This excellent post explains the subject of 'Citizenship' very well. Let's hope The SCOTUS does the right thing.

 

Is America a Country for Americans? The Supreme Court Will Decide

Citizenship must involve complete loyalty to the U.S. or else there is no sovereignty.

Joseph Ford Cotto | February 27, 2026 www.americanthinker.com 

Citizenship is not a technicality. It is not a loophole. It is not a prize slipped across a hospital bassinet because geography happened to cooperate. Citizenship is the highest legal bond between an individual and a sovereign nation.

If that bond means anything, it must mean allegiance. That is the principle at the center of President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14160, signed on Jan. 20, 2025, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.

The order directs federal agencies not to recognize automatic citizenship for certain children born in the United States after Feb. 19, 2025. When the mother was unlawfully present, or present only temporarily, and the father was neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident, the child becomes ineligible for citizenship.

Its rationale is straightforward. The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to those born in the U.S. and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That final clause is not ornamental language. It is a constitutional requirement.

Opponents moved quickly. Lawsuits were filed almost immediately.

Federal district courts issued preliminary injunctions, including a nationwide block from a Maryland judge on Feb. 5, halting enforcement before the policy could take effect. For a time, it appeared that the familiar pattern would repeat itself, executive action frozen by sweeping lower court orders.

Then the Supreme Court intervened in a critical procedural dispute.

On June 27, in Trump v. CASA, the Court ruled 6 to 3 to limit the use of universal injunctions by lower courts, finding no broad historical basis for them in most cases. The justices did not resolve the merits of the birthright citizenship order, but they did something profoundly important. They reaffirmed that nationwide policy questions belong before the Supreme Court itself, not in the hands of a single district judge.

That set the stage for the main event.

On Dec. 5, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Trump v. Barbara, agreeing to hear the constitutional challenge to Executive Order 14160 during its ongoing term, with oral arguments scheduled for April 1, 2026.

The Court deserves enormous credit for taking the case. The country cannot function indefinitely on assumptions about citizenship that were never fully tested against the constitutional text.

The most powerful defense of the order appears in an amicus brief filed Jan. 27, 2026, in support of the petitioners in Supreme Court case No. 25-365. That brief does not rely on rhetoric. It relies on history, statutory development, Supreme Court precedent, and the framers’ own explanations.

Its core argument is simple, yet powerful.

The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has always meant complete political allegiance, not mere physical presence. English common law shaped that understanding. In Calvin’s Case in 1608, Lord Coke explained that subject status depended on ligeantia, meaning allegiance and obedience to the sovereign, not simply being born within territorial boundaries. Allegiance was reciprocal. Protection flowed from loyalty.

That concept carried into American law.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared citizens to be those born in the U.S. and not subject to any foreign power. Sen. Jacob Howard later explained that the Fourteenth Amendment’s jurisdiction language would exclude foreigners, aliens, and the families of ambassadors. Sen. Lyman Trumbull defined jurisdiction as complete jurisdiction, meaning not owing allegiance to anybody else.

These statements were not casual observations. They were explanations of what the Amendment was designed to accomplish.

The post ratification record reinforces the same principle. In the Slaughter House Cases in 1872, the Supreme Court observed that the jurisdiction clause excludes children of ministers and citizens of foreign states born within the U.S. In Elk v. Wilkins in 1884, the Court held that birth within the U.S. was not enough where complete allegiance was lacking.

Citizenship required full political subjection, not partial or divided loyalty.

Opponents point to United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898. But that case involved parents who were lawful permanent residents domiciled in the U.S. with the government’s consent. The Court emphasized lawful residence and the sovereign’s permission. It did not address children born to parents present in violation of federal law.

Extending Wong Kim Ark to that context assumes what must be proven.

Modern courts have read Wong Kim Ark carefully. In Tuaua v. United States, the D.C. Circuit stressed the importance of complete political jurisdiction and direct allegiance. The amicus brief argues that collapsing the distinction between lawful, consent based presence and unlawful presence erases the constitutional requirement of allegiance.

The practical stakes are real.

