Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-31-26_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Morning news and Pebble In Your Shoe Tuesday , deep dive with Mike Oneil from Landmark Legal Foundation, Wednesday hugh day at the Supreme Court, birthright citizenship

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. It is so great to have you here. It is Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. It means it's a great time for you to just join in and talk about anything which is on your mind to concern you. 7705-633-7-0-K-M-E-D, the email Bill at Bill-M-M-E-R-M-M-E-D.

Show.com. Hey, coming up today, you're going to be talking with Mike O'Neill about the birthright citizenship thing. And what I find interesting is that I'm seeing more reports leaking out that are accusing the Trump administration of using a racist civil war era take in this case. I don't know if I'm not exactly sure what they're talking about. Because any time I hear racist trope, usually that is a, to me at least it means that, oh, somebody's noticing something.

And so then it becomes a racist trope, those kind of things. You know, if you end up, you know, noticing as an example that, well, people who tend to be committing terroristic acts for the most part are often, well, members of the Islamic religion, right? I've talked about internationally, you know, around the world. If you happen to notice things like that, then that's a problem you're a bigot, you know, those sort of things. I don't know if that's what the Trump administration is doing in this case or not. but Mike will certainly be talking about that. And I think there's another case that is going on. By the way, that case is going to be tomorrow is when that argument happens.

Today, they're going to be having an argument, oral argument, about the racial composition of juries in which there was a man who was, well, convicted of, I guess there was murdering a convenience store owner or a cashier is what I'm thinking of. Pardon me. I'm just kind of spitballing off that this morning. and he was one of the accomplices, but I guess it had to do with people getting rid of black jurors. There was only one black juror on the jury that ended up convicting a black man and sentencing him to death.

And so it's one of those cases that will be out in front of the Supreme Court. That'll be coming up later today when that's going to be happening. A little closer to home here, the guy who was accused of shooting the 16-year-old in the neck Sunday morning. We were talking about that. Phoenix Wood, the guy's name, the suspect. He ended up appearing in court yesterday for the first time, second degree assault. He's probably going to be in there for a while, although what they did say that, the state's saying that, hey, if he does get out, he's going to have to have monitoring, which I think that must be an ankle bracelet when they talk about pretrial monitoring, I guess,

no contact with the victim. Victim's still over an OHSU right now, and it sounds like the 16-year-old is going to recover. By the way, they didn't know each other. I'd mentioned that on yesterday. news. They didn't know each other, but got into some kind of assault, some kind of fight and altercation. And by the way, this was Sunday morning at 2.30. Sunday morning at around 2.30 out there by McAndrews. No, not McAndrews. It was Biddle Road in Stevens is where it happened, if my memory recalls correctly from yesterday. And the question I would have for you is that, have you noticed that nobody

brings up the question of what is a 16-year-old doing out on Biddle Avenue at 2.30 in the morning? Where are the parents? Have you noticed none of that stuff ever gets asked these days? Remember when I was growing up? We used to have curfews. Would curfews be a good idea in some case here in southern Oregon? Do you think a curfew would be a pretty good idea? I don't recall ever being allowed to stay out anywhere. I think if it was a Saturday night, and I was on a date or something like that. It was usually about at 11.30, at 11.30, maybe midnight at the very latest that you had to be home. Nothing good happens to a 16-year-old hanging out on Biddle Road at 2 in the morning.

Can we all agree on that much? Tell me what you think. Should we have curfews? Teenage curfews. Everywhere I grew up back in the 1970s, we had them. It did seem to cut down on some of the trouble, on some of the tarfews. What do you think, huh? 7-7-0K, Amy D. Now, tomorrow, Jackson County Board of Commission may go out and declare a drought.

Wouldn't be surprised. Five others have ended up, five other counties in the state have declared drought already. I guess it opens up emergency management and funding and you start doing some water conservation methods, stuff like that. Meanwhile, National Weather Service says we've got big winter storm coming here too. Big winter storm coming to the Cascades. 10 to 20 inches of snow. Tonight, what is it, Wednesday night, Wednesday morning through Thursday morning, that kind of thing. Could be. Now, it's not going to do anything about breaking the drought, though, nothing like that.

