What Constitution Says About Anchor Babies

Author and radio host Mark Levin, a constitutional lawyer, appeared on Fox News’ Hannity last night to discuss the raging debate about “anchor babies”.

For those not familiar with the term, anchor babies reference children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil. Amnesty advocates point to the 14th Amendment and claim it automatically grants citizenship to these children. The “anchor” has been used to describe the notion that the parents of these “citizens” could never be deported.

Levin and others including Alabama senator Jeff Sessions and presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, explained how the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — the clause amnesty advocates always point to when arguing their case — clearly spells out that children of illegal immigrants do not automatically achieve American citizenship simply because they are born on U.S. soil.

Trump is advocating that illegal alien families with “anchor babies” should be deported from the country as part of cleaning up the current illegal immigration crisis.

Hannity: “Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction is, by virtue of natural law and national law, a citizen of the [United States]. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers, accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

Levin: “The clause speaks for itself, the author of the clause made it abundantly, unequivocally clear, let’s add another 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 what it says. Then it says, and, ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Now, you have 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 I, 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 US citizens, because they felt that they had allegiance to their own national tribes. Okay, great, and I believe it was in 1923, Congress reversed course, and said, ‘You know what? Under the 14th Amendment and under this Article I, we’ve decided to grant citizenship, national citizenship to all Native Americans.”

My interview with constitutional expert, Professor Edward Erler, re birthright citizenship and illegal alien children http://t.co/EwS443d6tS

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 20, 2015