Transcript: Should America End Birthright Citizenship?
Opening
John Donvan (00:00):
This is Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan, here with the live audience at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University in Phoenix, where we intend to pursue, once again, our core mission of good faith argument between people who may disagree fiercely, but who are also willing to meet on a stage, such as this one, to engage, to listen, to make their case with facts and logic and critical thinking. Where it is the ideas that go up against each other, while the debaters demonstrate respect for one another.
The idea at the heart of this debate, it’s the concept of birthright citizenship. At its most simple, this is the idea that a person born in the U.S. and the practice is thereby recognized as an American citizen, regardless of who that person’s parents are, with only a few exceptions. It derives from an amendment to the Constitution that’s been in effect for 157 years, but it is being meaningfully challenged right now. President Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term, intending to deny citizenship to children of families who lack legal status to reside in the U.S. It is being challenged, this executive order, and it’s likely to go to the Supreme Court.
This debate will focus not just on the legal arguments involved, but also will look at the actual consequences of a potential end to birthright citizenship at is, as it has long been practiced. Will the nation be better off or worse off if it comes to that? Here is the question up for debate: should America end birthright citizenship? We have four compelling voices eager to debate on this topic. It will be two against two, taking on this question in three rounds. Those rounds are opening arguments, open discussion, and closing arguments.
A reminder to the debaters about some of our ground rules, which I will enforce. No personal attacks, no endless repetition of the same talking points.
And to our audience, we ask that you also maintain civility. Part of our mission at Open to Debate is to encourage what you’re about to see, we hope healthy debate, even debate on highly contentious issues such as this one. We do this by ensuring that all of our participants, debaters and audience alike, maintain the highest standard of civility. Let’s get to our opening statements. Again, our question is, should America end birthright citizenship?
Each debater has four minutes to make his or her case. And first up, a- answering yes to the question, and saying America should end birthright citizenship, I wanna welcome Horace Cooper. Horace is a constitutional scholar, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research and chairman of the Project 21 Advisory Board, a frequent legal commentator who previously taught constitutional law at George Mason University. The author of a book called Put Y’all Back in Chains, and another called How Trump is Making Black America Great Again, we’re delighted to have you with us, Horace. You are arguing for ending birthright citizenship. The floor is yours. Please tell us why.
The Debate Begins
Horace Cooper (02:46):
Good afternoon. It’s great to be here with my colleague, Mark Krikorian, where we’ll be talking about why it’s so important that America ends birthright citizenship. Many of you are all familiar with the Supreme Court precedent, uh, that was set in 1898, that many are using today as their pretext for allowing, uh, open-ended opportunity for anybody, for any reason, to come to America and stay for even a brief period of time and become a citizen.
But first, let’s start with a little bit of history. The greatest war, the most consequential war that this country has ever been in, and by consequential, I mean as measured by the number of lives lost, was the Civil War. And we lost more lives during that war than we had in any war prior to that, and in fact, all the way up to the present. Immediately at the conclusion of this war, the Congress of the United States passed the very first Civil Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and its purpose was to make sure that the newly Black freed men had all the rights of citizenship.
Well, guess what? The states and the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, failed to give that any promise. And so Congress responded with the 14th Amendment, putting in the Constitution itself the protection of these particular rights. And guess what? States, courts in those states, and the U.S. Supreme Court failed to live up to that promise. In a series of rulings, the Supreme Court undermined fundamental protections in, even after the Congress of the United States passed the second Civil Rights Act, they passed the Enforcement Act when Black plaintiffs came before the Supreme Court, arguing that the 14th Amendment protected them, whether it was from lynch mobs, whether it was from public accommodations, the Supreme Court said no.
In a landmark decision that every single law student has to read, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court said even if the state itself oppresses people, that that action doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment. And guess what? Justice Harlan dissented. And he said, “No, it’s not true. The 14th Amendment protects, it was created for Black Americans.” It took nearly 60 years for that understanding to become the law of the land.
Well, guess what? Two years after that terrible ruling in 1896, Wong Kim Ark came forward, and the court got it wrong again. And guess what? Justice Harlan dissented. And he said that this is not true, that the rights that are being created by this court were the intention of the framers of the 14th Amendment. He said that the 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that Black Americans got freedoms and protections as citizens, not anyone who could fly on a luxury plane and stay long enough to deliver their child and get a passport and a birth certificate and fly out, or anyone who simply, by geography, could cross over a border and have a child. In fact, what Justice Harlan’s views are, are ultimately what I predict we’re going to see from the United States Supreme Court: the 14th Amendment never intended to create this consequential and damaging change. Thank you.
John Donvan (06:42):
Thank you, Horace. And next up, uh, to give opening remarks, I wanna welcome, uh, Kris Mayes, A- Arizona Attorney General, who will be arguing that th- birthright citizenship should not be, uh, ended at this point, or I think ever. She served in Ariz- as Arizona governor, uh, Janet Napolitano’s administration and on the Arizona Corporate Commission. And prior to her election as attorney general, she worked as a professor at ASU School of Sustainability and the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU. She also earned her degree from ASU’s College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. Please welcome the Attorney General of the State of Arizona, Kris Mayes.
Kris Mayes (07:23):
Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for having us, uh, here. I r- really appreciate this, uh, this wonderful gathering and the chance to be with you, you all. Um, let me start with this. Birthright citizenship is not a policy choice. It is written into the American Constitution. The 14th Amendment states, and I quote, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens.” Full stop. The language is plain and clear. If you are born here, you are a United States citizen.
And this was not an accident. Following the Civil War, Congress and the states ratified the 14th Amendment, to ensure that the children of formerly enslaved people could never again be denied their rights. It was about making citizenship permanent, equal, and beyond politics. Because they recognized, as we do today, that all men are created equal. And the United States Supreme Court affirmed this more than a century ago in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case, which, by the way, was issued 30 years after the 14th Amendment was written, meaning that the justices in Wong Kim Ark were alive and understood exactly what the 14th Amendment was designed to do.
The court, the court ruled that a chi- in Wong Kim Ark, the court ruled that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was an American citizen, even though his parents were not. That principle has held ever since, except in limited circumstances to kids born here, uh, uh, uh, limited se- except in, except in limited circumstances, kids born here are citizens no matter their parents’ status.
Some people say that undocumented parents aren’t, quote, “subject to the d- uh, jurisdiction of the United States”, but that is just not true. In Arizona, we, I, prosecute the Mexican drug cartels all the time, members of the Mexican drug cartels all the time. They are arrested, they are charged, and they are held accountable under our laws. If cartel members are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, then so are children who are born to parents from foreign countries.