So, anyway, at some of our top local headlines here at the moment. Back to the States. RFK Jr. says hospitals must serve healthier food. This is in epic times. I was wondering when someone was going to say something about that. Hospital food. We always used to joke about hospital food because it always tasted bad, right? Nobody would ever say, hey, boy, that's great hospital food. Well, hospital food tastes pretty good these days, but RFK Jr. is saying that hospitals have to serve healthier food.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services stating in a memorandum to hospitals saying that they're going to have to start complying with certain conditions to get federal funding, including making sure that menus and diets meet the nutritional needs. of patients. That'll be really interesting. I wonder how that's going to be received. They note the January release of new dietary guidelines emphasizing limiting ultra-processed foods. That's a pretty good idea. Also, limiting refined carbohydrates. In other words, getting a Pop-Tart on your hospital tray may not be such a good thing. By the way, I don't know if Prav or Asa-sought they do that. But I have noticed that the other than for the salt restriction and maybe liquid-restricted diets, they don't really restrict much to you in the hospitals, do they?

And every time I've gone in there with my mother, they just kind of give her, you know, whatever she's looking to eat, right? Whatever she just, you know, sit there's in orders and they would deliver it. Of course, I don't know. Maybe the goal is to get the oldsters to die sooner. By the way, mom, you know what I'm saying. I'm just teasing you. She'd laugh about that.

Yeah, we're not going to give you a nutritious diet. We're going to give you something which... Oh, so you're diabetic. Okay, let's give you lots of pasta. Lots of pasta and sugar. There we go. Yeah, pasta and orange juice for breakfast. Only half kidding.

Sometimes I would look at that tray and say, hmm, I wouldn't make that at home. But anyway, that's another story. It'll be interesting to see. I can't imagine this would be actually cheaper. RFK Jr. saying the food is, hospitals is so uniformlyly, appallingly bad that it's now a pejorative. So anyway, the feds may actually make the food a little healthier in the hospitals.

What's an example? He brought up something here. Let's see. Even MacMet Oz, Dr. Oz saying it's time for hospitals to prioritize real nutrient-dense food, cutting ultra-processed options, and align meals with evidence-based medical needs. Let's see. This means that the kid getting cancer treatment will eat real protein. As an example, is what they're looking at. So it looks like they'd be backing away from the soy, too.

That's actually pretty good. I can't imagine, though, that it would be less expensive, and hospital costs are already really expensive. But we'll see where that goes. I just think that's pretty interesting, don't you? 20 minutes after 6, if you're on hold, I'll go to your calls here in just a minute. And let's talk about that and other things on your vine. Peppling your shoe Tuesday on the Bill Meyers show.

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It was out on the streets of Medford at 220 in the morning. It's a time for curfews. Almost every area that I grew up in parts of Western Pennsylvania, back when I was a kid, especially in New Kensington where my cousins lived, nighttime curfew. Think all the kids had to be inside. I think it was 11 o'clock most nights. And if you were out middle of the night, big trouble. You'd be arrested, taken in.

Parents would have to come get you. Any 16-year-old out on the streets of Medford, or any city for that matter. Two in the morning, Sunday, looking for trouble, aren't you? Or have the potential to getting in trouble? I was never allowed to stay out. I think it's a reasonable question to pose. Francine, you wanted to ask a question about that, too. Go ahead.

Yeah, I was just wondering if there was any comment regarding the gun that he had. Where did he get the gun? Was it his parents' gun, you know, a legally owned gun? Or was it, you know, a street gun that the kid got? I mean, I just wonder. No, the kid didn't get the gun. The kid was not armed. It was a 20.

No, no, the one that did the shooting. Yeah, he's 21. He's not a kid. Oh, well, okay. Yeah, yeah. He's probably mentally immature. Well, exactly. Yeah, we know that 25 is when you're smarten up, I guess, especially if you're a guy.

But yeah, at this point, though, he's been charged with, like I said, unlawful use of a weapon. I don't know if the weapon was legally purchased or anything else. None of that kind of information is out at that point. But he certainly used it in an unlawful fashion, allegedly, because this is all accusations right now. So that's where we're looking. But the reason I question that is because they never, not never, but they usually never say anything about whether the gun was, you know, unless a kid got it from his parents, you know, where they want to make sure that you know that having a legal gun in the house is usually a reason to not have guns. Yeah, now there's no evidence or any news indicating that the 16-year-old was armed. Okay.

