Donald Trump fought to prevent USMNT's first Bay Area World Cup goal
The United States' first goal in their World Cup knockout stage match against Bosnia and Herzegovina was the result of a constitutional right the Trump administration tried to strip away.
USMNT striker Folarin Balogun opened up the scoring in Wednesday's game after muscling through an opposing defender to strike a loose ball underneath the Bosnian keeper and into the back of the net. It was his third goal of the quadrennial international tournament.
Balogun's American nationality was a case of serendipity. He was born in Brooklyn because his Nigerian parents were traveling through New York, and airline staff prevented his pregnant mother from boarding their flight to England, where the family lived at the time. As a result, Balogun became an American through birthright citizenship, which was widely understood to be guaranteed through the 14th Amendment.
On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born to undocumented immigrants or people temporarily in the country are not American citizens. In other words, Balogun would not have been an American citizen, and could not play for the U.S. national team, under Trump's order. The presidential decree faced an immediate legal challenge and went all the way up to the Supreme Court, where Trump went so far as to attend oral arguments in April. His side argued that children of noncitizens born in the country were not "subject to the jurisdiction," as the 14th Amendment reads, of the U.S.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, did not see the irony in supporting the Trump administration in this case while also supporting the national team and its birthright citizen star. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told reporters on June 24: "I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think we can celebrate immigration and legal immigration. We embrace that, we know it's part of our history."
Johnson was in the middle of another press conference Tuesday when reporters informed him in real time that the Supreme Court ruled against the president in a 6-3 decision, striking down the executive order and upholding a broader definition of birthright citizenship. Johnson then groaned and closed his eyes before saying that the upheld right "has been grossly abused in recent years," adding that it's "a serious problem" before complaining about "birthing tourism."
"'Birthing tourism' they call it," he said. "A trend where people will just come and you just come onto the soil and have your child, and then they're able to avail themselves of the welfare state and everything else."
The speaker will partially get his wish in seeing a someone who obtained citizenship by birth temporarily banned from representing this country: Balogun's red card in the second half of the U.S. game in Santa Clara means he'll miss the Round of 16 if the Americans advance.
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