Congress backed this up in law too, in 8 U.S.C. Section 1401, and every agency, every agency that deals with citizenship, from the State Department issuing passports to Social Security issuing benefits, has always treated it the same way. If you are born here, you are a citizen here in the United States. And let us be clear, no president gets to change that, because birthright citizenship is a constitutional right. It is not something that one administration can give and another can take away. Any attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order is unconstitutional and would i- throw our entire legal system into confusion.
Let me also say this, why does this matter? Because citizenship is about stability, fairness, and belonging. It’s about who we are as a nation. It’s about the American Dream. Kids born here should grow up knowing that they are full members of this country, not second-class citizens-
Kris Mayes (11:29):
... not stateless. Make no mistake, if you create a generation of kids without citizenship, you create a new underclass in America. That’s not who we should be as a nation. It flies in the fame- uh, f- face of the promises of the American Revolution.
John Donvan (11:50):
Thank you. Next to give his remarks, he will be arguing that it is time to end birthright citizenship, I wanna welcome Mark Krikorian. Mark is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He initiated the creation of the International Network for Immigration Research and has published articles in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times. He’s the author of The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal, and also How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration. Mark, you have four minutes.
Mark Krikorian (12:17):
Both sides in this argument actually have decent arguments. Horace is correct, self-evidently correct, that the framers of the 14th Amendment had no intention of, uh, it guaranteeing citizenship to millions of people born to tourists, to foreign workers, foreign students, to illegal immigrants, even to diplomats, because that’s the one exception everybody accepts and it’s not a real exception. We can talk about that in the back and forth.
Um, but Kris and Chris have a sensible argument, too, because there’s a old story of, uh, G. K. Chesterton talked about the fence, “Don’t tear down a fence until you know what the fence was for to begin with.” We’ve been doing it this way for a long time. And so there needs to be, uh, our side needs to articulate a reason that we should change this, in my opinion. Um, and there is a good reason to change it. And I think what we need to first start talking about is a few numbers. This isn’t a math class, there’s no quiz, but numbers matter.
The scale of the phenomenon that we now deal with is completely different from anything that existed in the past. With modern transportation, people are now coming in the millions to the United States. And air travel’s a great thing. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I wouldn’t be riding a horse to come out to Phoenix. Uh, but it has real consequences. And the, as somebody once said, quantity has a quality all its own. Things are fundamentally different today than they were back then. Uh, we have two million non-immigrant admissions every year. 200 million, excuse me, 200 million foreign students, tourists, uh, foreign workers, et cetera, every year. Nothing like this was possible in the past.
Uh, DHS estimated last year, estimated this year that last year, we had more than three and a half million non-immigrants. In other words, foreigners, but people not, who don’t have green cards, but are legal. Three and a half million living here, essentially permanently, as foreign students, foreign workers, et cetera. And we have something like 15 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The number’s lower than it was in January, the number’s actually going down, but it’s still a very large phenomenon. So, what we see is that something like 10% of all births in the United States are to people who would, um, you know, under a different interpretation of that 14th Amendment, not be covered.
There’s something like a quarter million births to illegal immigrants every year. Something like 70,000 births to non-immigrants who live here, foreign workers, and then an unknown number, thousands of kids born to birth tourists, people who come here specifically in order to get a passport for the kid, but the kid never grows up here. So, that means over a period of a decade, we’re talking three million plus people are born and are deemed U.S. citizens under current practice who would not under a different, um, interpretation of this amendment. This is why, because of, uh, this same phenomenon applying to every other country in the world, because of cheap and easy transportation, every developed country in the world except the United States and Canada, has ended automatic birthright citizenship.
They do it in different ways. There’s like a statute of limitations, as it were, in some places. So there we can, in fact, in the back and forth, maybe even debate how it’s done. But every country other than the U.S. and Canada has ended it. Australia, Britain, you name it. Canada hasn’t ended it because we are Canada’s border patrol. We can’t, you can’t walk from Canada, you can’t walk to Canada without going through the United States. So, it’s easy for them to keep that in, in place. But the fact is conditions have changed, fundamentally changed. And as Lincoln said, “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Which is why, however we do it, we need to revisit this idea that anybody born here under any circumstances is automatically a U.S. citizen. Thank you.
John Donvan (16:51):
Thank you. And finally, taking the position that America should not end birthright citizenship, I wanna welcome to the stage Chris Newman. Chris is the legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. He was counsel on a coalition lawsuit that challenged Arizona’s SB 1070 in federal court, and was a founding coordinator of the wage clinic and legal program at El Centro Humanitario Para Los Trabaja- uh, uh, Trabajadores. He teaches at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Chris, thanks so much for joining us in the program. Uh, the floor is yours to tell us why you’re arguing that we should not end birthright citizenship.
Chris Newman (17:23):
Thank you, everyone. Thank you, John. Um, part of our obligation as citizens in this country, uh, and recognizing our history is that we periodically have to reform our immigration laws and modernize them. And our fa- generation, previous generations did this, they expanded notions of citizenship, and welcomed in the stranger, and made our system more fair and more prosperous. Our generation is failing to modernize immigration laws, despite a national consensus that we need to do it. And it is a symptom of how bad this debate has gone off the rails that a debate about immigration reform has led to us coming here today to talk about negating our birthright citizenship.
Um, I, I can’t help but acknowledge that we’re having this debate on what used to be Oʼodham land. Uh, and then after that was, uh, Mexico. As recently as 15 years ago, this was a state that modeled the law, uh, after Nazi Germany, the “papers, please” law that I had the privilege of fighting in court alongside documented, undocumented immigrants and their children who defended civil rights, uh, for all of us. And I know that doing a so-called land acknowledgement will earn me the scorn and mockery of Fox News, you know, who decry the woke. Uh, it might even, honestly, it might even end me on an enemies list of Mark’s friend, Stephen Miller. Uh, and that’s not a joke, and that’s not an exaggeration, as he’s trying to criminalize organizations like mine.
But I start there because we have to reconcile, in this country, the good and the bad of our history. There’s incredible heroism in our history, but there’s also incredible villainy in a country that was founded by colonial settlers, uh, in a country that engaged in a genocide that arguably is still continuing to this day as Indigenous people are being caged in a place called Alligator Alcatraz. I’ll just speak for myself, part of how I reconcile those contradictions. Uh, how can I love a country that was maybe formed by some people that I didn’t like? How do I love a country that is currently being helmed by a madman who doesn’t know anything about this debate? Literally does not even know about habeas corpus.