Yeah. So I have something to say about the birthright, and I think it's going to be kind of unpopular. You know, and, you know, considering my usual point of view on things. However, when most of these young people who are now adults or whatever, it doesn't matter where they are in the scheme of life, but when they, they became citizens being born here because at the time, that was legally the way it work. Yes. So to pull that out from under the ones that did this at the time when it was the legal was law, I guess, or whatever, that's not right. you don't just say oh we're going to change the law and we're going to go back and and everybody that might have done this done something you know 20 30 40 years ago we're going to you're going to get charged with you know whatever well i'll talk well i'm going to talk with michael about that michael o'neill from the landmark legal foundation we're going to be kicking that around in about 10 minutes i don't believe that there's any concern about that happening i believe what it will be is usually when you have something like this which would be a major reinterpret reinterpretation

of the 14th Amendment, it would be moving forward. It will be moving forward. And so I don't think that necessarily means that someone who just happens to be here will automatically be granted that. I guess there'll have to be some rules that will be made up. And I'll ask him about it, what he thinks about that moving forward. Okay. Yeah, because they handle people that have lived here, you know, as citizens from, because of the past, you know, in the past. And, yeah. Well, I mean, if you have been, if you have been considered by the state of by the united states as having been naturalized in one form or another whether being an antir baby or actually going through the process of being born an

American citizen nothing will change i think if somebody is living illegally here right now and let's say has never been recognized as having had any of that that kind of birthright citizenship i don't think i don't think that uh it's going to change it a little bit all for them at this point. But anybody who is existing under the existing birthright citizenship, but I'll tell you what, I'm not an attorney, so I'm going to talk with Michael about that. How about that? Yeah, that's, yeah, that's the point that I'm interested in. And one other quick thing I want to mention, they talked about, I just barely caught the story about some guy that just died in custody. I think it was an immigration issue. Yeah. And now there's going to be

a big lawsuit, you know, because of the conditions were bad and blah, blah, blah, blah. What, you know, how come that's not okay, but it's okay for them to come here legally? People are just, they just don't get it, and it's making me crazy. Well, that's okay for him to come here legally, but oh. I will continue, I will continue to say our nation is guilty of having had the wrong kind of love, not loving their own people, nearly enough. It's making me nuts. I know, I know.

I get it. Vicki, not in the Applegate. Vicki's in Medford right now for some reason. And why are you in Medford for? Well, I'm actually down here helping with my mother-in-law. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, boy, talk about culture shock.

I'm used to five acres, and I actually feel like I'm in an office cubicle. Well, I should just on a regular suburban home, something like that here? Yeah. Is that where she is? I'm here just off the table rock. And it's just, oh, my God, the noise, the traffic, the people, the. and, you know, I'm used to roam in on my property, and I literally have, like, well, actually, my mother-in-law has a corner lot that she was here originally before they built all these other homes. So it's a large lot, but still, like, when I sit in the backyard, it's all fence.

I can't see anything. It's just, I just feel like caged. Well, well, welcome to my world. It's a way most of us are living out here, at least in the Medford area, if you're not in some, what are you know, like a five-acre lot out there? In the Applegator. Yeah. Yeah. And so I get to go home today and, man, I'm going to run around my yard like a free person.

Yeah, Vicki's going to be running like someone left the gate open. Okay, there we go. All right. So what's on your mind today? How to do with that birthright, I think? Okay. So my question is, like, if I went to, say, France or some other country, what are their rules about being born in their country because I feel like anybody on vacation that comes here pregnant

and has a baby should not be automatically allowed to be a U.S. citizen. They should, I mean, it would be like an emergency having, you know, if you go into labor, you can't like suck the baby back up until you go back to your homeland, but it should still be from your homeland. You have to understand. Well, you have to understand is that there's been a big business with Chinese billionaires, as an example, having surrogate kids here in the United States of America and just actually manufacturing instant citizens, manufacturing them, so to speak.

And what you're talking about with someone having a vacation or vacationing here and popping out a kid, instant citizen. Well, I think that that, I believe that will end up going away, all right? I think it should, and I don't, I mean, I know if I was pregnant and went on vacation somewhere and had my baby somewhere, I would still want my baby to be American. I would not want. Well, it would be. But a lot of people. Well, okay, well, no, I just wanted to make sure you know that as a, you know, to your point, when you go overseas, if you're traveling in France and you were to give birth to a child, you would be giving birth to an American.

citizen because you are under the jurisdiction of the United States, et cetera, et cetera, even though you give birth in France. France and all those other, and most of the other countries in the Western world, they do not offer birthright citizenship. You just don't come over the border and drop a kid and then it's an instant French citizen or an instant British citizen, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't work that way everywhere else. We're the only ones.

