[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H771-H772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, our country has just suffered the 
largest illegal mass migration in history.
  Over 4 years, the Democrats opened our borders and allowed an 
unvetted and largely impoverished population of nearly 8 million to 
illegally enter our country--a population the size of Washington State.
  This illegal mass migration has overwhelmed our public schools, 
public hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, and law enforcement, 
and it is costing American taxpayers $160 billion a year to support. 
Worst of all, it has introduced into our country the most violent 
criminal gangs and offenders on the planet.
  It has also brought to a head the fundamental question of whether any 
person in the world can break into our country, have a baby at taxpayer 
expense, have that baby declared an American citizen, and then use that 
as a pretext to remain.
  Now, President Trump has issued an executive order challenging that 
notion for all future births. The Democrats call this a threat to 
democracy and a constitutional crisis. That is what they call anything 
they disagree with these days, but it is neither. It is the 
Constitution functioning as it should.
  The President has created a dispute arising from a difference of 
opinion in interpreting the Constitution. Opponents in this dispute 
have appealed to the courts, as they should. Now, the courts will 
resolve this dispute under the terms of our Constitution.
  Meanwhile, I have a question for the Democrats: If the 14th Amendment 
actually confers automatic citizenship to anyone born here, wouldn't it 
have said all persons born or naturalized in the United States are 
citizens of the United States? That is simple enough.
  That is not what it says. It says: ``All persons born or naturalized 
in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are 
citizens of the United States.''
  What does that mean? We know that it means the children of former 
slaves are citizens. That is its stated purpose and the plain language 
of the amendment passed, by the way, over the objections of the 
Democratic Party. We know from the congressional debate that its 
authors understood it to exclude foreign nationals who are merely 
passing through the country.
  The question of our time is whether those who have illegally entered 
our country in defiance of our laws and who are subject to deportation 
under those laws can be considered as having accepted the jurisdiction 
of the laws that their very presence defies.
  The Supreme Court has never considered this question. The closest it 
came was the Ark decision 127 years ago, but that applied to legal 
immigrants who had accepted the jurisdiction of the United States by 
obeying its immigration laws and who had taken up legal, permanent 
residence subject to a treaty ratified by the Senate.
  Does the President have the authority by executive order to clear up 
this matter as part of his organic constitutional responsibility to 
take care that the laws be faithfully executed? I don't know. Obama 
claimed the authority to create a legal residency for DACA 
beneficiaries out of thin air, so maybe he does. The Court will 
ultimately rule.
  Does the Congress have the authority to clear up this matter by 
statute? Only if that statute doesn't contradict the Constitution.
  Here is the fine point of the matter: If the 14th Amendment does not 
give automatic birthright citizenship to the children of those here 
illegally and temporarily, then no law should be necessary to deny them 
citizenship in the future because no law ever extended that right in 
the first place. In that case, the President's executive order is 
merely declaratory of existing law.
  Several lower courts have stayed the President's executive order, and 
no one is screaming that is a constitutional crisis, even though many 
of us strenuously disagree with those judges just as strenuously as the 
left disagrees with the President.
  Ultimately, though, we have faith in our Constitution, and as the 
case progresses through the courts, we will get

[[Page H772]]

a clear and authoritative ruling that will then determine whether the 
President's order stands or whether Congress needs to act either by 
statute or constitutional amendment.
  To call this a constitutional crisis is the kind of absurd and 
juvenile hyperbole that passes for argument these days by the woke 
left. I look forward to returning to a society someday when we can have 
civil discussions over high principles as our Founders envisioned.

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