Um, birthright citizenship is foundational for me to reconcile those, uh, contradictions. Uh, it is the bedrock. It is not only a right, but it’s part of our structure. It’s the crown jewel of our, uh, 14th Amendment and our Constitution. And, um, I’m here to defend it. We’re gonna win in court. Even Mark acknowledges that this is precedent, and that he’d have to, you know, in his own writings has acknowledged that they’d have to amend the Constitution again. Well, good luck re-amending a constitution that ended the Civil War, literally ended the Civil War and glued our country, which was torn apart, back together. Our founding fathers initially fought against tyranny, the ones we read about in history books, Washington, Hamilton, and the like. But our founding fathers weren’t just born and lived around 1776. We had founding fathers, including Abraham Lincoln, who brought this country back together, and including Frederick Douglass, who I would say argued more for the 14th Amendment than anybody.
And I’m gonna close with my remarks in hopefully 30 seconds, my God, John, don’t cut me, by quoting the great Frederick Douglass, who gave speeches for years about immigration, after having fought for and won the 14th Amendment. He said, “I have great respect for the blue eyed and light haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world, they need have no fear.” No fear, guys. “They need, have no need to doubt that they will get their full share. But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of other races of men.” That’s what’s at stake. The court’s gonna handle the law. It’s up to us to develop the values that undergirded the 14th Amendment. And I’m pleased to be here.
John Donvan (21:47):
Thank you, Chris. All right, we’re gonna move on to our second round, and in our second round we have more of a free-flowing conversation, but I just wanna share a little bit of what I think I heard in the opening arguments where the dividing lines are. We heard the side arguing, uh, to, uh, to end birthright citizenship, making, uh, essentially, uh, two, two arguments.
One is that the 14th Amendment, they say, was not, uh, w- w- was, was meant to apply to, uh, freed slaves, uh, and their descendants, uh, that it was not meant to expand to include, uh, its application in the ways that we’re seeing today, which they say is a situation that could not have been imagined in terms of mass immigra- uh, immigration. Uh, including a, by, as, as they said, the, the numbers, uh, are a case where quantity becomes quality, that, um, we’re in a situation where people who are, uh, I think your sense of it was that people who don’t really have a commitment to Am- America and its values are nevertheless becoming American citizens, perhaps not even with the intention to stay, and that that’s a situation out of control. You point out that, uh, most other, uh, We- Western democracies do not, uh, observe birthright citizenship.
Now, to get to the other side, we’re hearing the argument made that this is not a policy choice. That birthright citizenship is, uh, is a clear constitutional right. Uh, it’s a citi- it’s a right that should go beyond politics, that the language is plain and clear, because it’s in the Constitution. Um, and that, uh, I, I think we were hearing from Chris also that in y- your message being that birthright citizenship actually nails an essential American value, traditional American value, that’s been standing for a long time.
But let’s spend a little bit of time on that. I’ll take it to you, Attorney General. Your opponents, uh, saying that this, uh, amendment this right, that birthright citizenship was not created with, in with the world, that, as it ex- exists today in mind, that they did not imagine mass immigration and the application to people who were not, uh, African-Americans, f- recently freed slaves.
Kris Mayes (23:39):
Birthright citizenship actually predates the 14th Amendment. So, it, it actually goes back to the American colonies. Um, and it goes back to Great Britain, which had birthright citizenship. So, the American colonies of early American states had birthright citizenship because they knew we needed a country that was vibrant, that, um, that had, you know, economic growth, that had growth potential. I mean, think about it. If we didn’t have birthright citizenship in the United States at our founding, none of us would be citizens. None of us. We were all immigrants at some point.
Um, and then you go up to, uh, to the 14th Amendment, um, it clearly states that every person born here is a citizen. And then you go to Wong Kim Ark, which again, as I said, was, was issued by Supreme Court justices who were probably lawyers at the time that the 14th Amendment was passed. So clearly, and again, in that case, they reaffirmed that the 14th Amendment covered everyone, um, and applied to all immigrants, um, and said that their children would become, uh, citizens of the United States.
John Donvan (25:02):
Horace?
Horace Cooper (25:03):
Well, as a friend of Stephen Miller and a person who regularly appears on Fox, I would like to say that you’re entitled to your opinion, but not to your facts. That if you look at Justice Harlan’s dissent, it walks through... Now, Justice Harlan, as I mentioned, was the dissenter-
Kris Mayes (25:23):
Right.
Horace Cooper (25:23):
... in the most important civil rights case, Plessy v. Ferguson. And it took 60 years for his view that the founders, the, excuse me, the drafters of the 14th Amendment never intended for the application that the state of Louisiana was claiming, which is that governments have the power to discriminate on the basis of race. He argues similarly that the 14th Amendment did not incorporate the British system, and in fact, that the drafters of the 14th Amendment never intended for this to occur.
John Donvan (26:02):
Okay, let me, let-
Horace Cooper (26:02):
He did this, if I may, he did this in, as a person who was alive during the Civil War-
John Donvan (26:09):
I, I, I’m breaking in, I’m breaking in because you made exactly that argument in your opening and you’re repeating, I wanna move it to the other side.
Horace Cooper (26:13):
Yeah, I wanna wrap this up though.
Chris Newman (26:14):
Yeah.
Kris Mayes (26:16):
Well, I mean, can I-
Horace Cooper (26:17):
H- he wanted to make it clear-
Kris Mayes (26:18):
Go ahead, Chris.
Horace Cooper (26:19):
He wanted to make it clear-
Kris Mayes (26:19):
We’re talking about a disaster.
John Donvan (26:19):
Wait, wait, wait, let him finish, please.
Kris Mayes (26:20):
Okay.
Horace Cooper (26:20):
... that what happened was an atrocity against the interests of all of the people who sacrificed their lives. That was his point.
Mark Krikorian (26:31):
A couple of points. One is birthright citizenship is a feudal idea from England that everybody born was owned by the king, in effect. That was where birthright citizenship come from. It’s not a argument against it, but that’s what, that’s where it comes from. And it’s true that it’s actually simpler to have birthright citizenship. It is more streamlined and easier to deal with. But the one point I’d wanna bring up in sort of the, um, the sort of pettifogging over the language, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, the real question is what does that mean?
John Donvan (27:01):
Okay. Tell people-
Mark Krikorian (27:02):
And Indians-
John Donvan (27:02):
... tell people what, tell people. Yeah. I need you to educate folks-
Mark Krikorian (27:05):
Okay.
John Donvan (27:05):
... on why you’re picking that phrase over there.
Mark Krikorian (27:07):
Yeah. Because the phrase is, “Everybody born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The whole debate is about that phrase. What does that mean? What is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”? The Secretary of State says, “Well, I prosecute people, therefore they’re subject to my jurisdiction.”
John Donvan (27:21):
Which sounds like a very persuasive argument.