We're one of few countries that still do this. It's kind of stupid. I think in America it's just another way to get population growth. I think it gives the parents, you know, the permission to come here, even though they're not citizenship. You know, they don't have citizenship, but their baby does. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's why they call it the anchor baby, all right?

All right. Well, have a good time with your mother-in-law and get back home, all right? Thanks, Vicki. I'll take one more call here before news, and then we'll get Mike O'Neill on and talk about this birthright citizenship case, which is going to be heard tomorrow. Hi, good morning. KMED. Who's this? Yeah, this is John. Hi, John. Morning. You might consider some of the old laws that were taken away.

My grandmother lost her citizenship because she married a non-citizen. Was this in the United States? This was the United States. I think it was a law that was during World War II. Oh, oh, okay. Yeah, could have been quite different. Was it marrying with the Enemy Act, that kind of thing? No, just a non-citizen. Hmm. So she had to have her citizenship reinstated in order to get Social Security. Okay, so I want to understand. Was she a foreign national living here in the United States? No, she was born and raised in the United States, and she married a person who had immigrants.

to the United States, it never became a citizen. And she lost her citizenship? Yes. I have no idea how that could have happened in the law, John. Wow. Well, run it past the guy because it did happen. Okay. Either it's foreign and alien registration act or something that was in World War II.

Oh, okay. What I was saying, though, is that if your mother was a natural-born citizen, here. I don't think that kind of an error could actually lose your citizenship. Lose your citizenship to where? You know, you didn't have another

It was because she married a non-citizen. Okay, I'm going to look at it. I don't know if we'll have time to talk with it about Michael. That's an interesting. I've never in all these years of talking about citizenship matters. I've never heard that story. Well, that happened. My grandmother.

Okay, for your grandmother. All right. I'll ask him. I don't know if he knows or not. 633 at KMED and KBXG. Oh, dead battery. Head to batteries plus. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. One of the first acts that President Trump did, but he assumed off the second time around, was an executive order on birthright citizenship, and it is going to the Supreme Court tomorrow for oral arguments.

Mike O'Neill joins me from Landmarkleagle Foundation, landmarklegal.org. Always appreciate your sharp legal-eyed approach to all of this. Mike, welcome back to the show. Morning. It's great to be with you, Bill. How are you today? I'm fine. Thank you very much. I have a lot of questions this morning here. And I think we understand logically what we want to see happen. It just doesn't make sense that you could have a Chinese billionaire here as an example. coming to California and then just creating instant citizenship and various other things and

birthright tourism and all this stuff and somebody just crawls over the border and has a child and then instant citizenship. I mean, it just doesn't make sense, but what are the legal issues that are going to be argued? I'm wondering if you can kind of bring this up. There's a lot. There's a lot of balls in the air and this is complicated when you get into some of the needy-gritty here. But you're right. At base, it's a simple common sense. thing that you would imagine, how can simple territorial presence in the United States be enough to convey citizenship to a newborn, to a newborn baby, for example. And it defies kind of common sense. You posited some really good examples here, birth tourism, for example. How can you have

a Chinese billionaire, have a fund of surrogate to come over here and give birth, and then bring that baby back to China, raise the baby in China, and that baby is magically an American citizen, or an illegal immigrant to come across the border and have an anchor baby that citizenship is conveyed simply by territorial presence. Really, it kind of defies common sense. And you see what happens, really, with some of this stuff as it evolves over the centuries, really. I mean, this is something that was in the 14th Amendment was ratified in the 1860s at post-Civil

war. It was one of those post-Civil War amendments. And you see how it evolved over the past 150 years. You see a Supreme Court decision from over 100 years ago, Wom Kim R. be interpreted in such a manner, and then 100 years later, it's resulted in this anchor babies and all those examples you're talking about. I think really, to boil it down, let's start with first principles here. Let's start with the language. Assuming, and let's make an assumption here, let's make an assumption that the court actually delves into what is the meaning of the 14th Amendment.

