🇺🇲 Jim Wright 🇺🇲

The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision is wrong, dangerous, and disastrous for American sovereignty and the American people. If we can't fix it with ordinary legislation, then we must do what the Constitution commands in moments of national crisis: We must amend the Constitution and restore American citizenship. We must again put "We the People" first. The Supreme Court’s decision constitutionalizing unlimited birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens and temporarily present aliens is wrong—and disastrous for our sovereignty and the future of our republic. The decision exposes America to grave national security risks and threatens to erode the integrity of the core of American self-government: citizenship. Citizenship is more than paperwork issued by the government. It is more than a bureaucratic label that grants access to government programs. Citizenship is the covenantal bond between a nation and its people. In a republic like ours, that bond carries enormous weight. In the United States, sovereignty does not belong to a king or a ruling class. It belongs to the American people themselves. Citizenship defines the legal recognition of who the American people are. Citizenship defines the political community that governs the United States. It defines who exercises the sovereign authority of this republic. But under the Supreme Court’s erroneous interpretation, the Constitution now requires citizenship for anyone who happens to be born on U.S. soil. Even if their parents entered the country illegally. In other words, even if the American people—the citizenry—have prohibited those parents from entering our territory. Even if they are here only temporarily as tourists or on student visas. Even if they have no intention of joining the American nation. That is a dramatic departure from how serious nations understand citizenship. Under the Supreme Court’s decision, citizenship no longer reflects allegiance or loyalty to a country and its laws. It becomes an administrative status to be seized by interlopers. This ruling is the final alarm bell. The bond of American citizenship has slowly eroded through a series of Supreme Court opinions, congressional actions and inactions, and circumstances the Framers of our Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment could not have foreseen. The result is a constitutional order in which the American people are losing control over the most basic question in any republic: who belongs to the political community that governs the nation. This has been the central fight of my work in this important year for American national identity. I led an amicus brief in this very case. I convened a hearing on birthright citizenship and the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. I have pressed this issue because citizenship is the threshold question of the republic. If we lose control of citizenship, we lose control of self-government itself. In the wake of an erroneous Supreme Court ruling like this one, Congress has a duty to examine the Constitution’s text, the historical record, and the policy consequences. Congress also has the power to respond. When the Court mistakenly interprets a statute, Congress can amend the statute through bicameralism and presentment. But when the Court entrenches its mistake as a constitutional command, the remedy must match the injury. Congress can propose an amendment under Article V, and the states can ratify it. That process is purposefully difficult. It requires two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states. Here, the Supreme Court issued a constitutional ruling. Ordinary legislation cannot repair the damage. A constitutional amendment is now required. Accordingly, I will be announcing a forthcoming constitutional amendment to restore the sacred bond between American citizens and their government. That amendment will restore the original American understanding of citizenship. It will restore the right of the American people to define their own political community. And it will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation. This amendment accords with the text, history, and tradition of the Constitution and the American conception of citizenship. It restores the principle embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the law that formed the basis for the Fourteenth Amendment. As my amicus brief in this case explained, the law contained a citizenship provision establishing that “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power” would be granted birthright citizenship. That provision was understood to grant birthright citizenship to children born of parents domiciled in the United States while clearly excluding children born to foreign parents temporarily visiting the United States. And as my brief recounts, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The original American understanding of citizenship was never a suicide pact. It was never a weapon for illegal entry, temporary presence, demographic conquest, or foreign influence. Left unaddressed, this Supreme Court decision will destroy the republic. A nation that cannot determine who belongs to its political community will lose control of its sovereignty and its unique character and traditions as new generations of unassimilated foreigners are automatically granted citizenship. We have seen exactly what this process looks like as foreign communists have essentially taken over New York City politics. We cannot allow this Supreme Court decision to consign the rest of our nation to the same fate. Today is a sad day in the history of our republic. But America and the Constitution have survived for 250 years because each generation has had patriots who, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, valiantly fought back the existential threats this great nation has faced. Our generation’s existential threat is a hostile takeover through mass migration. We must—and we will—honor the patriots who came before us by doing our part to ensure we pass on America, the Constitution, and our nation—the real versions, not desiccated husks. That work begins with restoring the right of the American people to decide who joins the political community that governs the United States and exercises the people’s sovereignty.

What's the best way to deal with a liberal?

I'm starting to understand that the only mark of character on X is being willing to publicly admit when you are wrong.