Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Where In The World Does "Birthright Citizenship Come From?

Transcript

Where In The World Does "Birthright Citizenship Come From? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You're just joining us ruminators. Welcome to the third hour
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of The Morning Show with Preston Scott Wednesday on the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: program Show fifty three five. He is Jose. I happen
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to be Preston, and I am thrilled to be joined
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: once again by the man Hans von Spakowski with the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation. I reached out to Hans to help us
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: better understand this issue called birthright, citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment. Hans,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, my friend.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: How are you, Preston. I'm doing just great heading into Washington,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: which is still roiling as if it's been hit by
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: the Trump tornado.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You're laughing, but people in your world have to be
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: loving what's happening.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, let me tell you. It's the middle of the week,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: a week and a half after he came in, and
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: every single day with the moves the Trump is making,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It's as if I'm having Christmas Morning every single day
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and I'm going down to the tree and every present
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I could ever have wished for is under the tree.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just great.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I love it, absolutely love it. All Right, let's dial
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in here for a second four on the Fourteenth Amendment.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Explain to our listeners, let's go back and bring up
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth fourteenth Amendment in its context. What was its purpose.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Well, the purpose was to make sure that newly freed
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: slaves would become citizens of the United States. But everyone
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: today who is saying that this also means in the
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: fourteenth Amendment that the children of aliens who are in
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the United States, whether they're here legally or even illegally,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: are also citizens, are just wrong. They are ignoring not
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: only the language of the fourteenth Amendment, but its history.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And this is very it was very easy to understand
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: all those who say, oh, if you're born in the US,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: you're a citizen, they're only looking at the first half
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of the fourteenth Amendment. What the fourteenth Amendment says, very simple,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: is you're a citizen if you're born in the United
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: States and subject to its jurisdiction. And what the sponsors
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: of the fourteenth Amendment in Congress said, this is very clear,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: it's in the transcripts of all their debates, was that
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant you
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: owe your political allegiance to the US. Your subject to
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the US's political allegiance, you don't owe it to any
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: foreign nation. And the easiest with for folks to understand
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: it is this. If a German tourist comes to the
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: US and she has a baby while she's here, that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: baby's a German citizen I because her mother is a
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: German citizen. Her political allegiance is owed to who the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: German government because he's a German citizen, She's not a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: citizen of the US. And by the way, President's only
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: three cases ever before the Supreme Court of US, all
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: in the late eighteen hundreds. In one of them in
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy two, the slaughter House Cases, the Supreme Court
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: said the Fourteenth Amendment, the way that term should be interpreted,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: means that the children of foreign citizens in the US
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: are not citizens in the US. A few years later,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: an American Indian sued the government, saying, Hey, I'm a
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: citizen of the US. I was born in the US,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: and the US Supreme Court said, no, you're not. You
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: are subject to the jurisdiction of your tribal government, not
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the US government, and therefore you're not a US citizen.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Native Americans only became citizens in the nineteen twenties when
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Congress passed the Indian citizenship back. If being born in
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the US made you a US citizen, there would have
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: been no need for Congress to pass that pass that law.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: How did we get to where we are right now
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of decades where the interpretation of
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth Amendment has expanded so much, and it might
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: have taken place prior to the last couple of decades.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: But is it conflation? I mean, that's something the left
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: loves to do. They love to take the issue of
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: immigration and merge it with illegal immigration, and they're two
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: distinctly different issues. Is that what happened here or something.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Else that's part of what happened. There's a third Supreme
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Court case. I think it was wrongly decided, but it's
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the one that the supporters birthrights is and always point to.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Eighteen nineties. There was another case before the Supreme Court.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: In this case, it was the sun of two Chinese
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: immigrants who had come to the US. They were here legally,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: they were permanent resident aliens. But you'll recall that we
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: had passed these things called the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: said that no Chinese individual could ever become a US citizen.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So the Supreme Court said that because these were permanent
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: resident aliens, their son would be considered a US citizen.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Now I think that's a misinterpretation of the law. But
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: even if you take that case into consideration, all that
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: means is that the kids of permanent resident aliens, which
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: is a very small number, might be considered US citizens,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: not the kids of illegal aliens or diplomats. What happened,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: as far as we've been able to trace, and we've
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: done as a heritage on we've an extensive research of this,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: it seemed to change during the Prize Surprise the Roosevelt administration,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: when they were doing a lot of things. The Roosevelt
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: administration apparently decided, well, you know, if you're born in
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the US, we'll give you a US passport. And it
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: kind of devolved from there. So all those people who
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: are saying the Trump is wrong about this, they're shooting
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: from the hip, and including, by the way, the judge
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: in Seattle who said, oh, it's blatantly unconstitutional what Trump
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: is doing. Oh, he's blatantly ignorant of the history of this.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And you know, nobody should pay any attention to what
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: that judge said. Think about this Preston. Trump issues the order.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: The next day, a lawsuit is filed, and within a
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: day the judge issues an injunction against it. How much
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: research do you think he was able to do in
