Birthright Citizenship: RM Scanlon Stikes Down Right-Wing Extremism

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems that my Republican colleagues believe that no matter how false or bizarre a claim, repeating it over and over again will somehow make it true. What else can explain the hearing that they've scheduled for today? As I explained last time, the majority swung and missed on this topic. The text and legislative history of the 14th Amendment clearly established that aside from rare exceptions, a person's birth in the United States guarantees citizenship in the United States. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than a disingenuous attempt to rewrite our nation's history and the very words of the Constitution. And you don't have to take my word for it. The Supreme Court resoundingly agreed just two and a half months ago in its decision on this issue in Trump v. Barbara. The 14th Amendment guarantees that all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. That plain text is about as clear as the law can be. The Supreme Court and our Constitution only recognize two very narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats and children of an occupying army's soldiers, situations where U.S. law cannot be applied. Simply tweeting that there's an invasion of immigrants is nothing more than a desperate and bigoted attempt to fabricate an end run around birthright citizenship and doesn't meet either of those exceptions. The American children of undocumented immigrants and the American children of visa holders are persons born here in America. At the moment of their birth, they're subject to the same laws of the United States as me or you or the chairman here with an undeniable constitutional claim to the rights, duties, and protections of that reciprocal relationship. In other words, citizenship. So why are Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues continuing to question the plain, long-settled meaning of the 14th Amendment? Why are they peddling obviously unconstitutional proposals to end birthright citizenship even after the Supreme Court settled the matter once again? It's because Donald Trump and his Republican flunkies think they can profit at the polls. If they strip away from an entire group of our American neighbors their rights, their votes, and their identities, and turn them into a permanent underclass. These Republicans want to pick and choose who is worthy of citizenship based solely upon who someone's parents are and where their parents are from. In our country, where the founders banned noble titles and declared that no man is guilty for his father's sins, there's nothing less American than that. In short, the people who want to end birthright citizenship are proposing to resurrect the infamous Dred Scott decision which tried to make bloodline the mark of citizenship. Thankfully, most Americans reject this bigoted view, one that is diametrically opposed to our nation's long-standing history and ideals. Patriotism requires us to resist the backsliding and injustice that the president and his allies are pushing. Our history, our quest for a more perfect union, has always been about opening up opportunity and civic participation, not ripping it away. Expanding our electorate has been an important part of that progress. Enfranchisement, not disenfranchisement. We passed constitutional amendments that guarantee citizenship and access to the ballot box, no matter a person's race or sex. In doing so, we've made our country and its government more representative, more fair, and slowly but surely, more perfect. That's a vision shared by patriotic Americans and rooted in fundamental American ideals. Any attempt to radically reinterpret the citizenship clause only serves the schemes of right-wing extremists and limits who can have a political voice in this country. Donald Trump's unconstitutional executive orders to end birthright citizenship, not to mention copycat legislation by our Republican colleagues, even after the court's Barber decision, would drag us backwards. Their efforts would upend the promise of America and consecrate a government that's not for the people but for some people. It's been nearly 160 years since the 14th Amendment rebuked the Dred Scott decision and re-established birthright citizenship as the law of our land. In that time, the U.S. has been made better by Americans born here to immigrants, regardless of their parents' birthplace or citizenship status. Countless prominent Americans are U.S.-born children of immigrants, including the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressman Greg Kazar, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Congressman Andy Harris, and for the region I represent, one of the greatest Eagles players of all time, Chuck Concrete Charlie Bednarek. If you're looking for prominent Americans who've benefited from birthright citizenship, you can look no further than senior officials in the Trump administration, like Marco Rubio or Nikki Haley, who were born to non-citizens and received their U.S. citizenship at birth. Defending birthright citizenship is a moral as well as a constitutional imperative. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in its Trump v. Barbara Amicus brief that ending birthright citizenship denies the innate dignity and freedom of the person. The moral imperative, historical evidence, legal arguments, and U.S. Constitution are apparently no obstacle to our Republican colleagues, however, as they persist in conjuring up all kinds of nonsense to justify limiting birthright citizenship. We've already heard some of our colleagues' hallucinations about birth tourism and anchor babies, the claim that nefarious expectant mothers enter the country on tourist visas just to give birth. Setting aside the fact that the Republicans' own witnesses cannot chew actual proof that birth tourism happens on any meaningful or widespread basis, any congressional response certainly does not involve upending constitutional fundamentals about the meaning of American citizenship. In fact, birthright citizenship is about as American as apple pie. Americans overwhelmingly back birthright citizenship, and extremists like Stephen Miller know they don't have the votes or the public support to pass a constitutional amendment to repeal it, so instead they're trying to do an end run by obliterating more than a century and a half of legal analysis and forcing a tortured reading of the English language, which the Supreme Court just rejected again. Finally, let's be abundantly clear. The through line that links this attempt to end birthright citizenship and every cruel immigration policy propped up by this administration serves the same goal, turning our melting pot democracy into a white nationalist ethno-state, and we will do everything in our power to fight that vision as a Congress, as a government, as a nation. We should not be in the business of turning back the clock and allowing our country to backslide into the most shameful parts of its past. Instead, we should be passing laws that shepherd it towards a brighter future, where the promise to form a more perfect union rings true for all, rather than just a titled few. Policies that bring us toward this vision of a more just, more fair America, guided by all Americans, are exactly what I and my Democratic colleagues will use this committee to fight for, and with that I yield back.