Latest news with #McArthur
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Appellate court judges show skepticism of Trump's birthright citizenship arguments
Photo by Getty Images A federal appellate court is weighing whether to allow President Donald Trump to end the 157-year-old constitutional guarantee that every child born in the country is a U.S. citizen. On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a lawsuit launched in January by Arizona, Washington, Illinois and Oregon against the federal government. The Democratic-led states took the federal government to court just a day after Trump issued an executive order that sought to deny citizenship to children born in the country after Feb. 19, 2025 if the child's parents are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. A district court judge in Seattle has since temporarily blocked the executive order from going into effect, calling it 'blatantly unconstitutional'. The Trump administration is hoping to convince the appellate court to reverse that ruling, arguing that the benefits of the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship to people born on U.S. soil, was never meant to apply to the children of undocumented immigrants. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Eric McArthur, a deputy assistant attorney general, defended Trump's executive order by pointing to the writings and debates of congressmen involved in the crafting of the Fourteenth Amendment that he claimed showed a clear intent to reserve birthright citizenship for people whose parents have a history of living in the country and have some degree of civic rights. 'The principal purpose of the citizenship clause was to repudiate Dred Scott,' McArthur said, referring to an 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case that concluded African Americans could never be citizens. 'To guarantee citizenship for the freed slaves and their children. The question presented here is whether it also extended birthright citizenship as a matter of constitutional right to the children of transient visitors and illegal aliens — a class that did not even exist at the time.' Excluding the children of undocumented immigrants from the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment would leave hundreds of thousands of children born in the country every year in legal limbo, and likely at risk of deportation. According to the lawsuit brought by the Democratic states, both parents of as many as 3,400 children born in Arizona in 2022 lacked legal status. The Trump administration's key argument turns on a phrase in the Fourteenth Amendment that has long been interpreted as excluding solely the children of foreign diplomats. It guarantees citizenship to people born or naturalized in the country who are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. That language replaced a similar phrase in a previous iteration, called the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which also explicitly left out the children of Native Americans who were part of tribes that didn't pay taxes to the U.S. government. Native Americans weren't granted U.S. citizenship until decades later, in 1924. McArthur argued that Congress could similarly choose to pass laws that protect the access to birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. But, he said, for now the shortened phrase clearly implies that the children of people who are citizens of other countries should be denied U.S. citizenship, even if they are born in the United States. And for U.S. born children to be eligible for U.S. citizenship, their parents must have lived in the United States long enough to have a 'mutual relationship of allegiance on the part of the individual and protection on the part of the government,' McArthur said. They can't be newly arrived or in the country on a temporary visa. 'The logic of the argument is: Step one is that 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' means subject to the complete political jurisdiction of the United States, not simply the regulatory jurisdiction where you have a duty to obey U.S. law,' McArthur said. 'Then step number two of the argument is that in order for foreigners who are coming from abroad to become subject to the complete political jurisdiction of the United States, they have to be domiciled here.' McArthur's argument that the parents of a child born in the U.S. must be 'domiciled' in the country rests on the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark case. That case centered around the U.S. born son of Chinese immigrants, Wong Kim Ark, who was denied reentry into the country following a trip abroad while the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect. The ruling in the case, which ultimately found that Wong Kim Ark was a U.S. citizen by birth despite his parent's lack of legal status, noted that his parents had a 'permanent domicile' in the country, diminishing any allegiance they may have had to the 'Emperor of China'. The judges appeared skeptical of McArthur's claim that parental residency in the country is a prerequisite of birthright citizenship. 