Constitutional principles established by the Wong Kim Ark case, reaffirmed in the 1980s by another case that says the ancient principle establishes that ancient principle of birthright citizenship in the United States. You're born on American soil. You're not subject to a foreign power over you. You are an American period. That was reestablished in a case that's off cited in civil rights circles as US versus Wong Kim Ark. I'm talking about the 14th amendment. I'm going to talk about Wong Kim Ark and I'm going to talk about why Tom Homan and Donald Trump's policies are unconstitutional and will end up before the United States Supreme Court in 2025. And I believe they'll be on the losing end. What are they trying to do from a policy standpoint that's against the Wong Kim and 14th Amendment precedent and the ancient principles of our country. They're trying to separate American citizen children born in this country from their parents who are maybe undocumented. Tom Homan did it once in the 2016, 2020 period when he was the head of ice in America. Right? Speaking of ice during winter and during holiday times. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Now he's not gonna be the head of ICE this time. But when he was in 2016-2020 for Donald Trump, Tom Homan had, I think, about 4,000 children who were separated from their parents, some of which were put in cages, we now know infamously. And he's threatening to do it again. He says he needs $86 billion in the first hundred days in order to deport these people. And now he's gotten even more brazen and more bold where he said to the Washington Post that it is the fault of the undocumented parents. They should have known better when they had a child on American soil that could have happened, that they would be separated from him. Think about the heartlessness around that particular policy in trying to blame them. He said, quote, you know your, you know when you're illegal and when you have a child in this country, that you're putting them at risk. That's your fault. This is the same guy who's threatened sanctuary city mayors to jail them. We are going to quickly get to a constitutional crisis, not one, but dozens of them under the Trump administration. And we're here for it on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. Now let me go back to the case and why under the 14th amendment, it says what it says and why it says what it says. 14th amendment, the citizenship clause says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction or the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. Pretty straightforward. Where did it come from? Came from our post Civil War era when the newly freed slaves, now black Americans, needed to have their citizenship reestablished, reaffirmed in the Constitution because a prior immoral constitutional decision called Dred Scott, which is one of the, if not the stain on our American jurisprudence. It is one of these stains written by Judge Taney. Justice Taney says that blacks are not citizens of the United States. So they needed to come up with a constitutional amendment that was passed. If you watch the movie Lincoln, you watched a number of these amendments being passed in real time in that particular movie. The 14th amendment, the 15th amendment, the 16th amendment. These are all the post Civil War Reconstruction amendments, mainly addressed at making sure that the rebel Southern states didn't continue to abuse now freely newly freed black Americans. So that's the 14th amendment. In 1898, it all came to a head in the prevailing jurisprudence in this area called US versus Wong Kim Ark. That's why I said at the top of this particular hot take, do you know who that is? Because Tom Homan doesn't. Here's what the ruling was in that case. That was a Chinese American, a boy who was born on American soil to Chinese parents. We're not going to get into undocumented versus documented. But they were still citizens of China. And as the case recites, they were subject to the Emperor of China at the time. But their child was born here in America. When he was 21, he left the country to go back and visit China. When he came back in, he was stopped by whatever version of border control they had in 1898 and was told that he was not allowed back into the country. He said, but I'm an American citizen. I was born here. And rather the 14th amendment. And there was a whole big fight finally decided by the United States Supreme Court. Now, here's what they said. Just listen to these words because that will help you understand how wrong Tom Homan and how wrong Donald Trump are. Here's what they said in the case. The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications as old as the rule itself, of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our country. Now, some people. I'll stop there. Some people might say, well, these were not resident aliens. Well, they're not using the term as documented versus undocumented. They're just saying it's somebody who lives in the country like the undocumented, who is not a citizen, an alien. So I don't want everybody to start jumping up and down, pop. They're not resident aliens. These parents, they're undocumented. That's not the way this case turns. The decision that I'm reading from the Wong Kim Ark case continues. This is the United States Supreme Court, 1898. The amendment, 14th Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States or all other persons of whatever race or color domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection and consequently subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See, that's another argument by maga. They say, well, these people that are born are not subject to the jurisdiction thereof because their parents are undocumented. No, that is complete nonsense. That is