Douglas V. Gibbs ——Bio and Archives--January 15, 2026

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There are five cases (Birthright Citizenship, National Emergency Tariffs, Firing Independent Agency Heads, Bans on Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports, and Banning Conversion Therapy) that will be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in coming weeks that has America on edge, and while I don’t know how they will rule as a body, I do know how they should if they were following the Constitution of the United States. I plan to write a new article regarding each.

Birthright Citizenship is the topic I’ve been talking about the longest, of the five, even addressing it in my book, “25 Myths of the United States Constitution” back in 2014. In the current context, the issue is a part of President Trump’s Executive Order defining Birthright Citizenship as not applying to the children born on American soil to illegal migrants, or to those whose visit to the United States is temporary.

Executive Orders are instruments the President may constitutionally use to provide proclamations, and to transmit instructions to his executive branch regarding the execution of existing law. So, if we are to determine if the Executive Order is constitutional, the first step in the process is to make sure it is supported by existing law. In this case, the Executive Order is supported by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which explicitly states: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” 

So, the question is, are the children born on American soil to........

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