And we can get into a reason why it might avoid the 14th Amendment, the constitutional question here. We could talk about that in a second, but let's get into what the 14th Amendment means in the language that everybody's talking about here. It's what is the meaning of subject to the jurisdiction thereof? Because the 14th Amendment has been interpreted, again, since for over 150 years now, going on 150 years, to mean that once you are born in the United States and you're subject to the jurisdiction thereof, that means territorial presence, at least that's been the common interpretation. Mere territorial presence. Subject to the jurisdiction of thereof means you simply are present in the United States. That's how it's been interpreted. Of course,

Trump's executive. That's not a... side. So no, that's not what it means. It means something more. Subject to the jurisdiction thereof means more than territorial presence. It means you have to have some sort of allegiance to the United States. And I think that argument is buttressed by further by the language of the 14th Amendment. If you keep going down, in that particular provision of the amendment, you see another section, again, section one, you see another sentence that says any, then this isn't talking about the liberty, the due process, the due process rights that we all talked about in the 14th Amendment. That says, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction.

So you see the phrase subject to the jurisdiction at the beginning of the 14th Amendment, section one, and at the end of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, you see within its jurisdiction. So you see a contrast there, right? So you could see it then that they're saying, they're indicating within the 14th Amendment that just because you were physically here did not necessarily make you subject to this jurisdiction, right? Right, exactly, because the ratifiers of the 14 Amendment, again, this is just starting when this is what you do in these constitutional analysis in these cases, you start with the text of the law or the amendment, and you see what are the plain meanings of the, what is the plain meaning of it? Well, the ratifiers knew they purposely inserted these different terms. They purposely inserted subject to the jurisdiction and then within its jurisdiction.

words have meaning. Within its jurisdiction clearly contemplates territorial presence. Subject to the jurisdiction probably conveys something more. And I think that's where you get into the arguments here. And if you look at the docket, there's dozens of briefs filed on both sides of this, making the argument that the plain meaning, the original meaning of subject to the jurisdiction you have supports President Trump's interpretation. That, again, some sort of allegiance is owed. It indicates not simply just near presence. And again, and they start with that language. They also cite a lot of original sources from the 1860s. But again, on the other side, there are some arguments that the other side is making that subject

to the jurisdiction only encompasses just presence here in the United States. So there is a very, let's put this delicately or as distinctly as possible. There's a very robust debate about what the meaning of subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And that's going to be an issue that you're going to see the court explore thoroughly tomorrow in oral. argument. Boy, this is going to be an interesting one. I have no doubt you'll be listening. Now, do they put the oral arguments? Do they allow you to hear them? So you'll be listening to that. Absolutely. You can listen live as they occur real time, 10 a.m. tomorrow, Eastern Time. You guys want to get up and log in. You can just log in the Supreme Court's website and you can just

click on for listening to oral argument. So everybody can, and that's a good thing. You know, I mean, you want to have, you want to have the public being able to listen. I'm a little leery of the cameras because you get a lot of showiness with cameras, but with a live audio feed, you're able to follow along what's going on. So there's that issue. Let me be, let me try to give you a couple other points that are important to consider with going into oral arguments tomorrow, is there is a possibility, and we've been talking about what is the meaning of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. There is a possibility that the court ultimately doesn't get into that. And there's a, there's a canon called constitutional avoidance, which we know Justice Roberts, Chief Justice

Roberts has utilized in the past. And that that canon posits that if you can avoid making a constitutional interpretation, trying to delve into a constitutional interpretation, you avoid it. And how would the court avoid it? Well, that sounds like nonsense. Hold on it. Let me weigh in on it. Let me expand a little bit more. Okay. All right. There's a law in the books that was passed in 1940 and again, repassed or reissued in 1952, that essentially mirrors the language of the 14th Amendment. So there's a law on the book. We have a constitutional amendment, and then we have a law. The law simply mirrors the 14th Amendment. The court could simply conclude that Trump's executive order

violates the law, that it doesn't necessarily, and they don't have to answer whether it violates, whether it's unconstitutional. They can simply rule that it's illegal. Now, let me make a distinction. Unconstitutional and illegal are two separate things. I mean, obviously anything that's unconstitutional is illegal, but something that's illegal doesn't necessarily have to be unconstitutional. So he can The court could rule, and again, there's going to be a lot of arguments trying to move, probably from the Trump folks, the Solicester General moving, the swing of justices off of that potential. They want them to delve into the meaning of the 14th Amendment.

They don't want them to be just hung up on the statutory interpretation here. Now, again, you're going to say, well, isn't the statute the same thing as the 14th Amendment? They are, the language mirrors it, but if they simply can find their analysis to the law, they could avoid getting into a long debate about what the meaning of a 14th Amendment is. Now, that's a possibility. Boy, I hope that doesn't happen because the debate. A lot of people. I mean, the debate really needs to happen.