just word salad. That doesn't mean anything. These people are born here. Their parents, a lot of them are undocumented, but they're working and paying Taxes, they're subject to the laws of the state. They can get arrested. They're here, so they're subject to the jurisdiction thereof. As opposed to. That's to contrast it with foreign diplomats who can thumb their nose. This is why they can get a million dollars worth of parking tickets. Nobody cares when they're diplomats cuz they have diplomatic immunity. These people undocumented obviously don't have diplomatic immunity. They barely have any dignity of status as it is. So forget that argument. Although you hear it a lot in the MAGA world, it goes on to say the following. To hold that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship that children born in the United States or of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German and other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. See, it's not just white person privilege. They were applying it here for this Chinese American Justice Gray, who wrote for the Court that emphasized that Congress cannot affect U.S. citizenship acquired under the Constitution. And that's an important distinction here. Because no other branch, the executive branch can't, the legislative branch can't. No other branch can affect the citizenship that is automatically bestowed upon a person here in the United States born on American soil. Period. Here's what the Court had to say about that Congress having no power to abridge the rights conferred by the Constitution upon those who have become naturalized citizens by virtue of acts of Congress. A fortiari to no act or admission of Congress as to providing for the naturalization of parents or children of a particular race can affect citizenship acquired as a birthright. This is a. This is why we call it birthright citizenship. It is bestowed on you by birth on American soil. Nothing that Congress, nothing that the President, nothing that executive action or orders or Tom Holman can do about it, or Kristi Noem, who will now be running the Immigration and Custom Enforcement ICE under him. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found Zbiotics. Pre alcohol probiotic drink. Zebiotics. Pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make ZBiotics your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Now look, I won't lie. 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So the Donald Trump talks a lot about ending birthright citizenship, and I'm here to tell you he cannot. It is in our Constitution. Unless there is a constitutional Amendment approved by 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 2/3 of the United States, the States of America, it's not happening. And then we'll never get to 2/3 on that issue because how many people that would be voting for it, Right. Were born in this country, giving them citizenship? Right. I mean, my. I mean, I assume. I mean, I'll just say it out loud. I assume my grandfather who came over here in 1906 through Ellis island, eventually obtained proper, documented status. I have another grandfather who lived in the Lower east side and a shtetlk also came through Ellis Island. I think they were sort of naturalized on the way in. And so when my father was born here, the first Popoc to be born on US soil, he was automatically, of course, an American citizen, but that made him an American citizen regardless of the status of my grandparents. They could have been undocumented. There might have been an I missed and I that wasn't dotted and a T that wasn't crossed on Ellis Island. I don't know. I hope not. I don't think so, but doesn't matter, because my dad was born here, my mom was born here, and I was born here. And that makes us American citizens and naturalized American citizens and natural born Americans so that we could run for the presidency even if my grandfather couldn't. And so when you hear comments made by the Tom Homans and the Donald Trumps of the world about ending birthright citizenship, that is an attack on your people in our audience, in your lineage, in your family tree. Go look at your family tree. I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on. Now, go look at your family tree and tell me how much of it is dependent on somebody having been born in this country and given the blue passport. Right. And your success and your fortunes and how your life would have changed, right, the trajectory of your life would have changed had that person, whoever that first person was, wasn't born on American soil. Now, I know there's people there. Oh, well, it's birth tourism. They're coming here to drop babies, to get American citizenship. I mean, there is a group that does that. I'm not going to say it doesn't exist, but that's the tail. It shouldn't be wagging the dog of our policy because there's people that try to exploit a loophole. All right, I understand why they want to give birth to an American child. I get it. You know, but to say these are anchor babies that are keeping these other families in find and let me just speak directly and play and plainly, we as an American people, a country that's founded the way our country was founded and with a statue that sits in the harbor, the Statue of Liberty that talks about give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We as an American people have an obligation to the rest of the world to figure our shit out and figure our immigration policy out and come up with a dignified immigration policy that unites and doesn't separate families where a child was born here. There has to be a way to process those family members and have them stay in America, not leave the country and return a child who's an American citizen, who I'm standing up for here on this hot take and return