The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up a case this week that could shake the foundation of American citizenship. If you are born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction, you’re a citizen. A heated fight is brewing over birthright citizenship. Now, new reports say the Chinese Communist Party might be using it to sneak in future voters and sway U.S. elections.
In June 1866, Congress approved the 14th Amendment in order to overturn the Dred Scott decision that stripped citizenship from enslaved people and their children. It guaranteed that anyone born in America, regardless of their race or parents, would be recognized as a true American.
Legal scholar Dr. John Eastman said that while the amendment’s original intent remained strong for about 75 years, it began to shift over time.
“Somehow it just kind of worked into our nation’s psyche that if you’re just born here, that’s all that’s necessary, and that’s never what that amendment said or intended,” he explained. “It was very clear they were codifying the 1866 Civil Rights Act…the word they used was temporary sojourners.”
Eastman argues that the concept of temporary sojourners is key to the true meaning of the 14th Amendment.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump moved quickly to challenge the current interpretation.
He signed an executive order blocking automatic U.S. citizenship for children born on American soil if their mothers were in the country illegally or visiting on a temporary visa.
Trump said he acted out of concern that visitors and undocumented immigrants took advantage of the system, coming here specifically to give birth so their children could be citizens.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn’t meant for that reason. It was meant for the babies of slaves,” insisted the president.
Supreme Court justices are expected to decide on this issue before its current term ends this summer. This isn’t the first time, however, the court has taken up this question. It happened in the landmark 1898 case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
In that case, the court ruled that a child born here to Chinese immigrant parents—who were legal permanent residents, living and working here, and not diplomats—was a U.S. citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment.
Eastman argues that the decision shows birthright citizenship is really about national allegiance, not just legal jurisdiction.
“If you’re a temporary sojourner and you still owed your allegiance to a foreign power, your king or the emperor of China or whatever, then this clause does not give you, your children, automatic citizenship,” he said.
Journalist Peter Schweizer warns that the current understanding of birthright citizenship could threaten the integrity of American elections.
Schweizer and his investigative team tracked more than 1,000 Chinese birth tourism/surrogacy companies and discovered a growing birth tourism industry run by the Chinese government.
Among the companies examined:
Star Baby Care — a company that publicly lists its clients, including government tax officials, executives at China Telecom, Chinese Central Television (state media), and Bank of China. Also, China Mifubaby Group and You Win USA. They advertise services aimed at Chinese elites and promote U.S. citizenship benefits on their websites and Chinese social media. Other firms, such as USA Happy Baby, are tied to clients from China’s Ministry of Propaganda and the Public Security Bureau (PSB).
“They brag about who their clients are,” Schweizer explained. “They are military officers, intelligence officers, and propagandists. These are the heartbeat of the Chinese Communist Party system. And it begs the question, why would the Chinese Communist Party be encouraging people like this to do this with their children? And I’m gonna say it’s not because they are doing this in our interest.”
In recent remarks before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on birthright citizenship, Schweizer revealed that pregnant wives of top Communist Party officials are sent to the United States to have their babies, and then return home.
He lays it out in his latest book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon.
And explains that after birth and automatic U.S. citizenship, the child is raised in China.
At age eighteen, these individuals can return to the United States and vote in American elections, since they are citizens by birth.
“Then the question becomes scale. How many people are we talking about? And it turns out it’s massive,” Schweizer explained. “The Chinese government believes that, on average, over the course of the last 13 years, every single year, roughly on average, 100,000 Chinese babies have been born in the United States or on our territories, places like Saipan.”
According to Schweizer, that means over the past decade, at least a million future American voters have grown up in China under the Communist Party’s influence.
“They’re going to be able to vote in our elections. That’s a massive intrusion into our internal politics,” said Schweizer. “To put that number into perspective, let’s remember the 2016 election, Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. That was settled by 72,000 votes. So, 1 million votes from China could easily swing a presidential election.
Schweizer said their allegiance would be to China and the Communist Party, not to the United States and the democratic process.
“These are the children of the elite. These are not dissidents.”
Legal experts say the Supreme Court could soon narrow the class of people who qualify for citizenship under the 14th Amendment. That could mean children born to undocumented immigrants, or even temporary visa holders like pregnant Chinese visitors, may no longer be granted citizenship at birth. If the justices go that route, it would mark a dramatic change from what Americans have known for generations.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Trump v. Barbara on April 1st.
