“Send Her Back!” Could Trump, GOP Strip Americans of Citizenship? Yes.

“Send her back!” could be the opening foray into a broad effort to strip some Americans of their citizenship. This would lead to their deportation.

Ilahn Omar was born in Somalia, fled a war with her father, and lived in a refugee camp for four years. Her father was granted asylum. He became a citizen, and so did Ms. Omar.

Now consider Melania Trump. She came to the U.S. on a “talent” visa that automatically granted citizenship (as an elite fashion model). Later, she brought her parents to America. They were naturalized in essentially the same way as Rep. Omar (family preferences in our immigration laws, also derisively called "chain migration" by some conservatives).

Now consider existing methods for stripping citizenship. They are exceedingly rare. 

One category is for war criminals (John Demjanjuk, convicted as an accessory to killing 28,000 Jews as a Nazi). 

Another category is for terrorists (Rasmi Khader Almallah, funder for Hamas and employer of 9/11 attacker).

A larger group is for marriage fraud that results in naturalization citizenship.

So, how could Trump and the GOP expand this effort to “send home” American citizens?

That would require more executive orders and favorable court rulings.

Here is one path (not the only): Declare that birthright citizenship is abolished (even though it is in the Constitution and has been upheld by the Supreme Court). 

President Trump has already stated an intention to do this.

Enforcement would be very difficult. It could begin with newborns of known or suspected undocumented immigrants. 

If the Trump administration had enough stomach: Take newborns from hospitals, detain them, and process them for deportation. That would be a method, albeit brutal, for stripping citizenship.

Take the same idea and apply it to older children, born on U.S. soil to undocumented mothers (or parents— there is inconsistency in how conservatives define an illegitimate birthright citizen).

I’ll try to blog at least one other possibility: Denaturalize family preference citizens (GOP term is “chain migration”), the method that brought Rep. Omar and the First Lady’s parents to America as citizens.

In sum: Our nation is debating the meaning of “Send her home!” That debate should look ahead to the immigration policy implications of citizenship stripping, long a prize of American nativists.