them to a country they've never known. They are an American citizen and I will protect them and their right to remain here and have an American life with my last breath, as should everyone who considers themselves to be an American. There's no other way to put it. We owe it to ourselves, to our generations, to our own ethics and values. And our own, the core principles of constitutional republic upon which we are based to figure it out, come up with a way to have a dignified immigration policy when we have one. We make loyal Americans who, like my wife, cry when, when the national anthem is played because she was naturalized in this country, not because of me. Just for those that might be speculating, she already had her US Citizenship when we met, but she came through the green card lottery. She was lucky enough to come through the green card lottery. And do you know how devoted my wife is to being an American, to being a patriot? There is nobody who's you might be as equal to my wife, but there is nobody who's a bigger patriot, a bigger lover of this country, more respectful of this country and what it gave to her than my wife. We need more of that, not less. We don't need to have people hiding in the shadows in the alleys, living with one eye open with a bag packed just in case. Tom Homan, Stormtroopers come through the front door, right? I've met people who have gone through a dignified immigration policy, primarily before 1980 in the United States, who got their green cards in the mail from their home country and then came in and became hardworking business owners, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, civil servants, teachers, doctors, business owners and the like, lawyers, judges. And then there's this other group that come here because of economic crisis in their own countries, because drug cartels are ready to slit their throats or their children's throats on the way to school. And they want a better life the way that my grandfather, both my grandfathers, wanted a better life after being chased by Cossacks and Nazis in Germany and in Europe, and they came to this country. We should be a bigger group of people and recognize the value that they are making to our society. Say goodbye to undocumented. Say goodbye to half of what you see in the produce department at a supermarket. Say goodbye to some of your, a lot of your chicken, poultry, a lot of your factories that manufacture construction workers, you know, people that work in trade. Say goodbye to all of them. They're not going to be replaced by Americans. Right. We're already at almost full capacity in this country. Tom Holman never went to law school, doesn't understand constitutional law. Neither does Donald Trump, Neither does his incoming attorney general, Pam Bondi, who never served, who never worked in that area. She's always a state person. All right, now, we're going to end up at the United States Supreme Court in 2025. You're going to end up here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I got a new show, Popoc Live, 8pm Eastern Time on Tuesdays on this particular YouTube channel. And then I have a new YouTube channel that I curate called Legal AF is exactly what you think. It's at the intersection of law and politics. On we don't blow smoke or sunshine. Independent. Independent media, independent journalism, commentary and analysis you can only find on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. So until my next contribution in all worlds Legal af, this is Michael Popak reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories the intersection of law and Politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AFMTN. That's @legal AFMTN.
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Legal AF by MeidasTouch: Episode Summary
Episode Title: Supreme Court CALLED TO ACTION by Trump Threat
Release Date: December 27, 2024
Hosts: Ben Meiselas, Michael Popok, Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Executive Producer: Meidas Media Network
In this compelling episode of Legal AF, hosted by Michael Popok of the MeidasTouch Network, the discussion centers around the escalating confrontation between former President Donald Trump and the United States Supreme Court. The focus lies on Trump’s attempts to challenge established constitutional principles, particularly birthright citizenship, and the potential ramifications these actions may have on American jurisprudence and civil rights.
Michael Popok opens the discussion by addressing the recent policy proposals spearheaded by Donald Trump and his appointed officials, notably Tom Homan, the incoming head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Popok emphasizes the gravity of these initiatives, which aim to dismantle the longstanding precedent of birthright citizenship established under the 14th Amendment.
"Donald Trump talks a lot about ending birthright citizenship, and I'm here to tell you he cannot. It is in our Constitution."
[Timestamp: 05:45]
Popok critiques the administration’s stance, highlighting the ethical and legal implications of stripping citizenship from children born on American soil, regardless of their parents' immigration status. He underscores the emotional and societal impact of such policies, arguing they target the very fabric of American identity and familial integrity.
A significant portion of the episode delves into the historical underpinnings of birthright citizenship, tracing its origins to the 14th Amendment. Popok references the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which affirmed that children born in the United States are citizens by birthright, irrespective of their parents' nationality or immigration status.
"The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory... including all children here born of resident aliens."