Mark Krikorian (27:23):
Yeah. But, uh, the question is, what does that mean? Are, are you subject to the exclusive jurisdiction? Uh, so in other words, the issue is the interpretation of that statement. And the only one point I’d wanna make is that the reason that was inserted was that is to accept, to remove from that rule Indians living on reservations. And yet they would be prosecuted if they committed criminal offenses. So, uh, by your definition, they were subject to the jurisdiction, but by the f- definition of the framers of the amendment, explicitly were perceived of as not being subject to jurisdiction as is.
John Donvan (28:00):
Okay. I don’t think, I don’t-
Kris Mayes (28:00):
Th- th- that was-
Mark Krikorian (28:02):
So, my point is, we’re debating that phrase and what it means, and there’s a good faith arguments on either side.
John Donvan (28:08):
I wanna get to s- the discussion of the consequences. The Attorney General brought up the point that if, if birthright citizenship were, uh, taken away, it would create a class of stateless children. That sounds like-
Mark Krikorian (28:20):
It could.
John Donvan (28:20):
... that’s a real thing.
Mark Krikorian (28:21):
Yeah.
John Donvan (28:22):
What’s your response to that?
Mark Krikorian (28:23):
And my response to that is absolutely that is something we wanna avoid. Having adult U.S.-born illegal aliens is an absurdity in a democratic system. You don’t want that. Which is why countries that have ended birthright citizenship have made provisions for that. For instance, Australia has a kind of 10-year statute of limitations. France ended birthright citizenship, but the way they deal with it is the kid has the citizenship of his parents until he turns 18, at which point he can then opt. So, my point is-
John Donvan (28:53):
So you, you pro- you propose that there are ways to deal with that?
Mark Krikorian (28:55):
Yes, there are ways to deal with it.
John Donvan (28:56):
I just wanna take that to the other side.
Kris Mayes (28:57):
So I, look, I mean it, it, we’re, they’re completely glossing over the fact that the President of the United States is absolutely, abjectly violating the constitutional, the c- the constitution and federal law. And, uh, you know, you can’t just gloss over that. Like, I mean, what are the consequences of this? Those are important consequences. I’ll, let me quote Justice Kavanaugh, um, o- who, who, when they first took up this issue on procedural grounds, said on the day after it goes into effect, this is Justice Kavanaugh asked, “How’s it going to work? What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn? Anyone having a child, if this were to go into effect, would face the problem of demonstrating the child’s, uh, citizenship.” I recall the moment that I had my baby, 12 and a half years ago in the hospital. What am I supposed to do as a new mom, produce my birth certificate?
John Donvan (29:55):
So, do you think there’s-
Kris Mayes (29:56):
Produce my mom’s birth certificate?
John Donvan (29:57):
Do you have a solution for that?
Mark Krikorian (29:58):
These are real questions, but they’re administrative questions. They’re not, and, and your point about a-
Kris Mayes (30:04):
But the president didn’t solve them when he over, and he tried to overturn them.
Mark Krikorian (30:07):
And I-
John Donvan (30:08):
Yeah, we’re not, we’re not, wait, wait, wait, wait, please. We are not solely, uh, debating the president’s executive order. We are s- debating the principle of birthright citizenship. Just to be clear.
Kris Mayes (30:17):
Okay.
John Donvan (30:18):
Chris, you haven’t had a word in a while.
Chris Newman (30:20):
Well, I mean, what are you proposing then, Mark? Uh, an- an- an- answer the question. So, status quo is on our side. Everyone expects it. They’re born. You know, you’re, you’re proposing changing the law. So, let’s leave Trump out of it. What do you propose? What evidence is sufficient? Are we showing birth certificates before we go into hospitals? How do, by the way, how do we find out who the fathers are? You cited s- statistics. Excuse me. You cited statistics, which again, I think come from your organization, which is deemed a hate group, founded by a eugenicist.
Horace Cooper (30:51):
Okay, that’s not-
Mark Krikorian (30:51):
I’m sorry, that’s, I’m not gonna stand for that kind of stuff.
Chris Newman (30:51):
Let me s- let me, let me, let me, let me, let me quote a statistic.
John Donvan (30:55):
You know, Chris, Chris, Chris, wait-
Chris Newman (30:55):
Between five to 10, between five to-
John Donvan (30:57):
Chris, wait-
Chris Newman (30:58):
No, excuse me.
John Donvan (30:58):
... wait, wait. It’s a, it’s a, a value we try to perpetuate, not to do ad hominem attacks. Can you make your point without referring to his, his record, background, associations, whatever?
Chris Newman (31:08):
Well, it- it’s a historical fact that-
John Donvan (31:09):
Okay, but you don’t-
Chris Newman (31:10):
... the organization was founded by a eugenicist.
John Donvan (31:11):
It’s not, it doesn’t go to the issue of the ideas that we’re debating.
Chris Newman (31:14):
And the issue, the issue here is to, to rebut the idea of eugenicism, but we don’t even know who the parents are. It’s estimated that 10% of parents aren’t the biological parents that they, that they think. How do, you know, how do we go about going and finding the fathers?
John Donvan (31:25):
How does that work?
Chris Newman (31:26):
What about an orphan? How do you, what, what do you deal with a, an orphan in Kansas?
Mark Krikorian (31:30):
These are real, these are real questions that France deals with, Australia deals with, Britain deals with. Developed countries deal with this.
Chris Newman (31:37):
So, make America like France again?
Horace Cooper (31:39):
A, a, (laughs)-
Mark Krikorian (31:39):
Or like Australia again, or like Britain again?
Chris Newman (31:42):
Great.
Mark Krikorian (31:43):
In this respect, maybe. Because we have rightly, I think rightly, resisted a change because we have a different kind of historical experience of immigration. But my point is times have changed and we need to work through those details. It’s not that hard to do. It can be done. Congress needs to do it, in my opinion.
Chris Newman (32:06):
What is-
Horace Cooper (32:06):
This is part of the problem, but-
Mark Krikorian (32:06):
So, I’ll concede that to you.
John Donvan (32:08):
Let me, let me understand, to, to dig a little bit deeper to you, Mark. And if you could do this in 30 seconds, it would be helpful ‘cause time is passing quickly. What’s the harm of a world in which birthright citizenship is granted to, wh- what’s going wrong in the culture? What-
Mark Krikorian (32:23):
Citi- wha- in the current situation, where you have mass arrival of people who do not have a commitment to the United States, you have, you’re diluting U.S. citizenship, and giving it out like you’re giving out credit cards.
