Q. 62. What is the visible church?
A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.
- Westminster Larger Catechism
Last week it was announced that the U.S. State Department had adopted a new rule governing the issuance of category B nonimmigrant visas. The rule, which took effect on Friday, Jan. 24, is aimed at reducing birth tourism. Birth tourism is the practice of expectant mothers traveling to the United States to give birth on U.S. soil for the purpose of acquiring American citizenship for their children.
For those of us who have advocated for reform of America’s disastrous immigration laws in a way that protects the legitimate interest of American citizens, this was a welcomed, if limited, victory. It is a welcomed victory in that, in the words of the State Department document outlining the ruling, “This rule will help prevent operators in the birth tourism industry from profiting off treating U.S. citizenship as a commodity, sometimes through potentially criminal acts…” It is a limited victory in that it leaves open the larger, more important question, of birthright citizenship. Specifically, the question of to whom birthright citizenship properly applies.
In the opinion of this author, birthright citizenship properly applies only to children born to parents, either both, or at least one of them, possessing American citizenship. The notion that a child can rightfully acquire American citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, is foreign both to the Bible and, in the view of this author, to the Constitution.
Why the Rule Change?
The Public Notice from the Department of State lays out the reasoning behind the rule change, citing concerns about national security and criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry (Public Notice, page 1)– yes, to the surprise of many Americans there is such a thing as the birth tourism industry. Further down in the Notice, one finds other good reasons to end the practice of birth tourism. For example, many times the birth tourists stick American taxpayers with their hospital bills, and this despite their having large sums of money available to pay for the medical procedures. The notice also cites the defrauding of “property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes” (Notice, 11).
But for all the problems caused by birth tourism, there was no language that formally prohibited this activity in the regulations that covered visa issuance.
What has Changed?
Category B nonimmigrant visas historically have been used by individuals engaged in birth tourism. Such visas are issued by the U.S. to allow foreigners to travel to the United States for the purpose of pleasure, defined or the purpose of visa issuance as, “legitimate activities of a recreational character, including tourism, amusement, visits with friends or relatives, rest, medical treatment, and activities of a fraternal, social, or services nature” (Notice, 2).
The State Department has updated their rules to include language stating, “that the term pleasure…does not include travel for the primary purpose of obtaining United States citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States” (Notice, 2-3).
In addition to explicitly prohibiting visa issuance for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States, the new language governing nonimmigrant B visas requires that someone coming to the U.S. for medical treatment, “has the means and intent to pay for the medical treatment and all incidental expenses, including transportation and living expenses” (Notice, 3).
The White House Statement
NPR reports that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement calling birth tourism a burden on hospital resources. She added, “It [the State Department rule change] will also defend American taxpayers from having their hard-earned dollars siphoned away to finance the direct and downstream costs associated with birth tourism.”
NPR goes on to note that birthright citizenship – birthright citizenship as currently practiced in the U.S. allows that any child (with a few exceptions) born on U.S. soil is deemed an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents – became an issue in 2015, with then candidate Donald Trump calling for the elimination of it. Trump also revived talk about birthright citizenship just prior to the 2018 mid-term elections and apparently is now bringing back this issue ahead of the 2020 election.
This observer long has been frustrated by the White House’s inaction on reforming birthright citizenship and cautiously sees the State Department’s rule change as perhaps signaling more aggressive action to come on this issue.
Other Views on the Rule Change
As you may expect, not everyone is happy about these new rules. According to a report by ABC, Shilpa Phadke, a vice president at the Center for American Progress – a liberal policy think-tank – denounced the change. “This rule is yet another attempt by the administration to control women’s bodies, driven by racist and misogynist assumptions about women born outside the United States.”
This is a strange charge, as this rule change has nothing whatsoever to do with race, neither is it “misogynistic.” Rather, the rule has everything to do with preventing the abuse of American citizenship, what the State Department Notice correctly called turning American citizenship into a commodity which serves as a source of profit for those engaged in potentially criminal acts.
As serious as America’s immigration problem is, Phadke’s reaction points to another problem that may be even more serious: the near total inability of liberal and progressive public intellectuals to talk about matters of public policy in terms other than the shrillest language possible. It’s not enough for Phadke to disagree with the State Department’s rule change and explain the reasons for her disagreement, but as a good cultural Marxist she feels obligated to impugn the character of those who support the rule change by calling them, in effect, a deplorable basket of racists and sexists. It’s as if no other explanation for the rule change is possible or needed. It’s as if Phadke and others of her ilk think all they need to do is shriek “racism!” every time they don’t agree with a given policy and their intellectual work is done.
