Senator Schmitt on Birthright Citizenship: “American Citizenship Should Never be a Loophole”
Schmitt Chairs Senate Hearing Examining Abuse of 14th Amendment
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, held a hearing titled “Protecting American Citizenship: Birthright Citizenship for Illegal Aliens and Tourists.” Schmitt highlighted the systemic abuse of unlimited birthright citizenship by illegal aliens and “birth tourists,” a practice that contravenes the original understanding of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and our nation’s immigration laws.
Watch the Senator’s opening remarks HERE.
“For years, the American people have been told that the Constitution requires the United States to grant citizenship to almost anyone born here, without any regard for such key questions like whether or not the parents were in the country legally in the first place. That claim has shaped our immigration system and our politics for decades. It has also reshaped how many people think about what it means to be an American. But if you actually read the Constitution, examine the ratification debates, and research the common law, that claim is far from obvious. This debate is not just about immigration policy, it’s about the meaning of American citizenship. Citizenship is not just paperwork issued by the government. It’s not a bureaucratic label. Citizenship is the essential bond between a nation and its people. In a republic like ours, that bond carries enormous weight. Because in the United States, sovereignty doesn’t belong to a king or ruling class. It belongs the American people themselves. Citizenship defines the legal recognition of who the American people are. Citizenship defines the political community that governs the United States. It defines who exercises the sovereign authority of this republic. For most of our history, Americans understood citizenship in straightforward terms. It reflected allegiance to the United States. It meant loyal to this country and attachment to its institutions. It meant belonging to the American nation. But over the past several decades, that understanding has steadily been pushed aside”, said Senator Schmitt during his opening remarks.
Schmitt questioned the witnesses on the abuses of the 14th Amendment, especially by foreign governments using mass migration as a tool to degrade the United States’ sovereignty, and the original understanding of the Constitution.
Schmitt previously led an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the upcoming case regarding President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. The brief argues that the President’s executive order restores the Citizenship Clause’s original public understanding by limiting birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, and thus not to illegal and temporarily present aliens, such as “birth tourists.”
Watch the Senator’s full questioning HERE.
Read the Senator’s amicus brief HERE.
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