John Donvan (32:40):
All right, and, and getting to that-
Mark Krikorian (32:40):
Instead of-
Kris Mayes (32:40):
Okay, can I, can I, that, that, look, I’m gonna-
Mark Krikorian (32:40):
... a kind of commitment to America.
Kris Mayes (32:43):
... I’m gonna try to, I’m gonna try to give you the benefit of the doubt and, and suggest that that wasn’t a racist comment right there.
Horace Cooper (32:49):
Okay, look-
Mark Krikorian (32:49):
No, it’s not a racist comment. I’m sorry.
Kris Mayes (32:49):
I mean, no, no, no, no.
John Donvan (32:49):
Come on, folks.
Kris Mayes (32:49):
No, no, no. Because that, because I think that was-
Mark Krikorian (32:50):
That itself is a ad hominem-
Kris Mayes (32:50):
No, no, no. No, no, no, no.
Mark Krikorian (32:50):
... attack. I’m sorry.
Kris Mayes (32:50):
They do not-
John Donvan (32:50):
All right. Yeah. Let, let’s, hold it.
Kris Mayes (32:59):
American-
John Donvan (33:00):
Let’s, let, hold it.
Kris Mayes (33:00):
Immigrants do not-
John Donvan (33:00):
Hold it!
Kris Mayes (33:00):
... dilute any-
John Donvan (33:00):
Hold it. Attorney General, with respect to your office, we wanna, we wanna stay away from these, from these attacks and labeling, please, and just go with the ideas.
Kris Mayes (33:07):
Well-
John Donvan (33:08):
You can say, you can argue the idea-
Kris Mayes (33:10):
So, he can say anything he wants-
John Donvan (33:10):
... you don’t have to label what it is.
Kris Mayes (33:11):
... he can say anything that, that offensive-
John Donvan (33:13):
He, in th-
Kris Mayes (33:13):
... that he wants about-
John Donvan (33:13):
In this debate he can-
Kris Mayes (33:13):
... about immigrants?
John Donvan (33:16):
... he can say what he wants to say-
Kris Mayes (33:17):
Okay, let me-
John Donvan (33:17):
... about this issue.
Kris Mayes (33:18):
... can I, I will respond in substance to what he just said.
John Donvan (33:21):
Thank you.
Kris Mayes (33:22):
Immigrants to the United States pay taxes. They grow our country. They grow our labor force. They are more likely than American citizens to become entrepreneurs, and to contribute to creativity and the growth of our country. What you just said is offensive and it is wrong.
Horace Cooper (33:46):
We have heard the parade of horribles. Part of the problem here is that the Supreme Court in 1898 got it wrong, and they have constitutionalized the answer and the solution. If they had not gotten it wrong, we would have the ability to make adjustments as might be appropriate and needed. In this particular case, America has a political demand, and that political demand is that we stop the level of immigration, the level of migration. We have an executive order, we have other challenges that stand for the proposition that this ought to be addressed in the political arena.
John Donvan (34:35):
Chris, I wanna, I wanna read something to you to get your response to it, and I’d like both of y- sides to talk about it. I’m quoting from the economist, Michael Fix. “The U.S. was established in rejection of,” this is recent. “The U.S. was established in rejection of monarchy and hereditary privilege, embracing the idea that each person is born equal, and should not bear the burdens or legal status of their parents.” Which I think goes directly to this question of birthright citizenship, if a, if a child is born of parents who have entered the country illegally, that they should not have to pay a price for that. But that’s a value, a core American value, Michael Fix is arguing. I would like you to, to kick that around.
Chris Newman (35:10):
Right. And we don’t want our definition of citizenship to be defined by political debates, particularly when our politics have broken down in this country. This notion of consensual c- citizenship is exactly what the 14th Amendment overturned. After all, several states define citizenship as having excluded African-Americans, uh, people who, who, who were enslaved. And one of the core fallacies that you guys are engaged in, in this argument, uh, is, I mean, e- essentially have two arguments that, that the court case was wrongly decided, and that times have changed. Okay, well, times are gonna keep changing and we’re gonna have to keep ev- evolving our laws.
But part of what makes us American is that we do not ascribe, uh, the sins of our fathers to, to, a- as an entry point, for, for our right. The birthright belongs to the c- to the child, to the citizen. It belongs to me. My mom was an immigrant. I have no idea what her status was when she was born. I never will, necessarily. It’s my right. The right, you know what, what’s happening with the parent, you wanna regulate, Mark, and you’ve been 30 years at it, you wanna regulate birth tourism? Do it statutorily. You know, prohibit birthright citizens from, you know, uh, uh, naturalizing or s- or sponsoring their parents if they ever come back from France or whatever other country you wanna live in. Do that through an evolution of immigration law, don’t do that by reaching back and relitigating the Civil War, which is literally what you guys are doing.
Mark Krikorian (36:36):
Um, I’m actually in favor of Congress making the change, not the president doing it. I don’t think the president has the authority to do it. The amendment itself provides for Congress making the change. Section 5-
Chris Newman (36:50):
Wait a minute, Mark. Isn’t your beef with the parents, not the kids?
Mark Krikorian (36:53):
Yes, my beef is with what the parents are doing in order to give birth to the kids in the United States as Americans. Birth tourism-
Chris Newman (37:02):
So, why are you scaring kids?
Mark Krikorian (37:02):
Let’s talk about birth tourism. Birth tourism is where a foreigner buys a package deal. This is from all over the world. It happens from, in China, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, every place. They have a package deal. Come to the United States when they’re, say, six months pregnant. Have the kid here, stay and recover until the S- State Department and the Social Security Administration send the passport and the Social Security card, and then they leave and the kid never sees the United States.
Chris Newman (37:30):
I mean, this sounds like one of these phantom invasion threats. But even if it was true-
Mark Krikorian (37:32):
There’s thousands of people like that every year.
Chris Newman (37:34):
... even if, you say that.
Mark Krikorian (37:34):
Yeah.
Chris Newman (37:35):
Even if it’s true, why then punish the kid?
Horace Cooper (37:38):
Why reward it?
Mark Krikorian (37:39):
Because, why reward that-
Horace Cooper (37:41):
Why reward that?
Mark Krikorian (37:42):
Then why reward that conduct?
Chris Newman (37:42):
The kid? The kid?
Mark Krikorian (37:43):
We’re not punishing the kid.
Horace Cooper (37:44):
People, people-
Mark Krikorian (37:45):
The kid still has the citizenship of his parents.
Kris Mayes (37:47):
Can I just jump in? You, you guys act as if the only reason that f- that immigrants come to the United States is birthright citizenship.