Jennifer Pak reported that official Chinese estimates placed annual birth tourism numbers in the U.S. at approximately 50,000. Salvatore Babones has estimated figures as high as 100,000 per year. Peter Schweizer has argued that over a decade the number of children born through such practices could range between 750,000 and 1.5 million. China Daily has openly advertised automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment as an incentive for expectant mothers.

These numbers underscore a hard truth. If citizenship attaches automatically without regard to allegiance or lawful status, the incentive structure changes. The Constitution becomes a magnet rather than a covenant. The amicus brief contends that the framers anticipated this danger and wrote the jurisdiction clause to prevent it.

Textual analysis strengthens that case.

The Fourteenth Amendment speaks of being “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” not merely “within the jurisdiction.” That distinction appears elsewhere in the amendment. The difference in phrasing suggests a difference in scope. Total political allegiance is not the same as temporary subjection to local laws.

The brief synthesizes English common law, the drafting history of 1866, early Supreme Court decisions, and modern precedent. It concludes that children born to those who remain under the political allegiance of another sovereign and who entered or stayed unlawfully are not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. in the constitutional sense.

That conclusion is not radical. It is anchored in text and history. It respects Congress’s role in naturalization. It restores meaning to words too long treated as surplus.

If the Supreme Court upholds Executive Order 14160, thereby clarifying the Fourteenth Amendment, the decision will resonate far beyond immigration policy. It will affirm that citizenship is defined by constitutional principle, not by gaming the system. It will elevate the value of American citizenship by tying it unmistakably to allegiance and consent. It will limit the ability of foreign interests and unlawful entrants to manufacture status through geography alone.

Most importantly, it will return control over America herself to the proper American people and their Constitution. In an era when sovereignty is often treated as an inconvenience, such a ruling would declare that the bond of citizenship still matters, still carries weight, and still demands loyalty.

That is not exclusion. That is self-government.

If citizenship can be claimed without allegiance, then sovereignty becomes a suggestion and the Constitution a relic. This case forces a choice between sentiment and structure, between drift and definition. The amicus brief proves that the Fourteenth Amendment demands loyalty, not opportunism.

Should the Court affirm that truth, it will not merely decide a policy dispute. It will decide whether U.S. citizenship is sacredly reserved for Americans themselves, or formalized as a valuable commodity for alien birth tourists.

 

The streets of Mexican cities are drenched in blood because of the horrific cartel violence.

 

Taking the Offensive Against Cartels

Michael Swartz 2-25-26 patriotpost.us

The drug kingpin known as “El Mencho” was killed by Mexican authorities, opening a new chapter in the war on cartels.

Two years ago, back in the bad old days of President Autopen, I introduced a piece on Mexican cartels by predicting, “In the time it takes you to read this article, it’s most likely that some American somewhere will have died from an overdose of fentanyl.” With President Donald Trump taking office and making it a priority to fight the fentanyl threat, I would now have to write an article that’s about 25% longer to maintain that statement.

But that success is only the beginning. While people were aware that President Trump placed a price on the head of former Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, not as many knew about a bounty placed on Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” the former head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel who assumed room temperature en route to treatment at a Mexico City hospital after being mortally wounded in a daring raid on a mountain compound by Mexican special forces. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “U.S. and Mexican law enforcement saw capturing Oseguera as a high-risk operation because of his military might and the risks of widespread violence. With this strike, Mexico had provided a ‘scalp to the U.S., putting off the threat of unilateral U.S. military action against the cartels,’ said Mike Burgoyne, a former U.S. military attaché in Mexico City.”

Burgoyne’s assessment signals a further change in thinking by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has turned from the initial perception upon her election of being controlled by the cartels to a more cooperative stance, at least according to The New York Times. “[El Mencho’s] death is likely to improve the Mexican government’s relations with Washington,” the Times reported. “Mr. Trump has been pressuring Mexico to combat the cartels more forcefully and threatening military strikes against the groups if he is not satisfied with the results. Ms. Sheinbaum has firmly and repeatedly rejected that proposal, saying any U.S. strikes would violate Mexico’s sovereignty. At the same time, her government has expanded its cooperation with American security agencies, including on intelligence.”

