The Trump administration, freshly rebooted and somehow still staggering through democracy like a drunk uncle crashing a child’s birthday party, is once again dragging America into court—not to clarify constitutional rights, mind you, but just to complain loudly that judges are being mean to them. On January 20, 2025, President Trump (yes, again) signed an executive order seeking to deny citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil if their parents happen to be undocumented or just on a temporary visa. Because nothing says “freedom and liberty” like telling a newborn baby they’re a border-crashing criminal for the audacity of being born.

Trump’s latest legal maneuver, filed with a straight face but zero shame, isn’t about whether his slapdash edict is constitutional. He’s not even asking the Supreme Court for actual validation. No, he’s just cranky that the lower courts have thrown “nationwide injunctions” at him—legal-speak for “stop signs”—which essentially halted his latest tantrum-fueled anti-immigrant stunt. According to Trump and his band of legal misfits, the real villain here isn’t xenophobia wrapped in legalese, but judges who dare to apply the brakes to his nonstop clown car of executive overreach.

To be clear, the order itself reads like it was drafted in crayon, aiming to prevent children born in the U.S. from automatically receiving citizenship if their parents are undocumented or on temporary visas. It’s an idea straight from the fever dreams of Stephen Miller, America’s foremost expert on xenophobic legislation and male-pattern baldness. Never mind that the 14th Amendment explicitly says otherwise, or that over a century of legal precedent supports birthright citizenship—facts, as usual, aren’t invited to this administration’s parties.

Instead, Trump’s legal team—apparently staffed entirely by graduates from Trump University Law School—is arguing that these nationwide injunctions hurt their feelings and cramp their authoritarian style. They’d prefer that any injunction only apply locally, or better yet, not at all, effectively creating a patchwork legal system where your citizenship rights change every time you cross state lines. Because if there’s one thing that makes America great again, it’s confusion and chaos.

And speaking of confusion, even conservative legal scholars are side-eyeing this move like someone who’s caught their grandpa searching Google for “is dictatorship technically illegal?” Nationwide injunctions, they’re quick to remind us, are a fundamental check on presidential overreach—a legal failsafe preventing presidents from running the country like their personal fiefdoms. Apparently, no one told Trump, whose grasp of constitutional law remains limited to whatever Fox & Friends shouts at him between commercials for reverse mortgages and erectile dysfunction pills.

In reality, Trump’s strategy here isn’t legal brilliance; it’s throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping Clarence Thomas licks it up. He’s banking on his stacked Supreme Court to kneecap the lower courts, limiting their power to restrain him, thus enabling him to push questionable orders until the slow wheels of justice inevitably roll over American rights like an oversized SUV flattening democracy’s front lawn.

What makes this circus truly depressing is the familiar cruelty beneath Trump’s clownish incompetence. He’s not just picking a fight over legal nuances—he’s deliberately targeting vulnerable children to score points with a base that thinks empathy is socialism and punctuation is elitist. Never mind the glaring hypocrisy of a man whose own grandparents came to America seeking a better life. This administration’s guiding principle is “We got ours, screw everyone else,” a motto proudly embroidered on MAGA hats stitched in overseas sweatshops.

So, what happens next? The Supreme Court might humor Trump’s request, limiting injunctions so lower courts can’t immediately squash his tantrums. Or they might finally grow tired of being his personal customer service hotline and send him packing.

Either way, the man who spent four years hollering about “anchor babies” is once again determined to anchor America’s politics in cruelty and ignorance.