William Galston, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed insists that President Donald Trump’s (R) Executive Order regarding birthright citizenship—which says that children born to illegal aliens or birth-tourism mothers are not ipso facto entitled to American citizenship—is unconstitutional. Galston correctly hangs his argument on the 14th Amendment’s first clause phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof (of the United States). He’s also correct in that some case law could serve as impediments to enforcing Trump’s EO and that some Supreme Court precedential rulings that touch on birthright citizenship also could so serve.

Here’s the importance of that phrase, albeit it’s an importance that Galston and others objecting to the EO completely miss. Illegal aliens have held themselves outside our legal jurisdiction from the very beginning—their illegal entry into our nation in violation of the laws, the jurisdiction, of our nation—and they continue to hold themselves outside our jurisdiction by their continued status as illegal aliens.

A similar case applies to those birth-tourism mothers. They have no intention whatsoever of remaining—legally—and so submitting themselves to our nation’s jurisdiction. They have every intention of remaining citizens, subject to the jurisdiction, of their home nation.

Because these two groups refuse our nation’s jurisdiction, birthright citizenship can never, legitimately, apply to their children for all the accident (deliberate or not) of the geography of their birth.

Here is an instance where the over-sanctification of precedent could be corrected in the specific instance: overturn the wrongly decided case law and correct those past Supreme Court precedents. Recognize via Court ruling the plain, obvious, and rational meaning of the 14th Amendment’s phrase. That’s a requirement the Supreme Court has emplaced a number of times.