Horace Cooper (37:55):
No-
Kris Mayes (37:55):
But in reality, people come to the United States because they’re fleeing war-torn countries. They come for, you know, freedom. They come for economic opportunity far more than they come here, you know, for birth tourism. I mean, you know, you, you forget all of the other reasons that, that, that immigrants come to the United States, and that have been coming to the United States since our founding. And then I think you also ignore the fact, and I would like to make this point while I still have a chance, that every single judge that has looked at this issue has ruled against you, and they’re gonna continue to rule against you as we get to the Supreme Court.
John Donvan (38:40):
So, we’ve talked about the legal bit a, a little bit, so I’m gonna not ask for your response to that. But to the first que- point that the attorney general made, you’re argu- you’re making these cases about birth, uh, birth tourism, uh, et cetera. And she’s making the argument that way more people come to here, come to the United States, for, for truly better lives, for the freedom. Those things are American values, there’s the ability and a pathway to assimilate. All of us, all of us are the descendants of people who assimilated a- and, and emp- and use birthright citizenship. Maybe not in the numbers 100 years ago as now, but nevertheless, she’s, she feels that you’re mischaracterizing the motivation of most people who come and exercise birthright citizenship.
Horace Cooper (39:21):
All of the things that were just described can happen without being associated with citizenship. We can get the growth, we can get the visit-
John Donvan (39:28):
Why, why take it away? What’s the harm?
Horace Cooper (39:29):
W- w- wait. To argue that you must grant that to get that isn’t really an accurate charge. To also argue that this is an attack on the children, if mom and dad go and rob the bank and then give the money to their kids and you take it back, you’re not taking it from the kids. What you’re saying is that what the adults did was a crime. Mark.
Mark Krikorian (39:52):
Yeah. And the, the thing is, I think what you’re doing is conflating legal and illegal immigration. That’s the, that’s the core issue here. Uh, obviously people come for all kinds of reasons. People come because they have relatives, they want to get a job. Their, their own country is sort of a mess. Uh, you know, I know lots of immigrants. In fact, I mean, I, when I was a kid I didn’t even speak English until I went to kindergarten. I didn’t even know old people spoke without accents until I went to high school. I thought it was just Grandpa Walton on TV. So, I have a lot of experience with immigration. The issue here is legal versus illegal immigration. And we-
Chris Newman (40:26):
But that changed over time.
Mark Krikorian (40:28):
... cannot blur the difference between legal and illegal immigration. Legal immigrants, when they have kids, those kids are citizens, and shou- we should continue that policy. The issue is, should illegal immigrants be permitted, in effect to, uh, be rewarded?
Chris Newman (40:44):
The lines of le- legality and illegality are blurred at this moment. They were definitely blurred for Wong Kim Ark.
Mark Krikorian (40:50):
There’s no such thing.
Chris Newman (40:51):
Let’s remember the facts of that case. His parents were prohibited. We, you couldn’t naturalize in this country without being white until 1952. That’s when we eliminated the whiteness requirement. Wong Kim Ark’s parents l- fled San Francisco because there were mass lynchings. He went to go visit them and came back, a b- a n- a n- a natural-born citizen. It w- there was no legal way for his parents, uh, to... And, and I think you would agree that the Chinese Exclusion Act is wrong, right?
Mark Krikorian (41:19):
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Chris Newman (41:20):
So, Mark, would you have been at that time going, “No, but what part of illegal don’t you understand? Chinese, Japanese, they can’t be citizens and, you know, gosh, we shouldn’t reward them.”
Mark Krikorian (41:28):
And-
Chris Newman (41:29):
I mean, is that, is that, that’s sophistry.
Horace Cooper (41:30):
What I don’t understand is you look at the facts in that particular case and you say, “Well, we don’t like the underlying policy issues that led to that.” So, therefore, it’s okay for the court to create, out of whole cloth, a solution when that very court failed to focus-
Chris Newman (41:47):
No, Abraham Lincoln, not the court.
Kris Mayes (41:49):
It’s so concerning-
Horace Cooper (41:49):
Not Abraham Lincoln, no, no-
Kris Mayes (41:49):
Your concern is with the-
Horace Cooper (41:49):
... Abraham Lincoln did not draft the 14th Amendment.
Kris Mayes (41:49):
Your concern-
John Donvan (41:51):
I have to jump in again as we move towards the future. We have questions from some, uh, students at, uh, Arizona State University. We asked them to submit questions, and we have only a few minutes left now to get to those.
Jake, an entrepreneurship major, asks, and I think this is a question, uh, for this side, is a, “If a pathways to citizenship for all current DACA students was offered in exchange for the ending of birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, would you support it?”
Mark Krikorian (42:16):
Would I take it? Yeah, absolutely I would. I’m a squish on amnesty, honestly. Yeah, absolutely.
Horace Cooper (42:20):
(laughs)
John Donvan (42:21):
Other side wanna respond to that? If not, I’m gonna move on to the next question.
Mark Krikorian (42:24):
They, they wouldn’t, I mean, it’s not sort of unbalanced, but yeah, sure-
Kris Mayes (42:27):
I think it’s a false choice.
Mark Krikorian (42:28):
... I’d, I’d leap at the opportunity.
Kris Mayes (42:29):
... I mean, yeah. Yeah.
John Donvan (42:29):
False choice is the argument.
Chris Newman (42:29):
No, and, and, and the policy decision undergirding DACA was, at the time, the same policy decision undergirding the original intent of the amendment, which is you don’t blame the child for the actions of the parents. That’s fundamentally American.
John Donvan (42:45):
“Let’s assume,” this is from Matthew, a financial planning major. “Let’s assume it’s the day after birthright citizenship is abolished. What is happening in the United States?” Horace.
Horace Cooper (42:56):
This is a policy solution. All that the court is actually going to say is, “We were wrong in 1898, and now we’re giving you the space to make these decisions. That will mean your representatives, your senators who are accountable to you, will start making these decisions.” The parade of horribles was presented to all of America when Dobbs came before the Supreme Court. I have not seen all of these deaths in the street. I have not seen all of the outrageous things that were claimed as a result. America has decided to take action, and they have.
Kris Mayes (43:33):
You really wanna get into Dobbs? I mean, that, that’s outrageous, and we could go for an hour on that and, and explain it to you. Um, but, um, let, let me say this. What would happen? I mean, y- what I talked about earlier. Uh, parents would be placed into chaos. Th- one of the reasons that, that the state of Arizona, um, and, uh, half of the other states in this country are suing the Trump administration over the executive order is that it is going to increase costs on, on the state of Arizona, is gonna cause chaos, uh, e- for hospitals who are going to have to try to determine, uh, paternity, maternity, uh, status. It, it’s gonna, citizenship status inside the hospitals. It’s gonna cause, cause cra- chaos in terms of determining who, uh, has access to benefits and who doesn’t have access to benefits, who has access to education. We are going to lose tax revenue from, from folks who are here, um, uh, uh, uh, who are, who are born to undocumented, uh, citizens.
