Dems Call Birthright Citizenship Hearing a ‘Bigoted’ Effort From Chip Roy

House Democrats said that a key House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, which focused on ending the birth tourism industry, was a “bigoted” effort to crack down on what they described as the baseless claim of widespread birth tourism.

Led by the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., Democrats painted a Republican push led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, as a wasted effort to undermine the July Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. Barbara.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., added that Roy’s permanent Trump Secure Border Act has already been passed out of the House Judiciary Committee this summer and has not been brought up for a vote because House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., does not believe in the contents of the legislation.

The act would codify “necessary reforms to asylum processing, treatment of unaccompanied minors, penalties for visa overstays, and limits on parole authority to ensure that a new administration could not abuse loopholes or vague statutes to open the border,” Heritage Action Government Relations Director Daniel West told the Daily Signal.

Raskin then compared the effort to Nazi Germany, which “stripped” German Jews of their citizenship in the 1940s, and referenced the “war on terror” that he said President Donald Trump’s administration is carrying out through Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also referenced deceased immigration enforcement protesters Alex Pretti and Renée Good, who died while obstructing ICE operations in Minneapolis.

The witnesses present at the hearing, which included former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Immigration Accountability Project Policy Director Rosemary Jenks, disputed the claim that there is no evidence that birth tourism is a widespread issue.

During her opening remarks, Jenks noted that the subject of the Trump v. Barbara Supreme Court case, Barbara, a woman whose real name was never publicly disclosed, admitted that her reason for fleeing Honduras was that she wanted to have her child on American soil, so that she and her family could benefit from U.S. citizenship.

Cuccinelli added that what is in question is not the issue debated by the Supreme Court in July or by House Democrats present at the hearing. Instead, he argued that the hearing focuses on illegal immigrants, not the offspring of slaves, whom he said the constitutional clause was originally intended to address.

Cuccinelli then suggested multiple actions Congress could take to codify the demands of the committee’s Republican majority, including shutting down the birth tourism industry and pursuing a constitutional amendment.

Birth Tourism Industry

Raskin, instead of asking the witnesses about birth tourism, asked about the consequences for individual Americans if the court had sided with him.

Law professor Jonathan Weinberg responded to Raskin’s question by stating, “We would have to look around and wonder if we’re truly Americans or not; we’d have to examine our bloodline and find American lineage,” even though the argument against birth tourism does not examine American bloodline lineage and instead only excludes noncitizens.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., reiterated that the hearing was not called to express agreement or disagreement with the Supreme Court, but instead to identify ways in which Congress can prevent noncitizens from traveling to the United States to give birth.

Cuccinelli agreed and added that an effort against noncitizen parents traveling to the United States to give birth “does not change the status of the child,” a point Democrats seem to have reiterated throughout the hearing.

This is an effort that only “targets people who are fraudulently taking advantage of the United States,” Cuccinelli continued.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., ignored the arguments that were being made, however, and reverted to an argument not at issue in the hearing, which is the Supreme Court’s ruling and the president’s desire to circumvent the court.

Her colleague, Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., echoed Jayapal’s claim, stating that the hearing is a waste of time because it does nothing to address the war in Iran or the public’s demand for housing and health care.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, refuted the claim and slammed the Democrats on the panel for wanting to derail the congressional hearing.