[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H4940-H4943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Johnson of Ohio). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) 
is recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to address you here 
on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and to bring 
to the attention of this body some subject matter that doesn't often 
get a debate here on the floor but it does get some discussion in 
Special Order time and sometimes in the 1-minute and 5-minutes that 
Members present to you here in this great deliberative place that we 
have the privilege to serve in.
  One of the things that I wanted to bring before your attention here 
this evening is the immigration issue here in the United States. It is 
something that I don't know has been discussed here for some time. I 
bring this forward because it is an important issue. It is essential 
that we maintain and sustain and enhance the rule of law here in the 
United States. So I bring this forward. A number of things are on my 
mind.
  The first thing that comes to mind for me is a subject that was 
reported on Fox News on July 11. I picked up this article and I wanted 
to express this to you on what is going on.
  I introduced early in January, one of the first days of business here 
in this new 112th Congress, the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011. Mr. 
Speaker, I brought this act forward working with people who have been 
leaders on this issue for some time. One of them would be our friend, 
Nathan Deal, now Governor Deal of Georgia, who was the lead on this 
issue when he served in the United States Congress. And some of the 
successor people involved would be Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia 
and the incoming freshman from Georgia, Rob Woodall; from California, 
Congressman Gary G. Miller, one who has been a strong proponent of the 
rule of law and standing up for the rights of American citizens. These 
people and others have been strong supporters of the Birthright 
Citizenship Act. And because of my role on the Immigration Committee 
where I have been for now going onto the 9th year, it seemed to be a 
better fit for me to carry this legislation, so I stepped forward with 
it because we needed to take a position.
  What is going on, Mr. Speaker, is that in the United States of 
America, there are people who erroneously read the 14th Amendment of 
the Constitution in the component that addresses what we call 
birthright citizenship. It says, in the 14th Amendment, that all 
persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof are American citizens. All persons born or 
naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof are American citizens.
  Now, the circumstances are that it has created a misinterpretation. A 
misinterpretation of this section of the 14th Amendment has created 
birthright tourism. So we have, you might see a $30,000 turnkey 
operation going on where a pregnant woman in China, and she is probably 
going to have a benefactor that would sponsor this, could receive a 
turnkey operation for a little tourism trip into the United States, get 
her on an airplane and smuggle her into the United States one way or 
another where she would have a baby. She would be 8\1/2\ months 
pregnant or so, theoretically, and have the baby here in the United 
States. The baby would get a nice, new American birth certificate with 
his little footprint stamped on it. And then that baby might go back to 
China with the baby's mother, or the mother might stay here

[[Page H4941]]

in the United States with family and friends, whoever might want to 
harbor that mother and/or child. And when that child is old enough, the 
child can sponsor the entire family to come in the United States by 
virtue of that automatic citizenship that is conferred upon a child 
that is born here to an illegal mother and a who-knows father.
  That is going on not just in rare circumstances, and certainly not 
just with Chinese. In fact, that is not one of the larger numbers. It 
is happening in this country someplace between 340,000 times a year and 
750,000 times a year, Mr. Speaker. We have a people that sneak into the 
United States for the purpose of having a baby so that baby can become 
an American citizenship.
  I believe, as the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, Lamar 
Smith, believes, that citizenship should be precious. It should be 
precious. It shouldn't be dealt out. It shouldn't be something that you 
can buy a turnkey ticket to game the system to have a baby that then is 
automatically an American citizen subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
  Mr. Speaker, I will argue that Chinese woman that flies into the 
United States with a $30,000 turnkey tourism for birthright is not 
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, not in the way that 
was envisioned by the people that wrote the 14th Amendment to the 
Constitution.
  The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was put in place to guarantee 
that the babies born to formerly slaves, and then at that time of 
ratification freed slaves, would be American citizens, that the babies 
born to the freed slaves would not be denied all of the rights of 
citizenship as were guaranteed to them in the 13th and 14th Amendments. 
And it took into account that babies born on Indian reservations, some 
of them, would have lost their rights, their tribal rights on those 
reservations if they had become automatic American citizens. So some of 
the Native Americans said, no, they didn't want that conferred upon 
them.