And, um, and, and, and, and if I could just go back, again, this goes dow- back to our founding fathers, who believed that birthright citizenship conveyed, automatically, allegiance to the United States of America. And that is why we have always had birthright citizenship in this country, and we always will.
Mark Krikorian (45:12):
If Congress were to change the rules, ‘cause Section 5 of the amendment says Congress has authority to implement measures to enforce this amendment, all of its various parts, you would have a legislation that says, “As of January 1st-”
Kris Mayes (45:26):
Right.
Mark Krikorian (45:26):
... whatever it is, it would be prospective.
Horace Cooper (45:28):
Yes.
Mark Krikorian (45:28):
Hospitals wouldn’t have to do anything, it would be up to state health departments. And you would have to demonstrate, you’d have to show with the Social Security number that the father or mother, one or the other, was either a legal resident, a green card holder or-
Chris Newman (45:40):
Well, Mark, Mark, practical question.
Mark Krikorian (45:42):
In other words, it’s a practical thing!
Chris Newman (45:43):
But Mark, a Social Security-
John Donvan (45:44):
Here’s, here’s my practical question, if-
Chris Newman (45:45):
Wait a minute, a Social Security number wouldn’t show anything. You could be an immigrant and have a Social Security number, and also be then deportable. What you would, the, the, the slippery slope, the Pandora’s Box that you’re opening up, is you’re talking about actual DNA testing.
Kris Mayes (45:58):
Yeah. What-
Chris Newman (45:58):
DNA testing that the government now has-
Mark Krikorian (45:59):
Paternity testing.
Chris Newman (46:01):
These masked ICE agents are gonna come take blood.
Mark Krikorian (46:03):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, I’m sorry-
Horace Cooper (46:04):
Birthright citizenship-
Kris Mayes (46:05):
Can I, can I use, can I use, I’m gonna use a personal example. I had my baby through IVF. I had my baby with my be- with my best friend, who I met here at ASU. He helped me have my baby. But what if I had ba- had my baby using sperm from a man in Portugal?
Mark Krikorian (46:21):
If you were an illegal alien, it might, that wouldn’t apply, maybe. Um, if you were-
Kris Mayes (46:25):
What about-
Mark Krikorian (46:26):
... an illegal alien, you would, the kid wouldn’t t-
Kris Mayes (46:28):
But no, you’re saying that both parents have to be American citizens.
Mark Krikorian (46:30):
No, I’m not saying both parents. One or the other has to-
Kris Mayes (46:33):
But that’s a policy choice that Congress has to make.
Mark Krikorian (46:34):
Yes, that’s what I’m saying! It’s a policy choice. He’s asking what would-
Kris Mayes (46:37):
Or, and you have to overturn a constitutional amendment.
Mark Krikorian (46:40):
No, you don’t, necessarily, because then what would happen is it’s the interpretation of that phrase, which the Supreme Court may interpret differently.
Kris Mayes (46:48):
And it-
Horace Cooper (46:48):
But birthright citizenship-
Kris Mayes (46:50):
Well, they never have.
Horace Cooper (46:50):
... doesn’t answer your scenario. You could still be subject to a DNA test if someone says, “Oh, well, my parents were both born here, or I was born here while they gave birth to me.”
Kris Mayes (47:02):
No, I’m an American citizen.
Horace Cooper (47:04):
And you were in Germany at the time that you gave birth.
Kris Mayes (47:05):
And I also was here in the United States.
John Donvan (47:08):
Tyler, a business manager at ASU asks-
... “Why is one of the Civil War amendments still relevant today?” I think we’ve discussed that. But what I would want to do is, should that history be part of this conversation anymore, or should we be looking forward?
Mark Krikorian (47:24):
Absolutely-
Kris Mayes (47:24):
Of course.
Mark Krikorian (47:25):
... it should be part of it, but it shouldn’t, it does, it’s not necessarily dispositive. That’s my point.
Kris Mayes (47:29):
Well-
Mark Krikorian (47:30):
And the question is what do we do now? What we did then is part of that discussion, absolutely. But the question now is with, uh, as Lincoln said, “Our circumstances are new, we have to act anew and think anew.”
Chris Newman (47:45):
Yeah, our circumstances are new. We had a Black president. Our current president was running around with the former sheriff of this county saying, “We don’t believe, show me your papers, President Obama.” That is the type of debate that you’re inviting by ta- by altering, by tinkering with the crown jewel of the U.S. Constitution. You’re inviting that kind of, let’s admit it, that, that was racist.
Mark Krikorian (48:11):
But we had that debate-
Chris Newman (48:11):
Where is, where is, okay, excuse me, excuse me-
Mark Krikorian (48:12):
... even with birthright citizenship.
Chris Newman (48:14):
... but what you’re doing is literally-
Horace Cooper (48:15):
John McCain was asked the very same question-
Chris Newman (48:17):
And?
Horace Cooper (48:18):
... about his birth status!
Mark Krikorian (48:20):
Because he was born in the Canal Zone.
Chris Newman (48:22):
Oh, oh, please.
Horace Cooper (48:22):
Yes!
Chris Newman (48:22):
Please. Please.
Mark Krikorian (48:22):
You know.
Chris Newman (48:22):
Please.
Horace Cooper (48:22):
He was. And he had go to court.
Mark Krikorian (48:24):
Ted Cruz, likewise.
Kris Mayes (48:26):
Well, that, that goes to diplomacy, the diplomatic [inaudible 00:48:27].
Horace Cooper (48:27):
Ted Cruz. My point is it wasn’t racist.
John Donvan (48:27):
Wait, wait, everybody’s talking at the same time. You get 15 more seconds, then this side here, okay.
Horace Cooper (48:31):
It wasn’t racist, it was part and parcel of the conversation that has been artificially, uh, cramped, because of what the Supreme Court did. And they ought to be subject to-
John Donvan (48:41):
Okay. Okay. 15 seconds is up.
Chris Newman (48:43):
So Donald, so Donald Trump saying, “I don’t believe you, Barack Obama, that you’re a U.S. citizen. Show me your papers.” That wasn’t racist?
John Donvan (48:49):
All right, we’re gonna move on to our-
Horace Cooper (48:51):
The same question was asked to John McCain.
John Donvan (48:51):
... we’re gonna move on to our closing round. Uh, and thank you for the stu- uh, questions from the ASU students very much. Um, sorry we couldn’t get to more. Uh, we’re gonna go onto our closing round, and that’s where each of the debaters takes, uh, the floor again to make a closing statement, uh, on their arguments. And first up will be... Horace, you’re first up, right?