'I'm looking at the language of the citizenship clause. I don't see any language there, textually, that says they have to be domiciled,' Judge Ronald Gould pointed out. McArthur replied that living in the United States is a logical precursor to acquiring a 'political jurisdiction' in the country, which the courts have interpreted as separate from a surface-level obedience to the country's criminal and civil laws known as 'regulatory jurisdiction'. Undocumented immigrants, he argued, don't have that level of allegiance and are not integrated enough into the country to merit the benefits of the Fourteenth Amendment for their children — they lack the quality of being completely 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. Judge Michael Hawkins questioned whether undocumented immigrants could, under that logic, contest the government's lack of jurisdiction over them during criminal proceedings. McArthur disagreed, saying everyone must still obey the country's laws and that the jurisdiction referred to in the Fourteenth Amendment simply sets a higher standard for birthright citizenship to be granted. '(Political jurisdiction) is the most encompassing form of jurisdiction that a nation can have over an individual, where you not only have the duty to obey U.S. law while you are present in the country, but it's the sort of jurisdiction that can get you convicted of treason if you leave the country and go abroad and take up arms against the United States,' he said. 'It's the sort of jurisdiction that, if you are in trouble in a foreign nation, the United States will intervene diplomatically on your behalf to protect you.' Hawkins pressed McArthur on his interpretation of political jurisdiction, asking whether the children of asylum seekers whose cases have been granted and are effectively being protected from another country would then be considered U.S. citizens at birth, despite their parents' limited legal status. Trump's executive order doesn't address asylum seekers. McArthur said the lawsuit and subsequent court ruling blocking its enforcement prevented the federal government from working that out, or developing any policies that could explain how the order would be implemented. Gould and Hawkins seemed unimpressed with McArthur's reliance on previous court opinions and statements from the authors of the Constitution, grilling him on why they should look beyond the plain text of the amendment, which makes no mention of residency or allegiance. McArthur replied that the language had an underlying significance for the framers that is critical to understanding what the Fourteenth Amendment actually means. 'The key point here that you need to understand is that jurisdiction, just like allegiance, comes in degrees,' he said. 'What the Framers explained, and what the Supreme Court explained, is in the Fourteenth Amendment we are not looking at that lesser form of jurisdiction, we're looking at a higher more encompassing form of jurisdiction that is the same type of jurisdiction in quality and extent that applies to U.S. citizens.' Noah Purcell, the solicitor general for the state of Washington, urged the judges to keep the executive order blocked, warning that lifting the injunction against it would harm the states involved in the lawsuit and fly in the face of nearly two centuries of case law. 'The Trump administration's position is that for that entire time, everyone was wrong,' he said. 'If you accept that view, it would also mean that millions of babies born during that time who got the benefit of birthright citizenship never actually should have been treated as citizens. They never should have been allowed to serve on juries, or vote, to hold various government jobs, or receive government benefits. They could have been deported and that would include millions of Americans alive today who have always thought that they were citizens.' While the executive order was set to go into effect in February, the district court's ruling put it on hold indefinitely while litigation continues. The judges appeared split on whether the order could ever be made retroactive, with Hawkins and Judge Patrick Bumatay dismissing the concern and saying that even children born beyond the February deadline are still benefiting from birthright citizenship. But Gould wasn't so sure. 'If the government's position is accepted would that mean that if a mother of a child did not meet the government's current definition that (her) child — even if they lived in the United States for 40 years thereafter paying taxes, working, making a life here, that they could be deported now?' he asked Purcell. Purcell agreed, saying that accepting the federal government's premise could have retroactive consequences because it overrides how the Fourteenth Amendment has long been understood. The more looming issue, Purcell said, is the administrative burdens that enforcing the executive order could incur for hospital and government workers who have few systems in place to identify who would qualify for birthright citizenship. 'You would have to question the parents of every newborn in this country: 'Do you intend to stay here? What is your allegiance?' Purcell said it's also unclear how the children of dual citizens fit into the new understanding. He posited that dual citizenship could be considered 'allegiance' to another country. Bumatay waved away that concern, saying it was yet another point in favor of the federal government's argument that the injunction was awarded too prematurely and the White House was never given the opportunity to work out the kinks in the policy change. 