WITH Donald Trump proclaiming that he does not care about Americans’ financial situation and is “not concerned about the midterm election,” the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice are walking on clouds, interpreting the US president’s disregard of public opinion as a signal to pursue its aggressive arrest-detain-deport and deny admission of immigrants.
Cloud-walking is a throwback from the 1950s when the US Weather Bureau classified clouds by numbers — “Cloud Nine” (cumulonimbus) being the tallest and puffiest of them all, reaching heights of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
Since then, being “on Cloud Nine” meant you were on the highest, most majestic cloud.
Clouds notwithstanding, pigeons will easily navigate the homeward route, relying on their guts to get there. In a published study, science researchers found pigeons can use special cells in their liver as an internal compass. These iron-rich cells displayed intriguing quantum properties that allowed the pigeons to sense Earth’s magnetic field for direction. Without the cells, the pigeons became lost under certain weather conditions.
Confident of the US Supreme Court as the final friendly arbiter, the DHS and Department of Justice eagles continue to act majestically indifferent from their federally protected habitat.
The Trump administration’s indifference extends to the highest disapproval rating reported by Fox News, his favorite network.
Fox News’ poll says “approval of Trump’s overall job performance is 39 percent, down 3 points since last month and 10 points since his second term started — and only 1 point above his lowest in October 2017. A record 61 percent disapprove of the job he’s doing, including 48 percent who strongly disapprove.”
With chips on his shoulder, the president shrugs — unmoved. After all, six justices in the Supreme Court are appointees of Republican presidents, three by Trump.
Supreme winnings
He has a 76 percent success rate in federal courts, especially where there are Trump-appointed judges.
Of the 302 cases monitored by Forbes, the government wins “when a Trump judge has ruled on the case, whether alone as a district court judge or as part of a panel or appeals court judges.”
Last year, of the 17 cases the full court had issued rulings as of July 8, 2025, 12 were in favor of the Trump administration; five were immigration cases favoring the government’s deportation and inadmission of migrants.
Apparently, the audible smugness of the government lawyers stems from the fact that even if the government loses more cases in the district to appeals court levels, there is always the reliable Supreme Court.
And so, the Departments of Justice and Home Security float on Cloud Nine even as undocumented and legal immigrants are lost in the immigration fog.
In 2024, about 1.4 immigrants were granted lawful permanent residency, more than 820,000 or more, which were those who applied for adjustment of status in the US, according to Department of Homeland Security data. Over the past two decades, more than 500,000 got their green cards via adjustment of status annually, except during the pandemic years.
In the last post-pandemic years (2021–2023), Department of State and DHS statistics show 112,710 Filipinos were admitted for permanent residency. In 2024, the US Embassy in Manila issued 34,099 immigrant visas, 10,786 for spouses, minor children and parents of US citizens.
Zach Kahler, USCIS spokesman, explains the “policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the US illegally after being denied residency.”
The ruling threw a thick fog of uncertainty, which caused immigration lawyers and their clients to seek clear answers as to who may be allowed to stay in the US and apply for adjustment of status.
Kahler’s response?
Only people who “provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest will likely be able to continue” with the adjustment route.
What economic benefit and what would be considered in the national interest of the US is a foggy answer.
Next month the Supreme Court will rule on the birthright citizenship issue.
The crucial issue that the justices need to rule on is whether the birth of a child on US soil automatically confers citizenship if the parent/s are either not domiciled in the US or, if in the US, had lawful status in the country.
Until the second Trump administration, the jus soli interpretation on citizenship applied to a child born in the US.
Fog of citizenship
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order stating that the Fourteenth Amendment has:
– Never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.
– Always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
The Trump EO posits that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: 1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the US and the father was not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth; or 2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the US at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the US under the auspices of the visa waiver program or visiting on a student, work or tourist visa) and the father was not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
Arguing the case for the government, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer asserted that for children to acquire US citizenship at birth, the constitutional provision “presupposes domicile and legal permission of the parents to be in the country... to be subject to US jurisdiction thereof.”
Should it be both parents, or just one — either the mother or father?
Trump’s EO emphasizes the mother’s immigration status. According to the president’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, “a child born in the US does not acquire citizenship at birth if the mother was not domiciled in the US because she was living in the country unlawfully or with temporary authorization.”
In his response to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sauer likewise claimed that “it’s really the mother’s domicile, I think, that would matter.”
However, Justice Department briefs on the matter, citing Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel’s 1758 treatise — “The Law of Nations” — argue that legal doctrine treated the father’s status as more important than the mother’s. As Vattel explains in a section that the Justice Department’s brief cites, “children follow the condition of their father.”
Come June, this birthright citizenship case will be the mother of all current administration policies of which Donald J. Trump is the father.
Meanwhile, across the world, from where I stand, the early morning sea of clouds from the MiMoMa Mountain View camping ground in Tanay offers a contrarian, different majesty.
The sun had a hard time piercing through the billowing cumulonimbus even as a flock of birds aimlessly flew.