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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned that the court’s ruling in Trump v. Barbara, which upheld birthright citizenship for most people born in the United States, threatens America’s national security by extending citizenship to children born to illegal aliens and temporary visitors, including “birth tourists.”
“This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued on his second day in office, restricting automatic United States citizenship for people born in the United States whose parents did not have permanent legal status in the country.
Alito railed against the majority’s ruling in a forceful dissent, arguing the justices misinterpreted the 14th Amendment. He wrote that only people who owe their full allegiance to the United States, and not another country, should automatically receive citizenship at birth.
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But beyond his constitutional objections, Alito warned the ruling could be exploited by foreign nationals from enemy nations seeking U.S. citizenship for their children.
“The Court’s interpretation is not only contrary to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, it produces grotesque results,” Alito wrote. “While foreigners who wish to immigrate lawfully must sometimes wait for many years, a child born here to a birth tourist is automatically a citizen.”
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Alito described a hypothetical scenario in which a foreign national gives birth in the United States before promptly returning to her home country as part of a larger plot to eventually harm the United States.
“Suppose the child never visited the United States while growing up and was inculcated with hatred of this country,” Alito wrote. “According to the Court, that person is a citizen of the United States. He can enter and leave the country as he pleases. He can travel the world on a United States passport. Even if he plots to harm this country, he cannot be deprived of his status as a citizen, at least under current precedent.”
Michael Hough, co-president of NumbersUSA, sided with Alito, arguing that expanding birthright citizenship risks diluting the value of U.S. citizenship and exposing the United States to foreign adversaries.
He pointed Fox News Digital to a Wall Street Journal investigation reporting that a Chinese tech billionaire fathered roughly 100 children born in the United States through surrogacy, despite never having entered the country.
“Look at what’s happening with Chinese birth tourism and IVF. The people who drafted the 14th Amendment in the 1860s obviously weren’t contemplating wealthy foreign nationals creating children in the United States through modern reproductive technology,” Hough said. “Those kinds of questions should be left to Congress, not decided by judges stretching constitutional language.”
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Border czar Tom Homan echoed Alito’s concerns over national security to Fox News, calling for greater investigations into birth tourism.
“I agree with Judge Alito,” Homan told Fox News. “Birthright citizenship has always been a major driver for illegal immigration.”
“But more importantly, it’s a national security concern,” Homan said. “We have nationals from China and Russia coming in the thousands, having a baby and leaving. Now we have citizens in the thousands, and if this continued, in the millions in countries that I think are adversaries to us. That could come here and have an impact on how this country is run.”
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