“I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social last week, after the Supreme Court struck down his executive order, which declared that children born of mothers in the country illegally or on a temporary visa were not covered by the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment.
Mr. Trump was referring to “birthright tourism,” pregnant women traveling to this country with the sole purpose of giving their child automatic U.S. citizenship. In his new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, Peter Schweizer charges that the Chinese government has “created a system whereby it’s happening on an industrial scale,” that in the last decade more than a million Chinese mothers have traveled to America to give birth.
How can we be untroubled that more than a million kids growing up in Communist China today have a legal right to come to the United States at any time?
In his concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that, “consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment,” Congress could “enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship . . .”
The president cheered the idea: “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!”
Yet, none of the other five justices in the majority left that statutory door open; it likely will require a constitutional amendment. And that should not be impossible, but in the last half-century not even one has been both introduced and ratified.
Sen. Rand Paul introduced an amendment back in April on birthright citizenship. Sen. Tom Cotton has one, too.
Constitutions exist to keep government under citizen control. If we can never alter a word in that compact, we lose that control.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: Even more so, we need amendments to prevent court-packing, establish term limits on Congress, and secure that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections.
Illustration created with Nano Banana
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