  The drafters of the 14th Amendment then wrote language in it to 
preclude automatic citizenship to any Homo sapien that was born within 
the territory of the United States. They also had to be subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof. And this Congress went through a great deal of 
debate in the House and in the Senate on what that actually meant in 
the clause, ``subject to the jurisdiction thereof.''
  It was not contemplated that the children of diplomats would become 
automatic American citizens. It was not contemplated that certain 
Native Americans born on certain reservations would be subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof and become American citizens. But it was 
contemplated that the children born to freed slaves would be American 
citizens.
  It is a guarantee, and it was written with a significant amount of 
wisdom. They could not have anticipated that America would get so lazy 
and so lax that this constitutional amendment would drift its way into 
a practice, an erroneous practice of conferring automatic citizenship 
on mostly any baby that would be born in America.
  Now, here is how it is. If there is a plane flying through the United 
States, and let's just say this plane is bound from China to Toronto, 
which does happen, Mr. Speaker. And it was going to be a flight that 
was going to be a direct flight and drop into Toronto, but because of 
weather conditions or maybe mechanical problems, it had to land in 
Chicago. Let's just say if there is a woman pregnant on that plane who 
is flying into Toronto and the plane lands in Chicago and it is stuck 
there for mechanical repairs or a weather-related delay and the woman 
is inside security and has the baby, the baby is not an American 
citizen. But if she walks through the security, is outside the security 
during the layover and has the baby out there, this baby is an American 
citizen.
  That is what has been going on in the practice of this automatic 
citizenship that I think is an erroneous misinterpretation, and I think 
a willful misinterpretation, or probably more often a lazy 
misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
  And so I have introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011, 
along with the friends and colleagues that I have mentioned and many 
others, and a good number of cosponsors who take the position with me 
that if a child is born in America, has to be born to at least one 
legal parent in order to be a citizen of the United States. It is 
pretty simple. It clarifies the 14th Amendment. It clarifies the clause 
in the 14th Amendment, ``subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'' 
Congress has the authority to do that.
  I got concerned about this when there were a couple of Senators who 
were talking about the need to amend the Constitution to fix this 
problem.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. Speaker, it doesn't require a constitutional amendment to fix the 
automatic citizenship practice that is so flawed that it confers an 
automatic citizenship on as many as 750,000 babies born to illegal 
parents here in the United States.
  To give you an example, as I said, it's not just a Chinese woman who 
comes over here, pregnant, to have the baby here--and that happens on a 
very regular basis. It's often someone who comes in from a neighboring 
country. We know, of the criminal aliens that are in our prisons, two-
thirds of them come from Mexico. One might presume that of a similar 
number of these automatic citizenship babies also their mothers are 
citizens of Mexico who are in the United States illegally, having the 
babies here and picking up that automatic citizenship, that birth 
certificate. They may or may not go back to their home country, but you 
can bet that when the time comes that that child will already be 
programmed to petition for the family reunification plan, which has our 
immigration plan in America out of control--out of control.
  So what do we do about this?
  The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011.
  It should be a simple decision for this United States Congress to 
address this situation, but some will argue, well, ``subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof'' means nothing, that that clause in the 14th 
Amendment doesn't have meaning; therefore, it requires that they all be 
citizens. I think that is a very thin and a very marginal argument at 
best. The clause must mean something.
  ``All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject 
to the jurisdiction thereof,'' are American citizens. There is a reason 
that it says: ``and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'' If everyone 
born in the territory of the United States is automatically a citizen, 
you would strike that language from the 14th Amendment ``and subject to 
the jurisdiction thereof,'' and it would simply read: ``All persons 
born or naturalized in the United States'' are American citizens. If 
that were the intent, if that were the understanding of the 14th 
Amendment, that's what it would have said, Mr. Speaker, but it says: 
``and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'' The definition of that 
phrase is subject to the interpretation of the understanding of what it 
meant at the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment, and it 
meant that ``subject to the jurisdiction thereof'' didn't mean that 
there was going to be automatic citizenship for illegals.
  Granted, we didn't have much for immigration laws at the time. There 
wasn't enough human migration to be very concerned about it, but they 
clearly didn't intend to confer automatic citizenship on Native 
Americans born on reservations that were not subject to the 
jurisdiction of the United States. They clearly didn't intend to confer 
automatic citizenship on the children born to the diplomats or their 
staff, or for tourists for that matter. I mention the tourism part when 
I explain what happens if a plane lands in Chicago on its way to 
Toronto and a baby is born. Which side of the security? Here is 
automatic citizenship on the U.S. side of the security. That's nuts, 
Mr. Speaker, but we've gotten lazy and lax with the practice of 
conferring automatic citizenship.
  So people don't challenge it, and I'm really worried about an 
administration--actually, I've been worried about a couple of those 
administrations since I've arrived in this town--that doesn't seem to 
have much vigor for enforcing immigration law. It's pretty frustrating 
to be here in the United States Congress, pounding away to have to pass 
legislation to fix something that's just a matter of intellectual 
laziness; but the people who are enforcing this, the people who are 
handing out birth