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: a day on this? Why? Absolutely not.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He stated that he believed that the states suing have
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a great likelihood of success. But in reality, has there
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: ever been a testing of.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: This before the US Supreme Court? No? Well, I mean time.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: The only time it's been tested is in those three
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: cases in the late eighteen hundreds, and those cases are
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: all on the other side. And the only way this
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: judge could issue an injunction against this is by ignoring
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: ignoring those Supreme Court cases.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, they likely found the right
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: judge at the right in the right district to hear
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the case. But didn't Trump, in essence do this just
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to provoke that type of response. So it ends up, yes,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in front of the Supreme Court eventually.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly what's going on. The Supreme Court needs
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: to one hundred and twenty five years or more after
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the last decision on this, they need to put the
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: final word in on this. The same way, remember the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Second Amendment, the right of all of us personally to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: bear arms. That really had never been before the Supreme
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Court until what ten years ago when the Supreme Court
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: finally got a case on this and finally said, yes,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it is a personal right. And that's the same thing here.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: We need to get a final disposition from the US
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court on it.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: We've commented of late that it just seems like democrats
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and leftists still want people to pick their crops, and
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that's what this whole birthright citizenship argument is. They need
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a victim class, they need voters, they need people indebted
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to them. And we're learning about the fourteenth Amendment from
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: an expert on the US Constitution, Hans von Spakovsky of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation. Hans I mentioned to you in the break.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Second Amendment advocates have long said, Look, the Supreme Court
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: has used things like commonly used firearms in the it's
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: out there, it's been out there for years. We're not
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: taking guns away from people. We're not taking that specific
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: gun away from people. Is there any chance that there's
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: an argument that they're going to make that allowing illegals
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to be in this country and to have residents in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: this country is now so commonplace we can't change it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: No, they should not allow the potential political and other
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: consequences of a decision to affect their choice. Their job
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: is to look at the fourteenth Amendment exactly what the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: text of it is and what was the understanding of
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: what that text meant at the time it was passed.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And the understanding, like I said, is absolutely clear when
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: you look at the discussions and debates and Congress over
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: it by the sponsors of it, and they very adamantly
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: and very clearly said, this only applies to individuals who
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the US. And
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: by the way, for here's the other mistake that is
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: made by folks. They say, well, if you're in the US,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: you're subject to the jurisdiction of the US. No, you're
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: subject to the territorial jurisdiction of the US. What that
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: means is, again go back to the German tourists. The
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: German tourists when they're here, they have to bey our laws.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Right if they mug somebody, well, rob a bank, yeah,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: obviously you can prosecute them. But they are not subject
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: to the political jurisdiction of the US. They can't be
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: called for jury duty. Because they're not a citizen, they
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: can't be drafted into the army if we bring the draft.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: That's what being subject to the jurisdiction of the US means.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And that's again why if the Supreme Court properly interprets
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the phrase, they will rule on Trump's side in this.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned to people that make the arguments that you're
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: suggesting Hans that that well, they're they're here, so they
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: ought to be citizens. I've said, try that, try going
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to another country abroad and let me know how that
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: works out for.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: You, right, or think about this. And look, I'll use
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: my wife as an example. Her father worked for a
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: big American company. He was stationed in Manila, the Manila,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the Philippines, and so she was born in Manila. When
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: she was born in that foreign country in the Philippines,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: she did not become a Philippine citizen. She was a
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: US citizen because both of her parents were US citizens.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: That is the same for every child well born in
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: this country to an illegal alien. If their parents are
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: here illegally from Mexico, they are Mexican citizens. And the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: importance to that also is that all these people who say, oh, well,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: if we do this, these children will be stateless wrong.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Every illegal alien born in the US to illegal alien parents,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: for example, from Mexico, they are Mexican citizens right and
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: can go back to Mexico with their parents, which is
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: what ought to happen.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Hans enclosing, give me the timeline that you would expect
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: on this. Does this get sped up to the appellate
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: level and then potentially the Supreme Court, because even if
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it Appeals court overrules the judge in Seattle, it'll be
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: appealed again. Does it get fast tracked because it's an
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: executive order or because of the nature of the problem.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, what speeds this up.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: What speeds it up is that there aren't any there's
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: no factual dispute. We don't have a dispute about any
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: of the facts. This is purely a case about the law.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: How do you interpret the fourteenth Amendment correctly. It's not
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: going to get to the Supreme Court in its current term.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: The current term ends in June, and that's just not
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: going to happen. But I expect this will get sped
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: through the appellate process and we'll probably get to the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court by the end of this year.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Hans, thanks so much for the time. I always appreciate
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: you making it for us and I wish you nothing
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: but the best.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir, Thank you, Preston, Bye bye.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Hans Vosbakowski with us from the Heritage Foundation. There you go.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: There is your primer, your primer. Take your pick on
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment.