Trump’s Acting AG Says There Are ‘Other Things’ Government Can Do to Squash Birthright Citizenship
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said even though the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump on birthright citizenship, the Justice Department still has a few tricks up its sleeve to block foreigners from coming to the U.S. in order to give birth.
Blanche discussed the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling from a day earlier during a press conference on Wednesday.
He was asked what “options” the DOJ has to crack down on what President Donald Trump has called “birth tourism” — where foreigners travel to the U.S. strictly to give birth to kids who are automatically American citizens. The Supreme Court ruled that was perfectly legal on Tuesday.
“Well, from a Department of Justice standpoint it’s obviously focusing our prosecutors and our law enforcement partners on birthing tourism,” Blanche said. “It’s a booming industry and it will continue [to be], given the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday.”
He continued:
There’s other things that DHS can do and the federal government can do in the visa process and the application process to try to minimize or limit the opportunity of folks coming here not to visit, not to do what they’re saying on their tourist visa, just to have a baby that can be a U.S. citizen.
From our standpoint, it’s focusing on what is improper. Everybody should agree that it’s a violation of our laws if your intent in coming here, if you’re pregnant, is to have a child to become a United States citizen because of our laws.
Blanche’s answer followed the Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld birthright citizenship.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “We keep that promise today.”
Trump had argued the Fourteenth Amendment aimed to ensure the kids of slaves became citizens, but that the amendment had since morphed into a “great scam.”
The president criticized the birthright citizenship ruling on Tuesday, but also said the court had been “very fair” to Republicans overall. He then sardonically congratulated China on the ruling.
Other conservatives were even more upset.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh branded Justice Amy Coney Barrett a “DEI Hire” for ruling against Trump once again, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he was “very disappointed” by the ruling, and Steve Bannon said Roberts told MAGA to “suck on that,” essentially.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
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