[[Page H4942]]

certificates almost like candy, aren't challenging it. They don't have 
a very good constitutional understanding or there would be some 
pushback out there from across the countryside.
  In the OB ward of the hospitals around the country, they've got to 
have stacks of these birth certificates, and when a baby is born, it's 
almost an automatic process. Here is the footprint. Here is the data. 
Here is the birth certificate. Send that child off. He's an American 
citizen. What do we suppose happens if a diplomat or the wife of a 
diplomat or even a staff of the diplomat comes into the hospital to 
have a baby?
  Do they meet them at the door and say, ``Do you happen to be a 
diplomat? Are you here on some kind of foreign immunity, and you're 
planning on having a baby here, and do you think that baby is going to 
be an American citizen?''
  ``No, we're not going to allow it. Citizenship is not going to be 
cheapened like that.''
  That doesn't happen, Mr. Speaker. What really happens is the children 
of diplomats are often conferred with automatic citizenship because the 
whole system of America is so automatic that any baby born inside the 
U.S. territory is just given the paperwork and the documents.
  Here is an article that came out on Fox News, as I mentioned a little 
bit earlier, reported on July 11--by good, thorough people, I might 
add. This is Elizabeth Robichaux Brown who has written this article.
  The Center for Immigration Studies says: ``Foreign diplomats are 
obtaining U.S. birth certificates and Social Security numbers for their 
newborn children--effectively becoming U.S. citizens. On top of their 
new status in the world, these children carry an additional perk that 
most Americans do not have--diplomatic immunity.'' So it creates what 
the CIS describes as a ``super citizen.'' Just like their parents, most 
are immune to the criminal jurisdiction of the United States, creating 
super citizens. These super citizens are, of course, children of 
diplomats, and all they need to have is a U.S. birth certificate and a 
Social Security number, and they're effectively American citizens.
  Who is going to challenge it? There's no question on the birth 
certificate that asks the question: Are you a diplomat? Is one of your 
parents legal? an American citizen, perhaps? Those questions don't get 
asked. They just routinely stamp those birth certificates and 
send those children off with automatic citizenship 340,000 to 750,000 
times a year--some who are clearly not subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof.

  In fact, in the concluding statement in the article, you've got a 
statement here from one of the proponents of the policy that I 
advocate, a statement that says: ``Despite Congress' clear intent to 
not create a completely universal and automatic birthright citizenship 
policy, the current application of the Citizenship Clause is so lax 
that the United States has a de facto universal birthright citizenship 
policy that denies U.S. citizenship by birth to no one, including 
children born to foreign diplomats.''
  Mr. Speaker, that has to change. We intend to change that with the 
Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011--that's H.R. 140--and I intend to be 
engaged in that and to be helping to move that legislation forward.
  It has gotten to the point where the children of diplomats, with 
diplomatic immunity, are getting automatic American citizenship just 
because they're born inside the territory of the United States--perhaps 
not even born on U.S. soil. They might even potentially be born in that 
sovereign territory of the Embassy itself, and they're still American 
citizens.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, we also have an out-of-control legal immigration 
system, aside from the illegal immigration, which I talk about quite a 
lot. If we look back over the last decade, we'll see that we brought 
in, roughly, one and a quarter legal immigrants a year. Over that last 
decade, if you would look at the new jobs created by the United States 
economy, those new jobs created are going to average about one and a 
quarter million jobs a year. This is before the recession began. These 
numbers held up then, and they're even stronger now. The new jobs 
created by the American economy have been almost exactly the same 
number of jobs that would be taken by the legal immigrants who come 
into the United States.
  If we had shut down, slowed down, the legal immigration in the United 
States over the last 10 years, there would have been just, say, 
roughly, 10 million fewer legal immigrants in America, and we'd have 10 
million fewer unemployed Americans. That's just a simple way of looking 
at this. I don't propose that we eliminate all legal immigration, not 
by any means, Mr. Speaker. What I do propose is that we do an economic 
analysis of this. When we look at real numbers of testimony that have 
come before the committee, under oath data, here is what we have:
  A country should establish an immigration policy that is designed to 
enhance the economic, the social and the cultural well-being of the 
United States of America. That should be our task. Yet, with our legal 
immigration, that legal immigration that is based upon merit, when we 
take a look at what these individuals have to offer the United States, 
when we take a look at what they have for capital to invest or their 
ability to assimilate or their educational background or their relative 
youth so they've got some years to contribute before they start to draw 
from the system, these are all logical things that we should ask for.

