Rep. Louie Gohmert Is Scared Of Potential Terrorist Babies

Texas Republican Rep. Louis Gohmert is scared of babies. Specifically, the unborn children of supposed terrorists. Twice in the past week (first on the House floor last Thursday and again last night on Money Rocks), Gohmert has made the case that our national security is at risk from a nefarious terrorist plot involving pregnant women flying to the U.S. on tourist visas to have their babies, thus granting the newborns U.S. citizenship, and then returning home to raise their little U.S. citizens to someday come back  and “blow us all up.” 

Gohmert tells Money Rocks anchor Eric Bolling (via ThinkProgress):

Some of us were traveling to the Middle East last August, a year ago. And a lady on the plane was telling one of our group that they were about to have their second granddaughter. Her husband was with Hamas, her grand — I’m sorry her son-in-law was with Hamas. And that they were going to do with the second as they did with the first grandchild. Daughter is going to come to America right before it’s born on a tourist visa. Have the baby. They just like the option of having American citizens in the family…

We’re bringing them over here on tourist visas, some illegally, letting them be born here and saying this is an American citizen. So come back in 20, 25 years when you’re ready to blow us up.

Gohmert’s solution? The Fourteenth Amendment‘s definition of citizenship hinges on two criteria. For someone to be a U.S. citizen they must both be born or naturalized in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” So revamping that politically charged proposition to  deny U.S. citizenship to the children of non-citizens, Gohmert says we could simply pass a law stating to be under U.S. jurisdiction you have to be born to a legally documented citizen or immigrant. And presto, the would be terrorists-in-diapers wouldn’t meet both 14th Amendment criteria for citizenship.

Gohmert seems to have overlooked a slight problem with his proposal, however. Under this new law, illegal immigrants and visiting foreigners would no longer be subject to U.S. jurisdiction. So when the grown-up terrorist come back in a few decades to kill us, our courts and authorities wouldn’t have any jurisdiction over them at all.

Video below:

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.