'We don't know how unworkable it is because they were not given the chance to implement it,' he said. Purcell disagreed, saying that the injunction prevents the federal government from enforcing the executive order, not developing policy on how it could be implemented or resolving the problems that the states have raised. The judges quizzed Purcell on his response to McArthur's insistence that the parents of children born in the United States must have both a 'domicile' in the country and a political allegiance to it. Purcell said that the courts have never interpreted either requirement as being a part of the guarantee in the Fourteenth Amendment. In the 1982 case of Plyler v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the immigration status of a child's parents doesn't preclude them from enjoying the constitutional protections they are entitled to by being born in the country. Even in the Wong Kim Ark case, Purcell pointed out, the justices found that the nonexistent citizenship status of the parents doesn't impact the right of their child born in the U.S. to be granted citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment, Purcell said, was never intended to exclude anyone but a limited number of people. The children of Chinese immigrants and Roma people, in fact, were also a source of friction among the framers, but they weren't among the groups who were written out in the end. 'The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment in using the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' was to exclude by the fewest and fittest words possible, the children of Indians and the two classes of cases — the children of invading armies and the children of diplomats,' Purcell said. 'To exclude only those cases that had been recognized as exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship.' The lawsuit from the four Western states isn't the only one aimed at nullifying Trump's bid to gut birthright citizenship. Two other legal challenges, including one launched on the same day as the one heard by the appellate court on Wednesday in a two-pronged strategy devised by Democratic elected officials, are also aimed at preserving birthright citizenship. The trio of cases were consolidated by the U.S. Supreme Court after the Trump administration petitioned the high court to consider whether to limit the scope of nationwide injunctions. In each case, three separate federal district court judges blocked Trump's executive order from being implemented anywhere in the country. The country's highest court held oral arguments in the case last month, but has yet to issue a ruling. If the justices choose to roll back the ability of federal judges to issue decisions that affect the entire country, the Ninth Circuit of Appeals may be forced to limit the injunction or remand the lawsuit brought by the four Western states down to the lower court for reconsideration. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
DOJ presses federal appeals court to reverse ruling blocking Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship
The Justice Department on Wednesday pressed a federal appeals court to reverse a judge's ruling that blocked nationwide President Donald Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship. The hearing before a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals represents the first time one of the nation's intermediate courts has heard oral arguments over the constitutionality of the controversial policy, which was blocked by several courts earlier this year before it could take effect. The hourlong hearing unfolded at a courthouse in Seattle comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether it should modify the lower-court injunctions so that Trump can begin partially enforcing the policy while the legal challenges are resolved. 'Our position is very firmly grounded in text, history and precedent. But I do want to be clear that the 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause sets a floor for birthright citizenship and not a ceiling, so there's nothing in our position that would prevent Congress – if it saw fit and on the terms it saw fit – from granting citizenship to the children of foreigners who are in the country temporarily or unlawfully,' DOJ attorney Eric Dean McArthur told the court. Some of the discussion on Wednesday concerned whether the appeals court should also narrow the reach of the ruling issued in February by US District Judge John Coughenour, with McArthur struggling to answer some questions about how the policy would apply to certain groups of immigrants – like asylum seekers – because officials haven't been able to craft guidance implementing Trump's executive order due to the series of court orders. 'One of the problems with the injunction is that it enjoined the government from even explaining how this order would be implemented,' McArthur said at one point. 'So, how the executive order, if and when it is allowed to take effect, would apply to various categories like asylees, like refugees, is not clear at this point.' But given the Supreme Court's pending ruling on whether the injunctions should be reined in, McArthur suggested later that the appeals court shouldn't yet 'put pen to paper' on its own decision. One member of the panel – Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, a Trump appointee – asked questions throughout the hearing that were sympathetic to the administration's arguments, including whether a key 19th century Supreme Court Case offered a more limited understanding of who the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause applies to. Bumatay also pressed an attorney representing the states challenging the policy on whether a nationwide injunction was necessary at this point – an argument the administration has consistently pushed after courts blocked the policy across the board. 