As the US Supreme Court considers a huge case over birthright citizenship, author Peter Schweizer says, “the US Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
Schweizer’s most recent book, the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Invisible Coup, documented how more than one million Chinese children have been born on US soil in the past 13 years through an intentional effort by China to engage in birth tourism at an industrial scale. For the High Court, this strains the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language regarding who is eligible for birthright American citizenship.
Schweizer sat down with Alex Swoyer of the Court Watch Podcast to discuss the case. Schweizer testified before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee the Constitution in March on this subject.
The issue raises national security concerns as well as fairness issues. “Really, if you’re going to adopt the position that birthright citizenship is absolute – that anybody who steps a big toe across the Rio Grande, or anybody who flies in, gives birth, and then heads back home, their children are going to be U.S. citizens – that is a suicide pact,” Schweizer said.
Schweizer noted that figures cited by Solicitor General John Sauer, who told the Court there were at least 500 birth tourism companies operating in China and an estimated 1 to 1.5 million so-called US citizens currently being raised in mainland China, came from the book, based on GAI research and quoting from Chinese government and academic sources.
The conversation shifted to Mexico, another big topic of his book. Schweizer documented that senior officials including Senator Felix Salgado of the ruling Morena party have publicly framed mass migration as a “Reconquista,” a deliberate effort to retake territory Mexico lost after the 1848 Mexican-American War. Today there are, Schweizer noted, sitting members of the Mexican congress who live full-time in the United States and represent Mexican nationals living in the US.
“The Sinaloa cartel leader, ‘El Chapo,’ in 2012 flew his wife Emma to Los Angeles, so that his twins would be born in the United States and be US citizens. It was explicitly done in 2012, and only discovered after the fact,” Schweizer said. “Another cartel operating in Mexico right now is headed by a US citizen who is a Mexican national born in the United States. Their senior leadership includes US citizens that exploited this.”
Swoyer asks Schweizer whether he’s aware of any moves being made by the administration.
“There are a couple of things going on. We know that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have started cracking down on birth tourism. And the approach they’re taking is very sensible given the current question of birthright citizenship,” Schweizer said. “The heart of birth tourism is when a pregnant woman comes from overseas to the United States. She fills out the visa and says she’s coming as a ‘tourist.’ She’s lying on her visa application, and she’s told to do this by the birth tourism companies. So, what DHS is doing is going after these birth tourism companies for visa fraud. And people have already ended up in jail for doing this,” he said.
In Texas, the state’s attorney general is investigating Chinese birth tourism that has been occurring in Houston, he pointed out. “And, in Florida where I live, legislation has been introduced to deal with birth tourism at the state level. So, there are actions taking place.
Much will depend on what the Supreme Court decides. “I think they’re probably going to split it in half. I think they may say Trump cannot do this by executive order, but that Congress can limit the scope of birth tourism,” Schweizer said. The reason I’m thinking this is that Justice Kavanaugh was asking Ms. Wang, the attorney for the ACLU, ‘Are there any restrictions on birth tourism?’ And she said ‘no.’ He was surprised by that and said, ‘You’re saying we can’t limit this in any way?’”
Schweizer took note of that response. “I was struck by his tone because I think Kavanaugh is one of those guys that is in the middle. So, I would think the Court may come back and say you can’t do this by executive order, it’s too sweeping, but that Congress can look to expand further.”