[Timestamp: 07:30]
Popok explains how this ruling was a direct response to the Dred Scott decision, which had previously denied citizenship to African Americans. The Wong Kim Ark case reinstated and reaffirmed the principles of birthright citizenship, establishing a constitutional safeguard against executive overreach.
The discussion pivots to a legal analysis of the Trump administration’s policies aiming to revoke birthright citizenship. Popok argues that these efforts are fundamentally unconstitutional, as they directly contravene the explicit language of the 14th Amendment.
"To hold that the 14th Amendment excludes from citizenship those children born in the United States would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of various European parentages who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States."
[Timestamp: 11:15]
He dismantles claims made by Trump and his allies that children born to undocumented parents are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Popok clarifies that being born in the U.S. inherently subjects a child to its jurisdiction, thereby granting them citizenship regardless of their parents' legal status.
Looking ahead, Popok predicts that these unconstitutional policies will inevitably lead to significant legal battles, culminating in cases brought before the Supreme Court in 2025. He expresses confidence that the Court will uphold the integrity of the 14th Amendment and protect birthright citizenship from executive and legislative encroachments.
"We are going to end up at the United States Supreme Court in 2025. You're going to end up here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF."
[Timestamp: 18:50]
Popok emphasizes the role of the judiciary in maintaining constitutional balance and safeguarding civil rights against political maneuvers that seek to undermine foundational legal principles.
Throughout the episode, Popok passionately advocates for the preservation of birthright citizenship, framing it as a core American value that underpins the nation’s identity as a land of opportunity and freedom. He highlights personal anecdotes and historical examples to illustrate how birthright citizenship has been instrumental in shaping American society.
"We have an obligation to the rest of the world to figure our immigration policy out and come up with a dignified immigration policy that unites and doesn't separate families where a child was born here."
[Timestamp: 17:20]
Popok calls for a balanced approach to immigration reform that respects constitutional rights while addressing the complexities of modern immigration challenges. He underscores the necessity of ethical leadership and informed policymaking to navigate these issues without infringing on individual rights.
In concluding the episode, Michael Popok reiterates the critical importance of defending constitutional rights against efforts to erode them. He urges listeners to remain vigilant and informed, emphasizing the role of independent media and legal analysis in holding those in power accountable.
"We owe it to ourselves, to our generations, to our own ethics and values to figure it out, come up with a way to have a dignified immigration policy when we have one."
[Timestamp: 19:00]
Popok also promotes the Legal AF YouTube channel and invites listeners to engage with the platform for ongoing discourse at the intersection of law and politics. He underscores the network’s commitment to independent journalism and pro-democracy values, positioning Legal AF as a vital resource for understanding and challenging legal and political developments.
Key Takeaways:
Constitutional Safeguards: The 14th Amendment firmly establishes birthright citizenship, which the Trump administration’s policies seek to challenge unlawfully.
Historical Precedent: The Wong Kim Ark case serves as a foundational legal precedent affirming the citizenship of children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.
Legal Implications: Attempts to revoke birthright citizenship are unconstitutional and will likely result in significant Supreme Court deliberations.
Call for Ethical Policy: There is a pressing need for dignified and ethical immigration policies that uphold constitutional rights and unite rather than divide families.
Notable Quotes:
"Donald Trump talks a lot about ending birthright citizenship, and I'm here to tell you he cannot. It is in our Constitution." — Michael Popok [05:45]
"The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory... including all children here born of resident aliens." — Michael Popok [07:30]
"To hold that the 14th Amendment excludes from citizenship those children born in the United States would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of various European parentages who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States." — Michael Popok [11:15]
"We owe it to ourselves, to our generations, to our own ethics and values to figure it out, come up with a way to have a dignified immigration policy when we have one." — Michael Popok [19:00]
Final Thoughts
This episode of Legal AF provides a thorough and legally grounded examination of the threats posed by Donald Trump’s administration to established immigration laws, particularly birthright citizenship. Through historical context, constitutional analysis, and passionate advocacy, Michael Popok elucidates the critical importance of defending foundational American principles against unconstitutional policy shifts. Listeners are left with a clear understanding of the stakes involved and the imperative to uphold civil rights in the face of political challenges.