'The harms to the states that would flow from a piecemeal rule are the same harms that will flow from the rule itself,' Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell said. 'Babies will be born in non-plaintiff states, they will not receive a Social Security number, their families will move into our states and when they arrive here we will not have any way under our existing systems to enroll them in programs that they are entitled to participate in,' he added. A different panel of the 9th Circuit declined earlier this year to put Coughenour's ruling on hold, and federal appeals courts in Boston and Richmond similarly rejected requests from the administration to undo other rulings blocking Trump's policy. Trump's order, titled 'Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,' seeks to bar the federal government from issuing 'documents recognizing United States citizenship' to any child born on American soil to parents who were in the country unlawfully or were in the states lawfully but temporarily.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
BCSO requests ride audio from fatal shooting of Lyft driver
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WMBB) – Bay County Sheriff's deputies responded to the intersection of Wildwood Road and Emerald Cove Street around 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. They found William McArthur's body in the middle of the road, his car about 100 yards car had a Lyft sign on it, so they called the company. Lyft provided the name of McArthur's last passenger, 17-year-old Brayden Raul Gomez. But deputies said Lyft did not provide all of the details that could have helped. Teen confesses to fatal shooting of LYFT driver in Panama City Beach: BCSO 'They did give us some information that really assisted in the investigation in a very timely manner. But there was some crucial information that they did not provide and made us jump through hoops to get that could have resulted in somebody else getting hurt,' Bay County Sheriff's Office Capt. Jason Daffin said. Deputies said the record shows McArthur picked up Gomez at a Front Beach Road business and was taking him to the Woodlawn area. Gomez allegedly claimed the two got into an argument and he shot McArthur in the back of the head. Authorities said Gomez also claimed the gun was not his. 'He claimed that the individual left it at his house and he just took ownership of the firearm. So we're still running down some of that information to figure out how the 17-year-old ended up with a firearm in his possession to commit this offense,' Daffin said. As for the argument, Gomez allegedly told investigators that McArthur pointed out Gomez was intoxicated and underage, that he would amount to nothing, and called his mother 'Sorry.' 'The statements that the victim may have made, none of that is confirmed at this time. This is just coming from what Gomez told us happened. I just want to make that clear,' Daffin said. But if there was an argument, there could be a recording. Lyft has an audio recording policy that allows drivers and riders to record inside the vehicle. 'We're going to try to recover that because we want to be able to look at Mr. McArthur's family and say this is exactly what happened and give them. So they know what the last few minutes on this earth of their loved one, what that looked like, what transpired, so that we can help them with closure,' Dafffin added. Friends have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for McArthur's widow, Lynn McArthur. To donate, click . Investigators arrested Gomez around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday at his mother's home on Dorothy Avenue. They said he took them to a garbage can in Woodlawn where they found the murder weapon. Gomez is in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, charged with an Open Count of Murder. The State Attorney's Office is reportedly waiving him to adult status. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Age
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
‘Rephrase that please': Jacinta Allan steams over manure protest question
McArthur was unapologetic on Tuesday for what she described as a 'harmless stunt', saying the Labor reaction suggested they 'don't get out of Melbourne much'. Which we thought was a bit inaccurate, considering Allan spends most weekends at her home in Bendigo East. 'If we are looking for a serious point here, it's the fact that the only way regional Victorians can get a message through to Labor politicians is by delivering a bullshit cake direct to their door,' McArthur said. Allan noted that parliamentary officials are now involved and she awaits their response. This one could run and run. Selling up Not only is former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou on his way back into the game, sorta, but he is selling his family mansion in Toorak. The asking price range is $15 million to $16.5 million. Actually, Demetriou is not selling the 1930s six-bedroom, four-bathroom and six-car-space property, because in 2019 he transferred ownership to his wife, Symone Richards. Melbourne Sotheby's International Realty superagent Antoinette Nido is handling the sale, amid something of a dry patch among top-end sales. Expressions of interest close on June 16 at 1pm, so get your skates on. The property on 1066 square metres was designed by society architect Marcus Martin, and its interiors were updated by David Hicks (the esteemed interior designer, not the ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate). It is described as 'architectural vision meets the grace of a long-held estate'. In realestatespeak, the property boasts Versailles-pattern oak flooring with a front sitting room spilling onto manicured gardens via French doors, while upstairs, six bedrooms with robes and an elevated living zone offer vistas over nearby Scotch College and the surrounding mountain ranges. Mountain ranges surrounding Scotch College is a new one on us. Demetriou, who left the AFL gig in 2014, declined to be drawn on reasons for the sale when CBD called. 