In fact, our “intelligence support” was credited as part of the success of the operation, which was exclusively carried out by the Mexican military.

That success, however, came with a cost, as angry cartel members ran rampant in several Mexican states, blocking roads, burning buildings, and killing dozens. The American embassy urged U.S. citizens in several locations to shelter in place until further notice. Meanwhile, schools were closed in several areas of Mexico, while concerts and soccer matches were canceled. “The Mexican government, assisted by our government, has won a great victory against the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco,” said National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “But it has come at a significant cost, costs borne mostly by the people of Mexico, hiding in their homes and wondering when the streets will be safe again.”

Then again, the streets of Mexico haven’t been all that safe for years since narco-terrorism took over in the 1990s, with the cartels becoming powerful enough to enlist the use of drones rigged with explosives against Border Patrol agents, as our Emmy Griffin wrote last year. So it was more of a precaution for Americans to hunker down as cartels used the common psychological ploy of burning cars and halting traffic to remind people who’s in control. “They are burning buses, they’re shutting down roads, not only in Jalisco, but Michoacan, Colima, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, and then also Aguas Calientes,” said Mike Vigil, former DEA Chief of International Operations, to CBS News. “And what they’re trying to do is show that they are still a force to be reckoned with, that this was not a lethal blow to them.”

The bigger fear, however, is a war between factions of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel if there wasn’t a succession plan in place. In the meantime, former DEA acting administrator Derek Maltz acknowledged that the operation’s success was a long time coming: “We’ve been sharing intelligence against Mencho for a long time. And we share intelligence daily with our counterparts in the embassy in Mexico.”

There was still a sense of triumph from Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “The good guys are stronger than the bad guys,” he wrote on X, but later cautioned, “I’m watching the scenes of violence from Mexico with great sadness and concern. It’s not surprising that the bad guys are responding with terror. But we must never lose our nerve.”

The lives of thousands who could be fentanyl victims depend on us staying in the fight.

 

Nation's commit suicide by demographic means - illegal immigration will be our destruction - IF we do nothing.

 

Peter Schweizer’s Invisible Coup Warns of the Migrant Invasion

In his typical lucid, accessible style, Schweizer nevertheless provides a deep dive into how mass immigration is being used to undermine America.

John Dale Dunn | February 25, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

Peter Schweizer is a renowned and accomplished American investigative journalist who has written 19 books. His latest book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, could be his best and most important to date, as he discusses the existential risk to America posed by multiple, multifarious actors who are enemies of Western civilization and American culture.

If you have read Schweizer before, you know that he doesn’t beat around the bush. Instead, he names names and identifies events to ensure readers understand every issue. He is a clear, detailed, and honest broker, totally unlike what Rush used to call “drive-by journalism.” He digs into his subject so that the attentive reader, even the lazy reader like me, gets the picture—knows who the major players are and what they did or did not do. It’s gratifying to read a writer who takes his work seriously. The Invisible Coup lives up to this high standard.

Despite being fact-filled, the book moves quickly as Schweizer addresses the major migration threats to American cultural, political, and national security, posed by an assortment of bad actors. On the left, mass migration has been promoted as humanitarian, and the migration of distressed populations has been held up as a moral obligation. However, non-assimilating populations can destroy societal order and peace—as the Roman empire and modern Europe and America show, that’s a very real risk of mass immigration.

Criminality of immigrant populations is undeniable. On a small scale or with aggressive policing, a country can handle it. On a large scale, without a serious response, it disrupts economies, civic order, and peace. Unfortunately, powerful elites and socialist political movements encourage mass migration to America to get political power.

Schweizer vividly describes what mass migration has done and is doing to America. Currently, there are two primary types of mass immigration.

There’s a Latin American movement (especially connected with Mexico) that envisions “La Raza” (the race) effecting a “Reconquista” to reclaim the western half of the US that Mexicans of Spanish and Mestizo lineage held before Mexico lost the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The strategy uses Latin American immigration, organized and influenced by state-based Mexican consulates, to encourage political activity and to support the election of individuals sympathetic to the cause. NGOs, as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), serve as advocate groups. Mexican political leaders are taking the project seriously.

