As President Trump urges the Supreme Court to revisit birthright citizenship and Texas investigates a hospital accused of marketing "birth packages" to foreign nationals, one thing has become impossible to deny: Congress can no longer ignore its responsibility to clarify our nation's citizenship laws.The debate over birthright citizenship has returned to the forefront of our national conversation, and the recent Supreme Court decision has made abundantly clear that Congress can no longer ignore our responsibility to secure our nation for future generations of Americans.While the Court reached its own conclusions in the case before it, Justice Brett Kavanaugh's separate opinion underscored an important point.He suggested that Congress, not the executive branch, is the proper institution to address the scope of birthright citizenship through legislation.
That is precisely what my Birthright Citizenship Act is designed to do.TRUMP BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP FIGHT COMES ROARING BACK WITH ‘INVADERS’ PLAY AFTER KAVANAUGH ROADMAPFor too long, our nation has operated under an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment that extends automatic citizenship far beyond what its authors intended.The Citizenship Clause was ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War to guarantee that formerly enslaved Americans would be recognized as full citizens of the United States.
It was never intended to create a worldwide incentive for illegal immigration or to reward those who violate our immigration laws with automatic citizenship for their children.The Birthright Citizenship Act restores the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment by clarifying in federal law that automatic citizenship at birth applies only when at least one parent is a United States citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident residing in the United States, or a lawful immigrant serving on active duty in the United States Armed Forces.This is a steady, measured, commonsense proposal rooted in the rule of ...