Horace Cooper (49:11):
Here or there?
John Donvan (49:12):
You, you stand up there. Horace, uh, once again, just to remind people, you’re taking the position that we should be ending birthright citizenship. Your last chance to tell us why.
Horace Cooper (49:20):
Birthright citizenship has not served America well. It particularly has not served Black Americans. And if you look around at survey after survey, what you are finding is a large group of native-born Black Americans are increasingly hostile to immigrants. Immigrants made this country what it is, and we should be encouraging migration.
But when we have policies that create the impression that there are people who no longer... Let’s say your child has difficulty in the classroom with reading. Let’s say, uh, you have someone who has an alcoholism problem. Our social insurance programs are predicated on the idea that all of us contribute and few of us take out of it. Many Black Americans live in communities where they are finding, in particular, other Americans are discovering this as well, they are finding that our newest visitors are ending up competing, at least when they are youngest, and that has created a racial animosity, that has created a hostility. We absolutely should be allowed to respond to these concerns, and allow our elected officials to develop techniques and tools to address them. Thank you.
John Donvan (50:41):
Th- thank you, Horace. Next up, uh, our attorney general here in Arizona, Kris Mayes, uh, one more time, the floor is yours to tell us why you’re taking your side.
Kris Mayes (50:49):
Thank you. Um, uh, thank you again for having us. Uh, you know, one of the things that I find when I talk to the children of, uh, undocumented, uh, citizens is that they are so patriotic. They love this country. They love this country more than most people that I come across. They believe in this country. They wanna be here. Um, and those are exactly the kind of people that we want, um, with us.
I wanna close with these words from Ronald Reagan. He said, “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and in peace. A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls,” Ronald Reagan said, “the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still,” said Ronald Reagan.
America’s promise to the world is one of freedom and hope. The opportunity to build a new life for yourself or your descendants in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Birthright citizenship is the guarantee of that promise. Ending it would mean ending, mean the end of, um, the America that so many have fought and died for to protect for 250 years, and we can never accept that. Thank you.
John Donvan (52:53):
Thank you, Attorney General. Mark Krikorian, uh, the floor is yours one more time, why you’re advocating for ending birthright citizenship.
Mark Krikorian (52:57):
It’s a red-letter day when Democrats are quoting Ronald Reagan.
Kris Mayes (53:00):
Yeah, (laughs).
Mark Krikorian (53:01):
Um, the only reason we’re having this debate is because of mass illegal immigration. This isn’t just the two of us, and, you know, uh, the evil, uh, uh, Stephen Miller and the “bad orange man” dreaming this up. This concern about automatic citizenship for children born to, uh, people who are either illegal immigrants or visitors is something that is broadly shared. It is a salient political issue only because of mass illegal immigration.
If you really want to, uh, preserve the political conditions that allow the current practice of automatic citizenship to anybody born here to continue, and there’s an argument for it, as I’ve said, it’s streamlined, it simplifies things, if that’s what you want, then you must be especially muscular and hawkish in your approach to preventing mass illegal immigration. This whole debate is a consequence of the kind of things we saw over the past four years, where the Biden administration allowed the unlawful admission of at least 10 million, contrary to the law. If you want to preserve birthright citizenship as we have been practicing it for a long time, you need to end illegal immigration.
John Donvan (54:33):
Chris Newman, you get the last word. Uh, once again, your closing statement on why we should not be ending birthright citizenship.
Chris Newman (54:40):
If it is true that the United States is the only country that has, uh, citizenship associated with land, then that’s something that we should fight for. Uh, we shouldn’t change it. We shouldn’t be looking to France, uh, and Australia because some people are scared of the future, which is really what the arguments from the other side, uh, come down to. And those are, uh, imagined fears that could be solved through, you know, actual, uh, visas.
A real fear is that my son, uh, when Trump was, uh, elected this last time, asked if his grandmother was gonna be deported. He knew that she was, uh, in the country undocumented. My, the, my, the mother, uh, of, of my son, my soulmate, uh, was a born citizen to undocumented immigrants who later became, uh, citizens, uh, under the 86th a- amnesty, and now pledge an a- allegiance to the flag. The son, the fear of my son, was real, very real. “What’s gonna happen to my grandma?” To even have this debate, to put it into question for millions of people engaged in similar conversations, is gaslighting people about their birthright. And the debate itself, normally debates are good. Uh, you know, we get to, an answer. To have this debate is dangerous, because it forces us back to the Civil War.
I’m gonna pull out, uh, for my final minute, the author, the actual author, of the First Amendment, or the first section of this, uh, of the 14th Amendment, was John Bingham. And he said in 1867, right as it was being ratified, “We propose that to settle the difficulty of the Dred cot- Scott decision by putting into the constitution if a man is not a citizen of the country which he is born, in God’s name, in what country is he a citizen? If he may not live here, where does he have a right to live? We propose to put it in the power of every man, woman, and child, Black or white, rich or poor, when his rights are invaded, to raise his hand to the flag and say that, ‘I am an American citizen.’”
He was a- i- interrupted by applause. He continued. “Why should it not now be that all are free? Why should no- why not should the man whose feathers melted away in the fire of rebellion enjoy the same protection as the laws of the blood-stained enemies of this country? Will government be so weakened by putting its citizens on a common basis? I propose we strengthen the Union by supporting the measure that makes every man born here a citizen.”
John Donvan (56:55):
Thank you, Chris Newman. That is a wrap on this debate. I wanna thank you, uh, members of the audience who asked questions. I wanna thank Arizona State’s University of Politics, as well as Arizona PBS for partnering with us on this debate, and for hosting us at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
And I especially wanna thank our debaters, Mark, Horace, Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Chris Newman for approaching this debate, uh, in the way that they did. Uh, you, uh, for the most part, showed respect for one another.
Kris Mayes (57:23):
(laughs)
John Donvan (57:23):
Um, uh, at least you took the directions from me when I asked everybody to calm it down, and we really appreciated that. Uh, we like to, uh, we like to finish with a little bit of, uh, stagecraft, stage theater, um, in which everybody steps to the middle and, uh, shakes hands with one another.
Mark Krikorian (57:37):
We don’t have to dance or anything?
John Donvan (57:38):
No dancing.
Kris Mayes (57:39):
(Laughs), yeah. What, you don’t wanna dance with me?
Chris Newman (57:39):
Thank you, that was great.
Horace Cooper (57:39):
Thank you, it was nice to meet you.
Kris Mayes (57:39):
It was great fun.