This needs to be settled once and for all because who knows how long it would take to ever have such a case like this come forward. And then, you know, essentially we will be continued to, you know, depending on who's president, who's in charge of Congress and such, if forced to accept the third world just because, right? Yeah. Now, let me give you another possibility here, too, is that a separation of powers argument. And this is something that I've talked about repeatedly on your show, Bill. We've gotten into it a lot about what the proper role of the judiciary, Congress, and the president is. And the court could explore the width and breadth of the power of the president to issue these executive orders. Now, remember, we've talked about this. This is an executive order we're talking about, which is the vehicle that's being challenged here. So does the president have a power to issue an executive order? order that contradicts law, at least on its face, contradicts a standing law that was enacted by Congress and possibly contradicts the constitutional provision.

In other words, does he have the power simply by an executive order to do this, to do what he's doing? And that's more of a procedural question that we talk about a lot, too. Now, again, that's something that's going to be, have to be addressed by the court because we're going to have to one way or the other, they're going to have to conclude if he does have the power to do this, then did he lost, is it consistent with the Constitution? doesn't have the power to do this, then he doesn't have the power to do this. They would, the court could conclude that, hey, this is a matter that's left to Congress.

They addressed it in 1950. They can address it in 2026, which, again, practically speaking, and for everybody out there for folks that aren't like nerds like me who are just enveloped in all of this stuff, you throw your hands up in the air and you say, my God, Congress doesn't do anything. They don't even pass a law mandating that identification that 85% of us agree with. So how can we rely on Congress to do anything? It's incumbent upon the president, Jeff, do something. Well, again, this is an issue that I think the court's going to have to contend with and is going to wrestle with tomorrow and obviously when they issued opinion probably in late June. Now, presidents have had a long history, if I understand correctly,

if I understand my history, correct, of actually doing this, of actually controlling immigration policy to an extent. Isn't that true? Yeah, and that's a fantastic point. And that's, I think, an argument that's going to be made tomorrow is that this is a purview of the presidency is to determine who comes into and leaves the United States. Well, just like it was with Joe Biden choosing not to enforce it, correct? Yeah, well, to get into a little true, yes, generally speaking true, but they're going to say that one is a discretionary authority, and, you know, Joe Biden has a discretionary authority about this.

The other one is not discretionary. This is an actual set policy. So that's a tight distinction that a lawyer will try to make here, but I think your point is well taken. And again, I think the other bigger point here, which kind of augurs in favor of the president, is that this is a national security interest. And there's a national security angle here. And I think you were kind of talking about that with the Chinese billionaires.

The president has identified a weakness in our national security, a flaw, a loophole, that our adversaries are clearly taking advantage of. And this is an effort to close that loophole. And he's taking it from, and he's exercising the height of his powers, acting in protection, to protect the United States and protect the borders of the United States. That's another thing we can say is where, what kind of authority is the president acting under? Well, he's acting under his authority as national security, you know, his national security authority, his authority to protect the security and sanctity of the American territory.

So I think that's an argument that works in favor of the president that, of course, is going to be probably discussed tomorrow. But, you know, as I say that, there's always a butt. And the butt is whether he can do that by executive order or whether he needs to have some sort of authority from Congress conveyed to him, and he can identify that authority. So, again, lots of complicated issues. But I think when you boil it down to, Bill, it's – and I hope the court – and I think the court will – I know at least some of the justices. I have some confidence that I think that Justice Alito or Justice Thomas are going to want to get into the meat of what the 14th Amendment means, right, in a constitutional interpretation. So at base, whether those terms in the 14th Amendment convey this birthright citizenship or whether they don't. It needs to be answered, and this is something which has been needed done for the last 100 years or so ever since.

So what was that? What was that? Markham Arc, right? This is a decision. And you're going to hear about that. That case is going to come up tomorrow. There's going to be, you can, the lawyers can do a couple of things when they're talking about this. When you have a case that presents itself as against you, a president that's controlling that, that's,

that's against your position. And you can, number one, you can distinguish it. And I think you can distinguish one, Guam, Mark, in the fact that in Wong Kim Mark, the parents were here legally, whereas President Trump's the executive order doesn't apply to that. So that's a distinguishing. You can also make the argument that it was wrongly decided, and that the court was considered, misinterpreted, you know, engaged in a faulty interpretation. Yeah, well, the court was wrong, apparently, on Roe v. Wade, as an example, right? Exactly. Exactly. We know that, you know, we know, You know, we know that the court will tackle and overturn, quote-unquote, super precedent. Again, it's a high burden to meet.