'Nothing from me, thanks for asking.' He has become a regular sounding board for AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and executive general manager of football Laura Kane. Currently, there's a lot to talk about. The Age reported recently that Demetriou's son Sacha, 15, is a player for the Sandringham Dragons under-16 team and is part of the North Melbourne father-son academy. And the pair have been attending North Melbourne games. Demetriou is a former chairman of Crown Melbourne, and was roundly criticised for reading from notes when he gave evidence in 2020 to the NSW government's Crown Resorts inquiry. It prompted Commissioner Patricia Bergin to put her head in her hands at one point and ask: 'Oh Mr Demetriou, why did you do it?' Price advances her career What a time to be alive it has been for Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Widely adored by conservatives after leading the campaign to defeat the Indigenous Voice to parliament, the Northern Territory senator's flirtation with Donald Trump 's Make America Great Again slogan went down like a 1000-megatonne bomb during an election campaign that ended with devastation for Peter Dutton 's Liberals. Price promptly defected from the Nationals party room to have a crack at the deputy Liberal leadership, enraging many of her former colleagues in the process. She then enraged many of her new colleagues after chickening out of the deputy leader contest once Angus Taylor lost to Sussan Ley in the Liberal leadership ballot. Loading Then the Coalition spectacularly blew itself up this week, with the Liberals and the Nationals parting ways. But Price remains optimistic. After her failed deputy leadership tilt, she told Sky News that lots of Australians wanted her to be prime minister. And on Wednesday, Price was out telling supporters about a silver lining for conservatives: the tremendous success of right-wing lobby group Advance. 'For me, as a member of the Coalition, this election was a gut punch, and I know so many of you feel the same way,' Price's fundraising email to Advance supporters, sent several hours after the Coalition ceased to exist, began. 'But there was one positive. The success of the ADVANCE campaign, smashing the Greens.' The conservative pressure group, with whom Price joined forces during the Voice referendum, spent the election campaign attacking the Greens rather than helping Liberals, and has claimed responsibility for the Greens losing three seats, which went to Labor. After Advance's election role was questioned, its boss, Matthew Sheahan, called out critics as 'bedwetting anonymous Liberals'. Many of those bedwetters now share a party room with Price and despite what they might feel about her shilling for Advance, can't be banishing anyone from their pews. A new day Plenty of ink has been spilled in this column, and elsewhere, documenting the trials and tribulations of Guardian Australia's Canberra press gallery bureau, which faced a mass exodus of talent and the departure of political editor Karen Middleton right before the federal election campaign. Now, a couple of those Guardian refugees have found a new home at online publication The New Daily. They include reader favourite and former Guardian Australia liveblogger Amy Remeikis, who left Guardian- land to take a job at progressive think tank the Australia Institute last year, and is now side-hustling as TND 's contributing editor, where she'll write a weekly column. She'll also be reuniting with veteran press gallery photographer Mike Bowers, who left The Guardian last year, as this column reported. As for the process of rebuilding The Guardian 's press gallery bureau, CBD hears the search for a new political editor has been put on the backburner for now, with the publication's overlord, Lenore Taylor, currently overseas. The West Australian's Canberra bureau chief, Katina Curtis, previously of this masthead, is one name that has been through the rumour mill, but so far, the outlet is not even close to finalising things. Middleton, meanwhile, who left The Guardian after months on the sideline following a turbulent 2024, has been filing for university-backed online publication Inside Story during the election campaign and aftermath.
Sky News AU
21-05-2025
- Climate
- Sky News AU
Land tax is the ‘last straw' for Victorian farmers as drought batters crops
Victorian Liberal MP Bev McArthur comments on increasing costs as drought batters farmers' crops in Victoria. 'When they're confronted by adverse weather conditions, increased rate rises, increased bank interest rates, and huge increase in their input costs as well, and then this tax on top, it's just been the last straw,' Ms McArthur told Sky News host Rita Panahi. 'I've asked the Minister for Agriculture, the state minister, to come and look at what the situation is in our area, see for yourself how desperate people are, and how desperate the situation is.'
