On Fox Business, Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton calls birthright citizenship “a political decision”
Published
Citation From the August 26 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight:
LOU DOBBS (HOST): We are told that birthright citizenship is being looked at, to be removed from the, from law, if you will -- and that the president thinks that it could be done by executive action, and so do his advisers. What do you think?
TOM FITTON: Well, I think they need to look at it.
The establishment tells you you're not allowed to talk about the idea that we ought to give automatic citizenship to the children born here to illegal aliens.
The Constitution doesn't require it, and anyone who tells you that it does require it, I would suggest you go look at the 14th Amendment --
DOBBS: Well, how about the editorial boards of, you know, major newspapers in this country? They all act as if the 14th Amendment, a person born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside. What does it mean? Why would they have otherwise put in "subject to the jurisdiction thereof?" The phrase is meaningless if it, indeed, is ignored.
FITTON: And it's a political decision to provide citizenship status to the children of illegal aliens who obviously are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, at least as the Constitution seems to suggest.
DOBBS: Right.
FITTON: And if you want the rule of law to prevail, you want to protect our borders, you want to stop this abuse, you've had four million children of illegal aliens born here in the United States, and that's not -- surely not what our founders or the creators of the 14th Amendment intended.