                              {time}  2110

  But it's only between 7 and 11 percent of the legal immigration in 
American that is based upon anything that has to do with what's good 
for America. And the balance of it would be 89 to 93 percent of the 
legal immigration in America is out of the control of the value 
judgment of the American people, in the hands of the legal immigrants--
or sometimes the illegal immigrants--themselves. It's out of our 
control.
  Birthright citizenship is a piece of that that I'm not even sure is 
part of this equation that I've just described to you. There is a 
family reunification plan that takes up a big chunk of this, that once 
someone comes in they can start bringing in their family and their 
extended family, and it goes out like a tree to no end. We need to 
limit that family reunification plan. And we need to roll this thing 
back around and base the legal immigration in America on merit again--
what do they have to offer the United States?
  And Mr. Speaker, I will say also, we had testimony before the 
committee, and there were a number of strong faithful representatives 
that testified there. Some of them are national leaders in the faith 
community who argued that we need to find a way to accommodate the 11 
million to 20 million illegals that are here in America and give them a 
path to citizenship. And every one of them said that they thought they 
should go to the back of the line. They should go to the back of the 
line, the 11 million to 20 million illegals in America should go to the 
back of the line, but we should give them a means by which they can 
earn American citizenship. Well, think about it, Mr. Speaker, go to the 
back of the line. Which line? I asked them, which line? Well, the back 
of the line. Now that's a talking point that apparently wasn't thought 
about any deeper than that because if they can't answer the question 
which line, they surely don't know where that line is. Is it in the 
United States or is it in lines in the foreign countries, people 
waiting to come into the United States?
  I would submit that if those who are in the United States illegally 
are to go to the back of the line, it's not a line in the United 
States. The people in line to come into the United States legally are, 
by definition, not in the United States. They're outside the United 
States, they're in their home country, they're following the laws of 
America, they're lined up to come in the right way--God bless them for 
doing that. But that line, that line of legal waitees--to maybe coin a 
phrase--the line of people who are willing to respect American 
immigration law, get in line and wait in line isn't just some short 
little old line that you can put 11 million to 20 million people behind 
and think you're going to process them through. That line of the people 
who are respecting American laws and are waiting to come into the 
United States legally, none of them are in the United

[[Page H4943]]

