The Patriot Post® · What's Next for Birthright Citizenship?
Welp, the Supreme Court decided yesterday that Medieval English common law on birthright citizenship trumps President Donald Trump’s proper understanding of America’s own 14th Amendment. That’s an oversimplification to make a point, but it’s derived from the dissenting justices.
In any case, now what?
Appallingly, as I wrote yesterday, continuing to hand citizenship to anchor babies born to illegals is a death sentence for our nation. America, as we have all known and loved it, cannot survive when the native birth rate is plummeting and an ever-larger share of babies gain citizenship despite no real allegiance to our country.
As Justice Clarence Thomas put it in his dissent, the Court’s ruling “devalues that citizenship.”
In a concurring dissent, Justice Samuel Alito noted, “The Declaration of Independence emphatically rejected the British theory of government. It proclaimed that governments ‘derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,’ not divine right.” Alito found it sadly “ironic” that the Court would rule the way it did “only days before we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, which emphatically renounced the foundation on which the British rule rested.”
Hey Eeyore, I hear you saying, give us some hope!
Okay, I’ll try. It’s true that there are some good options for a path forward. First, tangentially, the Court delivering such a blow to President Trump belies the Democrats’ insistence that it’s just a rubber stamp for his agenda. It undermines their agenda to pack the Court because the American people can see checks and balances are still in play.
More importantly, however, is immigration policy itself. And I’ll break that down into two areas: birth tourism and border security. “Congress should start TODAY,” President Trump posted right after the ruling.
He also planted his tongue firmly in his cheek to address birth tourism, posting on Truth Social yesterday afternoon, “I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!” That’s pretty funny, and it’s a well-deserved shiv in the side for Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Chinese have been incredibly adept at birth tourism in recent years, and that’s sowing the seeds of a future crisis. As our Douglas Andrews explained in April, “These babies, often the babies of Chinese Communist elites, immediately return to China, where they grow up thoroughly indoctrinated in their home country’s anti-Western, anti-American values, ostensibly to await their 18th birthdays, when they can then vote in, say, a swing state like Arizona or Georgia or Wisconsin.”
Andrews concluded with what should go without saying: “The babies of Chinese Communist birth tourists should not, under any reading of the 14th Amendment, be U.S. citizens.” The Roberts Court came to precisely the opposite, mind-boggling conclusion.
As Trump indicated, he’s well aware of the issue, and his administration is already working on a solution via the Justice Department. In a Tuesday memorandum on “fraudulent birth tourism schemes,” Colin McDonald, who leads the DOJ’s new Fraud Division, noted, “I am directing all United States Attorneys and the Criminal Division to work with the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of birth tourism schemes.” That prosecution will be for visa fraud under 18 USC § 1546.
The president should also make determinations on what visas are approved, though legislative backing would help that survive the next Democrat administration.
As for Congress, I’ll start with very low expectations that the John Thune-led Senate will actually accomplish anything, but Senator Rick Scott is pushing the SAFE KIDS Act, which would tighten surrogacy laws. “There has to be some value to American citizenship,” Scott said. “We need to keep the rest of the world from exploiting our immigration system, and that includes letting adversarial nations like Communist China use surrogacy to do it.”
On the border security front, “pregnant” could (and should) become grounds for exclusion from entry to the country in the first place. Representative Andy Ogles introduced the cleverly named Anchors Away Act, which he says will mean “no more anchor babies.” He explained, “They are running for our political offices. They are collecting American benefits. And they are actively colonizing our country.”
Speaking of colonizing, leftists can’t decide if we live on stolen land or if everyone is a citizen. But I digress.
Critically, President Trump and his administration have done incredible work to close the border. If you don’t allow illegals to cross the border and stay in the country, you won’t have anchor babies, no matter what legal concoction Chief Justice Roberts contrives. Deportation is another tool, though that will be hard-fought as left-wing legal activists fight tooth and nail to keep every illegal family here for the sake of their citizen child.
Predictably, Democrats crowed about the ruling. “Despite Trump’s best efforts to bully them,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “the Supreme Court just reaffirmed that if you are born in America, you belong in America.”
Schumer has no self-awareness when it comes to bullying the justices.
Yesterday, I quoted Schumer’s Democrat predecessor, Harry Reid, who saw things differently. He introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993 to clarify who qualifies for citizenship and what “subject to the jurisdiction” actually means:
TITLE X—CITIZENSHIP 4 SEC. 1001. BASIS OF CITIZENSHIP CLARIFIED. In the exercise of its powers under section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, and which person is a national or citizen of another country of which either of his or her natural parents is a national or citizen, or is entitled upon application to become a national or citizen of such country, shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States within the meaning of section 1 of such Article and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth.
If Republicans are smart — I know, stick with me — they’ll harp on that every day between now and the election, crafting their own legislation based on Reid’s. Senator Bernie Moreno is on it.
Other members of Congress are talking about what I concluded yesterday: that it will now take a constitutional amendment to fix the misinterpretation of a constitutional amendment. Birthright citizenship “is one of those things that was intended to serve a noble, important purpose, and has been thwarted and overused and abused,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson. “I’m sure the conclusion from this opinion is going to be that … you got to amend the Constitution to fix that.”
Senator Mike Lee agreed: “The long fight for a constitutional amendment begins now.”
Them’s fightin’ words, to be sure, but it’ll be a short fight, not a long one. Thanks to public school education and the Leftmedia, most Americans think automatic citizenship for every child born on American soil, regardless of circumstances, is good and right instead of utter insanity. The threshold for a constitutional amendment is, frankly, too high to accomplish a fix for the Supreme Court’s atrocious ruling.
Eeyore!!
Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.
Let me wrap it up by saying that President Trump and a Republican Congress have the opportunity to make lasting changes that will mitigate the damage done by the Roberts Human Trafficking Gang. Making any success last requires significant resolve in the face of relentless “progressive” opposition. So, to quote the president, fight, fight, fight!