But I think there's an effort to meet that. If you consider that, you know, assuming that Wong-Kamark constitutes that super precedent along the lines of a row be wage. Now, Van, by the way, Mike O'Neill is, once again, landmark legal foundation. We're talking about the birthright citizenship case, which is Trump v. Barbara being heard tomorrow. Now, when I was wondering here, Michael, and listeners have been wondering about this too, is let's say that they declare that Trump was well within his authority to do this. And let's just say that he wins. How can the court prescribe a remedy or can the court prescribe a remedy? Is it one of those things where it would be that everyone that's ever been naturalized by being an anchor baby is all of a sudden not?

Or is it something where it's usually moving forward? I forget the legal term that's used for that. I think a couple of things is the court really, the Supreme Court really doesn't get into remedies, right? They don't really, they oftentimes will just say this is how the 14th Amendment is to be interpreted. And, you know, or this is, this is, this is the correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment of subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And then, that's it. And then so if you look, but it's then, then you go back to the, you go back to the executive order. And I think it's a date certain.

So I think it's going forward to answer your question, practically speaking. I think he said something to the effect of February 25th. I'm trying to recall on top of my head. But I think it's going forward. I think individuals, right, if you've been, if you're an anchor baby who've been born, you know, after the day, you know, before the day, I think the citizenship still is conveyed. So I think it's going forward. It will cease those efforts. Obviously, illegal immigrants who come in to the United States and have babies, the citizenship will not be conveyed going forward.

It will end the efforts, at least. Well, it'll end the birthright tourism, too. It would end that. Exactly. That incentive will be removed, so you won't have that. And, you know, you'll see a cessation of that. Again, I think to go back to your original point, Bill, as I think that there's a lot of practical, obviously, issues at play there that are beneficial for the United States to no longer have that. I think it's an incentive for illegal immigration. I think it's a national security issue. These are all the kinds of things that the court's going to be grappling with tomorrow. And we know that, you know, the practical. aspects. And there'll be some hypotheticals along those lines as well. So again, just to go back to first principles here is territorial versus political allegiance, right? I think the interpretation is you need something more than mere territorial presence in the United States. And that's the road with hopefully, again, that's a big hopefully from my perspective, because there are some good arguments on the other side on this. Hopefully the court will agree with, you know, the Trump administration and agree with Mike O'Neill. Are there any other countries that

that do birthright citizenship the way we've been doing it, to your knowledge? That's a fantastic question. I don't think so, right? I don't think that I think we're kind of one of those outliers. It's almost one of those. I don't know one way definitively on this, but I believe that we're kind of an outlier on this. It's one of those things. It's like voting in the United States.

We're the only country that doesn't mandate that you show an identification to vote. In the United States, in some ways we're exceptional, and in some ways our exceptionalism is kind of foolhard. In some ways, we're amazingly stupid, too. I know it's great and noble to assume that your presence here convey. And you see briefs on this effect. You know, the nobility of the United States that you're under the flag of the United States, therefore you have the full benefits of citizenship, and aren't we wonderful and great because of the United States? Well, when you actually say, well, look at the practical effects of that policy.

And I think we're all very clear on all of the practical problems that arise with that. Yeah. And yet there can be problems. for someone that gives birth in the United States accidentally and not intending United States citizenship, and then the United States will claim them and then tax the kid later in life, right? It's not always a positive, is it? I don't think so, but I think certainly the benefits outweigh the negatives for being a citizen in the United States. So, yes, I just, this one, this one's going to be, this isn't going to be a clear one.

I don't think, I think you're going to see a lot of maneuvering, a lot of maneuvering for those, quote, unquote, swing justice. The first order of businesses, of course, is to try to convince Justice Roberts and Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh and Amy Coney-Barritt to move off that statutory issue, you know, to get them to... In other words, what you're implying then is that those are the three squishes as far as the... Yeah, I think that there... I think certainly Justice Roberts is wedded to the constitutional avoidance canon that I've referenced before. So I think you're going to have to...

You're going to have to make a strong case about moving him off that position so that they actually get into the meat of what is the meaning of these terms in the 14th Amendment. In other words, engage in a constitutional analysis rather than just a legal or statutory amount. The other question I had for you here, Mike, if you don't mind, is, is there a time limit on the arguments? Because I know that usually you don't have a lot of time to argue these things before the court. Yeah, there's a recognition of the width and breadth of this. And this is kind of a gentleman's agreement. You're not going to, it's kind of silent-spoken. You know, they might say an hour, but this is going to be, I've heard enough of these.