States. It's 50 million strong, Mr. Speaker; 50 million people have 
taken the trouble to line up to try to come into the United States 
legally.
  We are the most generous country in the world by far, letting in 
around 1.25 million legal immigrants--a very small percentage of them 
actually come here because of merit, as I said--and meanwhile we've got 
11 million to 20 million here in this country that have disrespected 
our laws. And I would suggest that I would much rather see the 11 
million to 20 million who are in the line respecting American laws 
waiting to come in, I would like to see them come in and become 
American citizens ahead of those who have disrespected American laws. 
That sustains the rule of law. That upholds the rule of law. That 
strengthens us as a Nation. And rewarding law breakers weakens the rule 
of law and weakens us as a Nation and chisels away at that beautiful 
marble pillar of American exceptionalism called the rule of law. That's 
the equation.
  And I hear constantly arguments from people that have their own 
interests, their own viewpoint. They need somebody to milk the cows or 
they need somebody to take care of their equestrian herd or they need 
somebody to do their gardening, they need somebody to be their butler 
or their maid. So they're saying, I can't afford to hire somebody in 
this country. You need to bring me some cheaper labor.
  I would suggest that Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation is 
right: We have become a welfare state. And a household headed by a high 
school dropout, without regard to their immigration status, costs the 
taxpayer annually $23,449 a year. But it boils down to this: They will 
draw down $32,000 a year in benefits--a welfare state--they will pay 
$9,000 a year in taxes. And that's the change, that's the difference. 
And when you multiply it times 50 years of managing the household, 
being the head of the household, 50 years, it costs the taxpayers an 
average of $1.5 million to subsidize that household. And that's a high 
school dropout. Now it may not get worse when they're an illegal high 
school dropout, but it doesn't get a lot better. There is a net number, 
too, that he produces, I think that's around the order of $19,499 a 
year. In this area, let's say $20,000 a year, plus or minus a thousand 
or two, for a household headed by a high school dropout and/or an 
illegal immigrant.
  Now the burden to the taxpayer, because we're a welfare state, can't 
be ignored. And the weight on the taxpayers, when we have an oversupply 
of cheap labor and an undersupply of taxpayers, and 47 percent of 
households don't pay income tax, we're living in a welfare state, and 
we're giving automatic citizenship to 340,000 to 750,000 babies a year 
that are born to an illegal mother who sneaks into the United States.
  And then the President has the temerity to go down to the border in 
El Paso and make fun of people who think like I do, that say let's 
build a fence, a wall and a fence. He said some will want a moat, some 
will want alligators in it. He was standing down there within 220 yards 
of this, Mr. Speaker. This is El Paso, Texas. This is Juarez, Mexico. 
Some people would want a moat, some people would want a fence, some 
would want alligators in it--I don't think there are any alligators in 
here, Mr. Speaker. But this is the aerial picture that I had seen just 
a few weeks before the President gave this speech in El Paso. The 
records are good--not many people are getting across the border here. 
Why? Because we have--here's a fence right here, this is the Rio Grande 
River. We have a fence, a river, another fence--here is a patrol road 
that is patrolled by the Border Patrol. There is a Border Patrol 
vehicle right here, another one up around the curve--a patrol road, 
then another fence, then a canal that's forwarding a lot of water, and 
it flows pretty fast, then another fence. If you can get over that, 
you're in the United States, into El Paso, and maybe you can catch a 
ride here and you're home free.

  Not a moat, not a moat with alligators; you might say two moats and 
four fences--a fence, the Rio Grande River, a fence, a patrol road, a 
fence, a canal with flowing water--and deep--another fence, and then 
you're off into the United States. Three of those fences you have to 
climb wet. This is very effective. And the President is standing within 
220 yards of that making fun of Americans who think that physical 
structures help control illegal immigration.
  So we're spending $12 billion a year on this southern border, 
enforcing it and chasing people across the desert 100 miles into the 
United States. And out of that $12 billion a year, that's $6 million a 
mile, on average, for every mile on our southern border. I can build 
you a fence, a wall and a fence for about $2 million a mile, about one-
third of the annual budget. And I don't suggest that we build 2,000 
miles of it right away, Mr. Speaker. I suggest that we start building 
it and stop building when they stop going around the end. That's the 
scenario, that's the logical way to address this. Build a fence, a wall 
and a fence; use the funding that we have, roll it into that kind of 
infrastructure. It is effective. And the President's staff didn't serve 
him very well if he was standing with his back to a fence, a river, a 
fence, a patrol road, another fence, a canal, and another fence. Those 
are the barriers to get into the United States, and he's making fun of 
it. And the Border Patrol is telling us this is effective. It is 
effective. It's been effective in El Paso, it keeps them in Juarez. 
It's been effective in San Luis in southwest Arizona. It's not 
effective where there is nothing. And we have to pay a lot of people a 
lot of time and money to chase all over the desert after people that 
walked around the end.
  Let's build it until they stop going around the end. Let's pass the 
Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011. Let's make sure that the kind of 
security that is in El Paso can be applied in other high-traffic areas. 
Build a fence until they stop going around the end, and then, Mr. 
Speaker, we can also pass my New Idea Act, which shuts off the Federal 
deductibility for wages and benefits paid to illegals, brings the IRS 
into this mix, and gives the employer safe harbor. All of that. Simple 
solutions to a complex problem, Mr. Speaker.
  I would conclude with that statement, thank you for your attention, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.

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