Additionally, massive migration from Muslim nations worldwide brings ideological antagonism to Western values and non-Muslim people. Islam’s stated goal is destruction. The first method is straight-up wartime conquest. The second method, if Muslims have become a critical mass of the population, is to eliminate minority populations by genocide, forced slavery, or dhimmi (second-class) status. And the third tactic, which is the current tactic in America, where Muslims are still a minority, is to create domestic advocacy programs that operate from Muslim ghettos that function as ribats (fortifications/ghettos).

Mass immigration’s globalist promoters envision oligarchic power in a world without national identities and political power centers.

China has its own goal, and Schweizer focuses intently on China’s motives and actions as it seeks to become the world’s hegemon. To do this, China must destroy America, and it’s currently putting its efforts into mass migration to swallow America and the American republic with an overwhelming demographic shift. Schweizer writes about Chinese surrogacy and tourist births in America, which, combined with birthright citizenship, create massive numbers of Chinese raised in and loyal to China, but with American citizenship. Mass immigration also allows people loyal to China to reside in America.

Schweizer also addresses how immigration is a money funnel. Thus, we learn how foreign countries can funnel campaign contributions through visa holders.

No immigration discussion would be complete without looking at the Catholic Church’s extraordinary involvement in promoting uncontrolled migration. He does a splendid job of showing how socialist, liberation theology Catholic clergy have been malefactors of great impact in this mess that is uncontrolled migration.

Mr. Schweizer presents a strong, evidence-based argument that reminds the reader of Sir John Glubb’s essay on the death of empires—they die of suicide. One of the important factors in national suicide is allowing unrestrained in-migration of parasitic disruptors.

 

Mexico is a 'war zone' with the Mexican government and violent lawless cartels. Lives are at stake including vacationing Americans.

 

Drugs, drones, and bombs: Mexico’s most powerful cartel at the center of violent rampage

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s reprisal against Mexican authorities for the killing of its leader highlights the threat of the powerful group armed with military weapons and billions in wealth.

By Steven Richards 2-23-26 justthenews.com

By all reports, it was a usual Sunday morning in the wealthy Pacific port city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico when gunshots began to ring out and sirens began to blare. Mexican cartel bandits scattered across the city, lighting vehicles on fire and ambushing Mexican police and national guard. Scenes more reminiscent of a Middle East insurgency than a Mexican resort town began to circulate online. 

The culprits were members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Mexico’s most powerful and well-equipped cartel that has carried out several attacks against Mexican government forces in the past. The attacks followed the death of the cartel’s leader, Ruben Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” in a Mexican military operation last weekend. 

CJNG, as the name of the cartel is abbreviated, rose to power in Jalisco following a dispute with the infamous Sinaloa cartel once headed by the famed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Since 2016, it has consolidated its control in Jalisco and operates a global drug trafficking empire with interests spanning from China to North Africa. Its primary source of income is moving crystal methamphetamine from Mexico to the United States. 

"International cartels and transnational organizations"

The widespread attacks vindicate the Trump administration’s warnings about the violent cartels, who export drugs to America but also wield “military grade weaponry” that poses a threat to Mexican law enforcement and the United States. 

Though initially hesitant to cooperate with American forces and crack down on the cartels, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has adopted a tougher stance towards the criminal organizations. Since Trump took office last year, the Mexican government has extradited at least 92 cartel members for trial in the United States. The Mexican armed forces have also increased operations against the cartels like the one that targeted El Mencho last weekend. 

Derek Maltz, a retired special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told Just the News that he has seen a shift in Mexican policy in recent months. 

“I've been a very big critic for many years now, on the Mexican government's soft on crime, hugs for drugs, policies down there,” Maltz told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. “And what I've seen is completely the opposite.” 

Maltz said that he met with Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Omar Harfuch on his visit to the United States and “it was very clear” that he and his team “were very serious about going after these cartels and working with America.” 

