Legal advocates sparred Thursday over immigration policy in the United States ahead of a Democratic led-Congress that could work alongside President Trump on the issue.
Advocates debated the role of immigration policy at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C. Panelists disagreed over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship in June and how it will affect legislative policy in the future.
Elle Bernstein, general counsel for U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said the majority of justices on the high court made the wrong decision. She said the decision allows for immigrants on worker visas and commercial truck drivers to deprive citizens of work, without the consent of U.S. citizens.
“Our sovereignty is precious, our people are precious,” Bernstein said. “If we give them up, we will never ever give them back.”
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, disagreed with Bernstein’s remarks. She praised the accomplishments of immigrants in the United States and asserted that the country is uniquely suited for immigrants to thrive, compared to other sovereign nations.
“We do better integrating the children of immigrants and they power our nation in ways that they do not succeed in Europe and part of that is because of the way in which our country integrates newcomers,” Frost said.
The majority of justices on the Supreme Court said the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution confers citizenship to children born to noncitizen parents. Chief Justice John Roberts said the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” refers to the United States’ power to govern anyone living in its territory.
“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present here are thus subject to the Nation’s jurisdiction,” Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion.
Frost argued that American citizenship is based on adherence to the country;s laws and ideals, rather than an inherited belief system. She called on the Trump administration to pursue civil penalties against businesses that break the law by employing foreign workers without abiding by required standards to keep hiring fair for American workers.
“The law is being violated and particularly our numbers in Florida and Texas and of course in Wisconsin where 70% of the dairy workers are undocumented,” Frost said. “If this government truly cared, it would enforce the law.”
Gene Hamilton, president of the America First Legal Foundation, argued that assimilation into the ideals of the United States is critical to developing a common identity. He said this identity goes beyond citizenship guaranteed by birthright.
“We welcome people from other places, but only to the extent that they shed their ties. They shed their allegiances. They adopt our values. They adopt our customs,” Hamilton said. “When it comes to immigration, you continue to see some of these same themes: the ideas of shedding your identity and pledging your allegiance to this new body, this new group of people, this new nation.”
He called for individuals who seek naturalization in the United States to be familiar with the history that allowed a government to be formed in America.
“We have to remember that being one people means that we are tied to things that unify us like the English language, like the Constitution, like the laws of the United States, and that we in fact enforce our laws and make sure that we treat citizenship as though it is actually something that is special. It is something to be protected,” Hamilton added.
John Yoo, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the midterm elections showed American voters reject the Trump administration’s interpretation of immigration enforcement. He said overly aggressive immigration policies that sought to end birthright citizenship led to broad enforcement efforts that killed two American citizens during ICE operations.
“This election, I think, is [a] rejection of the overly aggressive immigration policies that went beyond simple border control,” Yoo said.
He argued that the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence rejected the idea of all Americans adhering to a single religion, cutting out arguments for assimilation. He said the only requirements to guarantee citizenship are agreeing to the laws outlined in the founding documents.
“I don’t think the Constitution actually takes a perspective one way or the other whether there’s such a thing as a heritage American or whether an American has to agree on anything other than what’s in the Declaration of Independence,” Yoo said.
