Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), running in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, is suggesting that the country’s birthright citizenship policy for the children of illegal aliens — commonly referred to as “anchor babies” — is enshrined in the United States Constitution.
After President Trump said he is “very seriously” reviewing an executive order to end birthright citizenship, Harris hit back on Twitter, writing “This president should “seriously”consider reading the Constitution.”
Despite Harris’s claim, the U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic American citizenship, and many legal scholars dispute the idea.
Many leading conservative scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not provide mandatory birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens or noncitizens, as these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction as that language was understood when the 14th Amendment was ratified.
Breitbart News Senior Legal Editor Ken Klukowski has noted that Trump may have two routes by which an executive order ending birthright citizenship is constitutionally upheld:
President Trump has at least two routes to victory through a legal fight. It must be noted for both that a legal challenge to an executive order issued in November 2018 would almost certainly not make it all the way to petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court until after the cutoff in mid-January 2020 for cases to be decided before the presidential election, so this issue will likely still be pending when Americans go to the polls in November 2020 to vote for president. [Emphasis added]
The first route to victory is that the Supreme Court could hold that the specific provisions of the executive order are authorized under current statute. If so, President Trump wins outright. [Emphasis added]
The second is that the Court could hold that one or more of those provisions require congressional action, but could signal that the Constitution permits such changes. If so, there would be a massive push to tweak current statute. The American people will have been debating this issue for two full years by that time, and would by 2021 be educated by the Supreme Court’s final decision as well. This could lay the groundwork, such that the same political momentum that would secure a second term for President Trump could also secure the votes to change the relevant provision of Congress’s Immigration and Nationality Act. [Emphasis added]
Swing voters, most recently, told Michigan focus-group pollsters that they are deeply concerned with the country’s birthright citizenship policy, as Breitbart News reported:
One swing voter hit back against the U.S. policy of providing birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, saying, “We shouldn’t give away our birthright like candy. Meaning that all they have to do is cross the border illegally, pop out a kid, and they’re a U.S. citizen. Two illegals do not a citizen make.” [Emphasis added]
Birthright citizenship rewards the children of illegal aliens, commonly known as “anchor babies,” with automatic U.S. citizenship, thus anchoring their illegal alien and noncitizen parents in the U.S. Eventually, those anchor babies are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country through the process known as “chain migration,” making birthright citizenship not only a driver of more illegal immigration, but also legal immigration.
Ending birthright citizenship would carry the U.S. into the future on the issue, putting the nation more in line with similar Western countries. In the developed world, only Canada has a birthright citizenship policy as other nations have ended the policy or never had such a policy. There are at least 4.5 million anchor babies in the U.S. with nearly 300,000 anchor babies born every year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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