July 11, 2018
It’s time to ‘reimagine’ birthright citizenship
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/its_time_to_reimagine_birthright_citizenship_.html
One of the biggest challenges in the
immigration debate today is that the American people are routinely given faulty
“facts” or outright lies by the media and opportunistic politicians. The
media-manufactured crisis over separating children from their illegal alien
parents at the southern border is just the most recent example. The
misrepresented photos, absurd comparisons of detention centers
to concentration camps, and nonstop cable news demagoguery have served to
confuse the public and advance the narrative of the open borders movement.
Now comes a whopper: Much of what the
American public has been told about birthright citizenship is wrong. The
Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) recently filed a friend-of-the-court
brief in Fitisemanu v. United
States, a case of birthright citizenship currently before the U.S.
District Court for the District of Utah. In its brief, IRLI attorneys did not take a
position on the primary issue inFitisemanu,
whether American Samoa is part of the United States for purposes of
citizenship. The brief instead examined the overarching matter of
birthright citizenship. Namely, does the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
grant automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are not
U.S. residents, or who are in the country without permission? The
findings may well topple conventional wisdom about one of the crown jewels of
the left’s immigration agenda.
For decades, many agencies have treated
virtually all children born in the United States – even the children of illegal
aliens or tourists – as citizens at birth under the Constitution. This
all-inclusive interpretation of birthright citizenship, repeated endlessly in
the mainstream media, is what gave rise to the “anchor baby” phenomenon.
With children born in the United States to illegal alien parents instantly
qualifying for welfare and other state and local benefit programs, the incentive
for aliens to have their children born in the U.S. is immense.
Yet
under Supreme Court precedent, neither the children of illegal aliens nor those
of tourists are citizens at birth. In the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the
Supreme Court found that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a
citizen at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment because
his parents, when he was born, were legally residing in the United States.
The holding of this case is widely misread as conferring citizenship at birth
under the Fourteenth Amendment on all persons whatsoever born in the United
States, with the narrow exceptions of children of diplomats, members of an
invading force, or Indians born in the allegiance of a tribe. The brief
shows that this reading is wrong; the Court clearly excluded the children of
illegal aliens and non-U.S. residents from constitutional birthright
citizenship. The Court’s decision has been incorrectly applied for 120
years.
Based on Wong
Kim Ark and an earlier decision in Wilkins
v. Elk, the still-controlling rule of the Supreme Court is clear: whether
one is a citizen at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment depends on whether one
was born in the United States to a U.S.-resident parent who, at the time, both
had permission to be in the United States and owed direct and immediate
allegiance to the United States. This rule happens to exclude the
children of both illegal aliens (who do not have permission to be in the
country) and tourists (who do not “reside” here) from constitutional birthright
citizenship.
Interpreted correctly, the precedents of
these cases would work a sea change in immigration law as it is currently
applied. In addition to shrinking the magnet for illegal passage across
the southern border, recognition of the correct rule would prevent crass
exploitation of our laws by the “birth tourism” industry, in which foreign
nationals essentially plan an American vacation with the explicitpurpose of bearing a child
here. The payoff is a U.S. passport for the child, who would then have
the right to sponsor the parents for citizenship when he or she reaches 21
years of age. Is this an objective of U.S. immigration policy, or a
mockery of it?
In her virtue-signaling attacks on Trump
administration immigration policy, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) declared an
urgent need to “reimagine” the purpose of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. While that proposal is child-like, unserious and a political
nonstarter, she’s correct that some reimagining of immigration law is
overdue. A good place to start would be the loopholes and
misinterpretations that have allowed birthright citizenship to be manipulated
in ways that run counter to America’s best interests.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with foreign labor. That process spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
Rep. Lamar Smith: Scripture Opposes Amnesty
American politicians, religious leaders, and lay citizens have offered comment on the connection between biblical teachings and immigration issues.
Many have used their interpretation of the Bible to endorse open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants in the country. There is just one problem that plagues these claims: The Bible contains numerous passages that do not support amnesty and instead support the rule of law.
The Scriptures clearly indicate that God charges civil authorities with preserving order, protecting citizens, and punishing wrongdoers. A prime passage is Romans 13:1-7: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” Neither God nor the Bible ever rewards lawlessness (1 Timothy 1: 8-10).
Consider Leviticus 19:33-34, frequently cited by amnesty advocates: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Mass-immigration and amnesty advocates claim that these passages mandate that a society welcome any and all foreigners. But such passages do not mean that foreigners should disregard civil laws to enter illegally or that we should overlook it when they do. The law God laid down for Israel allowed legal distinctions to be drawn between natives and non-natives.
Also, the Hebrew term for “sojourn,” as well as the dictionary definition, means “temporary stay.” A related term used in some scriptural translations is “stranger.” So this passage offers no scriptural sanction for allowing millions of illegal immigrants to remain permanently in the United States. In the New Testament, the word “stranger” denotes one who is simply unknown (The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible), not someone who is a foreigner.
Related to the Leviticus citation is the passage about treatment of “the least of these my brothers” – the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner. This quote from Matthew 25: 31-46 plainly is based on individual acts of kindness and does not mandate a public policy. A note in the New Interpreter’s Bible says, “… it is the individual human beings, not nations as corporate political structures, that stand before the judgment.”
Finally, Bible passages support borderd (Exodus 19:12), boundaries (Deuteronomy 32:8; Proverbs 22:28), standards (Numbers 2:17), and order (Isaiah 9:7). Borders and boundaries are consistent and important principles throughout the Bible, being mentioned some 200 times in one context or another. This suggests little biblical support for anyone’s claim to have a “right” to live somewhere illegally.
Americans need not apologize for wanting to uphold the rule of law. We have every right to be a sovereign nation. Our nation has a wonderful tradition of welcoming newcomers. Furthermore, we admit more than one million legal immigrants a year, far more than any other country.
There is a difference, though, between those who play by the rules and come in the right way and those who don’t. And the Bible’s commentary on strangers and foreigners makes that clear.
Congressman Smith represents the 21st District of Texas. He serves as chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee and is a former chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee. Rep. Smith founded the Border Security Caucus.
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