19 January—Donald Trump has promised or threatened (it’s up to you) to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship. He added a soft conditional “if we can” and (of course) falsely claimed that the United States was the only country to allow it. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says he can’t do it. But that didn’t stop him from promising to do it to get votes and it won’t stop him from trying to do it to impress his ignorant, xenophobic followers or at least to save face. Truth is, he really doesn’t give a damn—about birthright citizenship or just about anything or anyone other than himself.

Trump may bluster and blather until his orange face turns blue, but a presidential executive order doesn’t trump the Constitution. Nor does a law passed by Congress and signed by a president. It would take a Supreme Court decision to change that—by misinterpreting the Constitution. And even the present SCOTUS majority isn’t likely to go that far just to accommodate Trump.

So the only lawful way to end birthright citizenship is to amend the Constitution. And that’s not going to happen any time soon. Article V outlines the amendment and ratification process. It’s intentionally difficult to get going and fails in ratification, as with the superfluous Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 (sorry, Joe) and the not unreasonable District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment of 1978. And it’s not particularly democratic. Nor is the Constitution itself. But that’s irrelevant.

On the other hand, there are end runs around the Fourteenth Amendment that Trump and his gutless, ass-licking sycophants in the House and Senate can use to get and give him his way. One obvious strategy is to prohibit nonresident women in late stages of pregnancy—known to the trade as birthright tourists—from entering the country. Women nearing parturition shouldn’t be flying anyway.

For the record, the United States is one of only 33 countries (and two territories) that have unrestricted birthright citizenship. Most of them are in the Western Hemisphere—the Americas. Including Canada, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela. Another 32 countries offer various kinds of restricted—conditional—birthright citizenship. Including Ukraine and Taiwan. Most countries don’t offer it at all. Like Russia and China.

Our good friends in the United Kingdom had unrestricted birthright citizenship until the British Nationality Act of 1981 restricted it. The UK doesn’t have an actual constitution as we know it, so it just took an Act of Parliament.

Our good friends in the Republic of Ireland, on the other hand, which has an actual constitution, restricted previously unrestricted birthright citizenship as recently as 2004 by constitutional amendment. Unlike the process in the United States, it involved a referendum . . .