Progressive intellectuals of Phadke’s ilk not only contribute nothing positive to public discourse, but actually do significant damage to the country. Their constant shrieking of “racism, sexism and homophobia” have so poisoned the well of public discourse, that it is nearly impossible for American’s to so much as have a civil discussion about important matters of public policy, let alone propose solutions that address the serious problems facing our nation.
A Biblical View of Birthright Citizenship
Birth tourism and the current misinterpretation of birthright citizenship by Constitutional lawyers are closely related, but distinct issues. The current understanding of birthright citizenship holds that any child (with a few exceptions) born on American soil is deemed an Americana citizen, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents.
It is this misinterpretation of birthright citizenship that has opened the door for birth tourism and all the abuses of American citizenship entailed by it.
One way of helping think through the issue of birthright citizenship is to look at it in the context of what the Bible has to say about government more broadly.
Bible scholars acknowledge three types of government: family, church and civil. Each of them has its distinct sphere of authority. Parents have the power of the rod. The church has the power of the keys. And civil government, it has the power of the sword. Although the three types of government have different areas of authority and their own means of enforcing their rules, there are some common threads connecting them.
One thread is that men are given the authority to rule in all three. The father is the head of the family. Church officers are men only. And despite the feminism that in recent times has come to dominate the thinking even of Christians who should know better, authority in civil government is also reserved for men.
But patriarchy is not the only thing the three forms of government have in common. The method of how one becomes subject to the authority of a particular government is also similar. To put this in more familiar language, let us ask this question: How does one become a family member? The most common method is by being born into it. That is to say, one becomes a family member and subject to the jurisdiction of it by natural birth.
There is another way one can become a family member, adoption. In this case the parents agree to take in the child of another and treat him as if he were their own child.
Inclusion in the visible church works in the same way as the family. Children of at least one believing parent are considered to be part of the visible church in the same manner as natural children of parents are considered part of the family. Of course, birth to believing parents is not the only way one can become a member of the visible church. A credible profession of faith allows believing adults to receive baptism and inclusion in the visible church as well.
The same principle that obtains in the case of family and church government also applies to civil government. How does one become a citizen of a nation? By birth or by oath of citizenship. For example, I have my American citizenship by virtue of being born to two parents, both of whom are themselves American citizens. It is also possible for those subject to the jurisdiction of other nations to become Americans by taking an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.
Notice that in reference to family and church government, there is no Biblical provision for granting inclusion to a child simply by virtue of where he was born. Think about it. What if a woman, for some reason, gave birth on your property? Would her child, simply by that fact, be considered a member of your family? Of course not.
Let’s consider another scenario. Suppose an unbelieving woman were for some reason to give birth on the ground of a church. Would you say her child should receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church? Certainly not! To do that would be to contradict the Westminster Larger Catechism and the teaching of the Scriptures. For an infant to receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church, he must have either both, or at least one, believing parent.
In like fashion, there is no Biblical provision for the children of a non-citizens to be deemed citizens simply because they happened to be born on American soil. Such children properly are considered citizens of the nation where their parents have their citizenship.
A proper, Biblical understanding of birthright citizenship, that it applies only to children having at least one citizen parent, is the ultimate and only permanent solution to the problem of birth tourism.
Secular Arguments for and against Birthright Citizenship Reform
In the July 18, 2018 Washington Post, an editorial by former Trump administration official Michael Anton was published titled “Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright.” Anton looked closely at the language of those who framed the 14th Amendment – the 14th Amendment is cited as the basis for birthright citizenship for all – and concluded, “The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity – historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.” Anton is spot on here.
As you probably expect, critics didn’t take long to pounce on Anton’s argument. And as you probably guessed, they accused him of, wait for it…racism! Typical of the attacks on Anton is an editorial, also in the Washington Post, published just a few days after Anton’s titled “Michael Anton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Racist Argument on Birthright Citizenship.” According to author Daniel Drezner, a law professor at Tufts University, if you oppose granting American citizenship to the child of a Mexican mother who sneaks across the border and gives birth at taxpayer expense, or deny citizenship to the child of a Chinese or Russian or Nigerian mother who lied about her intentions for coming to the United States, you’re a racist, plain and simple. Actually, since the Russians are white Europeans, the fact that birthright citizenship reform applies to them as well creates a bit of a problem for folks who argue, as Drezner and Phadke do, that racism is at the heart of birthright citizenship reform. But then, contemporary progressives never let logic get in the way of a good opportunity to virtue signal.
