“Trump Was Right”: Sean Hannity And Mark Levin Back Trump On 14th Amendment And Birthright Citizenship
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the August 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
SEAN HANNITY: Rand Paul was right on this, Trump was right on this, Cruz is right on this, Walker's right on this.
[...]
MARK LEVIN: [T]he Supreme Court has never ruled that the children of illegal aliens are American citizens. So the Supreme Court has never ruled it, even if they did, it would be wrong. The clause speaks for itself, the author of the clause made it abundantly, unequivocally clear, and let me add one other thing, let's read the clause together, shall we? “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Let's stop there. If it means what the proponents of birthright citizenship say, it would stop right there. All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens. There's no need for anything else, but that's not what it says. Then it says “and, subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Now you have some slip and fall lawyers, some phony constitutional lawyers, they have esquire after their name, they come on TV, they go all over the place. Jurisdiction means geography. Jurisdiction has nothing to do with geography. Zero. It had to do with political allegiance to the United States of America. How do we know it? Because they said it. And they also excluded everybody that the left and some of the Republicans want to include.
Now here's the good news, there's another part of the Constitution. It's Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4. Here's what that says in plain English: “The Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Now, you know what that means? That means Congress, not the courts, not the president, not ICE, it means the United States Congress has the power to regulate immigration in this regard. And guess what Sean, in the 1920s, that's exactly what it did. The 14th Amendment excludes Indians, that is Native Americans as U.S. Citizens, because they felt that they had an allegiance to their own national tribes. OK. Great. And I believe it was in 1923, Congress reversed course and said you know what, under the 14th Amendment and under this Article 1, we've decided to the grant citizenship, national citizenship to all Native Americans. It could not be clearer.
HANNITY: Well this is important. Because you're talking about Article 1, Section 8, you're right, it gives the broadest possible power to the Congress to establish the uniform rule of naturalization. This should not be even in debate. And what we're talking about here, are people that enter this country illegally, so-called anchor babies, their children are born here, and people on the left want them to automatically gain citizenship. Part of Trump's deal, and Ted Cruz, and Scott Walker, Rand Paul, they're saying no. They're right, you're right, and these other people, obviously don't know history. I don't know, so I guess this is going to be a big debate.
LEVIN: Look, I have been looking into this, talking about this for years, long before this presidential cycle. Of course Trump is right, and Cruz is right, and Sessions is right, they're all right. And to hear so-called constitutional conservatives trip all over themselves to sound like liberals, to rewrite this provision, and accuse those of us who actually know something about it, know the history about it, know the senators who were involved in it, know what went into it, know what was meant by it, that we're the activists, that we're the extremists. Look, if you want of a policy of open borders that anybody born here should become a United States citizen, you amend the Constitution. We don't have to amend the Constitution, it says what we say it says, and by statute, going forward, prospectively, Congress can in fact say we want to emphasize to this federal government, to this president, no, you cannot make children of illegal aliens American citizens automatically.
Previously:
Echoing Right-Wing Media, Trump Calls For The Fourteenth Amendment To Be Dismantled