This is going to be hours and hours. This is one of those ones that's going to go into. I mean, I think it starts at 10, and it'll be going well past noon, probably into the 12, 30, 1 o'clock. So you're going to have, they're not going to be wedded to any kind of time. And I don't think they should be. This is arguably, I mean, from the interest that this is generating, I think this is arguably the number one issue, the number one case in front of the Supreme Court, this term. and they're not going to hold back in giving every justice the floor and the runway they need to explore all the issues that are of interest. And I see if we can grab a quick question from a listener here before Mike turns into a pumpkin.

Hi, KMEDE. You're on with Mike O'Neill. Who's this? Hey, it's deplorable, Patrick. And my question is, am I the only one making the argument that you do not reward a crime by conferring citizenship on something? someone like this, these conditions, constitutes a reward, rewarding a crime. Am I the only one? Yeah, let's see what you say about that. Thank you, Patrick. There's a couple things to break down here is the crime you're referencing is illegally entering into the United States. And then the reward you're referencing is conveying citizenship onto the child or the baby of the illegal citizen. So you can have two things at once. You know, you can have that individual, it has committed a crime, and there is also a law that, a law on the books, and again, 8 U.S.C.

1401, and the interpretation of the 14th Amendment that conveys citizenship. So, yes, two things are president one. You are, I mean, I guess you could argue you're rewarding it by conveying citizenship to the baby, but the individual has committed a crime. The baby is a citizen of the United States. It is, it is, I see the frustration from that. But they don't take the crime of the parent and then place it on the child then. Exactly. We don't, and that, that, I think that, I'm again, setting aside the constitutionality and the practical effects, but generally as a country, we don't assign crimes to the babies. That doesn't pass through the blood. There's a Latin term. It's escaping me all this time, but it's one of our principles of law. But yes, I understand the frustration. And that's the practical frustration that's evident here is that it encourages illegal immigration. Obviously, it serves as an

incentive for illegal immigration because you come here and then you have an anchor baby and then you're wedded to the United States, even if you're here illegally and you have to have your presence. And you don't even protect early, feel an allegiance to the United States either. Landmark legal. Yeah. Landmarkleagal.org. And boy, I have to tell you, something tells me you're going to have a big box of popcorn with you. Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, you have to have your, again, just elementary school. You have to have a list of years on the bar. It's going to be, there's going to be a lot of, it could be fast and serious and a lot's going to be going on. All right.

Well, I guess this is not something. They're not going to rule from the bench on something like this. This is going to be weeks and weeks, right? Oh, this will be the, I would lay odds that this is going to be the last decision we get every the term because this is a high-profile one. This is, again, it's late. We're talking August, April 1, so they're going to need weeks, a couple months to sort this all out. But you will have a feel for it.

I mean, I always get a, you know, you always have a feel for what's interest after oral arguments. I can't predict it right now. I would say I would have a better feel for it after a war argument. So I'm happy to talk about what my impressions are. Okay. Well, I remember when we were talking about the tariff lawsuit, the tariff challenge, and everyone seemed to be in agreement just by the tone, and even of people that were not necessarily in favor of President Trump, generally speaking, that he was going to lose that one. And it was true. And I guess really all we were wondering is if there was going to be a remedy. And they didn't really provide a remedy in that, speaking back to the earlier question. Isn't that right?

Right, right. They didn't, and they left it to the lower, that's why, again, using that. This is not similar to the tariffs in that context. The number of issues, the potentiality for President Trump to lose, you're right. Pulling up the terrorist decision is kind of a similar, a similar separation of powers issues, for example, and you're right, the court didn't leave a clear remedy, and Justice Gavinah talked about that. So it's kind of being worked out right now in the lower courts, and that's what you might see here with this. Unless, of course, they just say the law stands, and then the process and status quo controls. Yeah. Mike O'Neill once again, Michael O'Neill, landmarkleagal.org, appreciate it.

Thanks for letting us pick your brain this morning, okay? Be well. Oh, Bill. Have a great morning. Oh, we will. That's going to be a heck of a case tomorrow, isn't it? 770563, the number. This is the Bill Myers show, and you're on KMED and KMED HD-H-1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. It's Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. Happy to take your calls on this, anything else on your mind. But, boy, that is. is huge, absolutely huge. Maybe you've got a huge increase in your insurance,

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