In a follow up piece to his WaPo editorial titled “Birthright Citizenship: A Response To My Critics,” Anton observed,
I expected the reaction to a recent op-ed I published calling for the end of birthright citizenship to be cantankerous. I even expected it to be hysterical—from the Left. I did not expect self-described “conservatives” to be just as hysterical as the Left, and to use precisely the same terms. “Nativist.” “Xenophobe.” “Bigot.” “Racist.” “White nationalist.” “White supremacist.”
Here, Anton describes the phenomenon, long noted by some conservatives, that a good number of well-known conservative lights, when push comes to shove, actually sound more like political liberals than conservatives.
Conservatism as Antichristianity
Why is this? Why do conservative stalwarts often sound just like the liberals they ostensibly oppose? The answer is that both liberalism and conservatism are anti-Christian in their basic philosophic assumptions. This was John Robbins’ argument in his Trinity Review “Conservatism, An Autopsy.” Robbins wrote,
Conservatism as a political movement displays as much variety of thought as liberalism. Yet both liberalism and conservatism are united in their Antichristianity. Both are “tolerant,” but neither will tolerate Christianity. It is a mistake to think that conservatives and conservatism, as opposed to liberals and liberalism, are neutral on the issue of Christianity. There is and can be no neutrality. The conservatives seem to recognize this, but unfortunately the Christians do not. Many Christians still believe that politics is an endeavor that can be pursued shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. They believe that there is common ground upon which both Christians and conservatives can stand and build-or rebuild-a free society.
Given conservatism’s anti-Christian philosophical assumptions, it is unsurprising that conservative writers would side with the liberals they supposedly oppose. Conservatives, like liberals, deny that the Bible is a textbook for political philosophy and instead think that one can oppose liberalism by appealing to natural law or to tradition or to Roman Catholic thought.
The Roman Church-State on Birthright Citizenship
As you may expect, officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS) have at various times made known their opposition to the Biblical doctrine of birthright citizenship. One example of this is a piece posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB) website titled “The Catholic Church’s Position on Birthright Citizenship.” Guess what? The bishops think the current system is great just the way it is, and any attempt to change it would be very, very bad.
After the usual boilerplate lies about addressing the “legitimate concerns surrounding immigration law enforcement” – despite its claims, the RCCS could not care less about immigration law enforcement actions that promote the well-being of Americans – the bishops get down to business. They start with the lie that reforming birthright citizenship to exclude the children of foreign nationals “would render innocent children stateless.”
For example, Article 30 of the Mexican Constitution specifically states that children born to Mexican parents in a foreign country are still considered Mexican citizens. Since the about a third of Anchor Babies – children born in the US to non-citizen parents – are born to Mexican mothers, this provision in the Mexican Constitution seriously undermines Rome’s argument that by reforming its birthright citizenship laws, the US will leave children stateless.
Closing Thoughts
With all the bad news on the political and economic fronts, to hear that the State Department has taken a concrete step to make birth tourism harder was a welcome breath of fresh air.
In the opinion of this author, reforming American birthright citizenship law along Biblical lines is the single most important step the federal government can take to address America’s immigration problem. Ending birthright citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens is more important then building the wall, reducing refugee numbers, or even removing people in the country on temporary protected status who have been here for twenty years. Not that those other things are unimportant. But they do not rise to the level of properly defining how a one becomes an American citizen.
As with all matters of right and wrong, political or otherwise, the ultimate standard against which all ideas must be measured is the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible. Since it is impossible to derive the birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens from Scripture, Christians can be confident that calling for reform of our current birthright citizenship laws to eliminate granting citizenship to the children of non-citizens not only is not wrong but is, in reality, a positive good.
Too often, public debates about immigration consider only what is good for immigrants and ignore completely the question of what is good for American citizens. Birthright citizenship as is currently practiced in the Untied States represents a gross abuse of the American people and turns that which should be highly valued, American citizenship, into a cheap commodity that easily can be acquired by barely disguised fraud.
The State Department’s move to make it harder to commit birthright citizenship fraud is a welcome move and a big win for immigration sanity, but more remains to be done.
It’s time for a change. It’s time to reform American birthright citizenship laws.