He added, “Action speaks louder than words, right? We’ve heard a lot of talk in the past, but now we’re seeing action.” 

For example, the Pentagon has been collaborating closely with Mexican security officials. Last summer, it hosted an intelligence-sharing effort with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and Mexican officials, Just the News reported.

“Trump has said to the President of Mexico, either you take care of these cartels or I will,” Fred Fleitz, the chief of staff of Trump’s National Security Council during his first term, told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. “That led to the extraordinary action by the Mexican government to go up against cartels, which they never do. Right now, the government is at war with two of them, and we can see what happens when you go after them. This is a reaction to Trump's strong leadership.” 

Mexico’s most powerful cartel designated terrorists by the U.S.

President Donald Trump officially designated CJNG and other cartels as terrorist organizations last year as part of a U.S.-led effort to degrade the criminal organizations and secure America’s southern border. The president initially directed the Pentagon to draft options for military 

The U.S. Department of State has described CJNG as a “transnational organization with a presence in nearly every part of Mexico” that trafficks fentanyl, engages in extortion, smuggles migrants, steals oil and minerals, and trades in weaponry. 

“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” President Trump said in his 2025 executive order designating the groups as terrorist organizations. 

According to the U.S. administration, cartels like CJNG pose a “national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime” because they have developed close ties with “extra-hemispheric actors” like other terrorist organizations, have engaged in insurgency, and have infiltrated governments in the Western Hemisphere. 

CJNG is one of Mexico’s richest cartels and a substantial portion of its billions of dollars in annual income comes from targeting Americans. Like other cartels, CJNG is engaged in the illegal drug trade, shipping crystal methamphetamine across the U.S. southern border as well as to countries like Canada and Australia. Its “de facto” control of the Mexican port of Manzanillo in Colima, Mexico, “allows the group to import precursor chemicals to produce fentanyl and methamphetamine,” according to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

But, the group has also diversified its income by embarking on novel ventures, including scamming U.S. seniors through timeshare fraud and extortion. Just days before the Mexican military operation targeted “El Mencho,” the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Kovay Gardens Mexican timeshare resort, five individuals, and 17 companies associated with what it called a “timeshare fraud network” led by CJNG in Puerto Vallarta. 

According to the Treasury Department, CJNG would obtain information from insiders on U.S. owners of timeshare properties inside Mexico. A cartel-controlled call center would then contact the owners and attempt to offer services for advance payments. The scammers have also gone on to re-victimize the U.S. owners by posing as lawyers offering to help recover the lost funds, the Treasury Department said.

Cartels adopt military-grade weapons, outclass police

The cartels, and especially CJNG, present a new and dangerous problem. They are increasingly employing military grade weaponry like drones, improvised explosive devices, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. 

Recent battles between CJNG and rival cartel cells have terrorized villages, some within just a few hundred miles of the U.S. border. The use of drones in particular has made them more dangerous, which they use to drop explosives on their enemies, both Mexican police and rivals.  

“CJNG has conducted intimidating acts of violence, including attacks on Mexican military and police with military grade weaponry, the use of drones to drop explosives on Mexican law enforcement, and assassinations or attempted assassinations of Mexican officials,” says the State Department. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that the adoption of such weaponry by the cartels makes them more dangerous than traditional criminal organizations or gangs. 

Not just local street gangs

“We cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with Catholic TV network EWTN last year. “They have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, in some cases armies, have.”

Cartels have steadily adopted military-grade weapons over the last decade, a trend that is fueled by the arms race between rivals. In 2015, CJNG was the first cartel to use a rocket-propelled grenade to shoot down a Mexican military helicopter that was participating in an operation against the gang. In many cases, Mexican police have found themselves at a disadvantage against the cartels’ military equipment.

“They’ve been a step ahead of us for years,” former state security chief Alfredo Ortega told The New York Times last year. He led operations in Michoacán, Mexico, a state where CJNG has recently battled its rivals.  

“They have unlimited resources and access to weapons and technology our local forces simply don’t. They came at us with Barrett .50-caliber semiautomatic rifles, and our local police forces didn’t even have anything close to that."