RLL 31 LA Times Whines About Birth Tourism Crackdown

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You're listening to Radio Luke's Lucid, I'm your host Steve Matthews, thanks for joining me for episode 31. Today we're going to be talking about the
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LA Times and their whiny op -ed about the Trump administration's crackdown on birth tourism.
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This is an episode, or excuse me, this was an op -ed that was written on February 6, 2020, appeared in the
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Los Angeles Times, and the title of it is, A Birth Tourism Crackdown is
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Turning U .S. Government Agents into the Pregnancy Patrol. Now the title of it sort of gives away the direction this particular op -ed is going to go.
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Now the op -ed itself was written by a gentleman named Christopher Richardson. I'll just read you the first paragraph here to start things.
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As a consular officer, I issued hundreds of tourist visas to pregnant women traveling to the United States whose primary purpose was so -called birth tourism, gaining
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U .S. citizenship for their child by having their baby here. It was a frustrating experience for me because I mainly saw wealthy and elite foreign nationals secure
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U .S. citizenship for their newborn this way, and I couldn't help but think of the millions already here who had to wait years to become citizens.
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So Mr. Richardson starts out fairly promising. He identifies himself as a consular officer, so he's someone who has had firsthand experience in issuing tourist visas to people.
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And he recounts the fact that he issued some of these tourist visas to pregnant women who were coming to the
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United States whose primary purpose was the so -called birth tourism, and he had a problem with that.
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He points out the fact, well, he saw that they were mainly wealthy and elite foreign nationals, and essentially what they were doing is they were doing an end -around
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U .S. immigration law, and going to the head of the line by having a child in the
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United States. But, Richardson continues, but I made an uneasy peace with the practice, fearing what alternatives might arise if the
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U .S. ever actively sought to prohibit it. Since the administration put in place new rules in late
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January that make it harder for pregnant foreign nationals to enter the U .S. on tourist visas, we are about to see what those alternatives are.
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I fear they will not be pretty. So, he starts off promising, but then in his second paragraph here, he already starts really revealing what his real position is.
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He seems to think that doing something to actually prevent this abuse of the system, and essentially he admits in the first paragraph that it is an abuse of the system, he thinks that anything that's going to be done is actually going to make things worse.
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Well, I would ask this question, worse for whom? You know, is it going to be worse for the
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American people who aren't going to have their immigration laws flouted? Or is it going to be worse for the foreigners who are trying to come to the
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United States to essentially take advantage of our immigration laws, of our birthright citizenship laws in particular?
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So, he's troubled by this. He's troubled by the idea that someone might actually interrupt what he's already identified as a source of abuse, often by wealthy and elite foreign nationals.
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So, I guess apparently he really doesn't mind that all that much. Christopher Richardson continues, for President Trump and his supporters, this is a promise kept in his battle against birthright citizenship, the granting of citizenship to children born in the
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United States despite the parent's nationality or immigration status. If you're born here, you're an
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American. The right isn't enshrined in the U .S. Constitution. Okay, so we need to take a big timeout right here.
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Now, Christopher Richardson is, when he talks about, when he makes this very categorical statement, if you're born here, you're an
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American, the right isn't enshrined in the U .S. Constitution, what he's referring to is the 14th Amendment of the
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U .S. Constitution. That 14th Amendment was put in place to make sure that freed slaves would become, be considered citizens of the
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United States. That's why that amendment was passed. That was the whole purpose behind that. It was passed back in the 1860s, shortly after the end of the
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Civil War. And if you actually read through the arguments, and there have been some people who've done very good analysis of the arguments over the 14th
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Amendment, I think it becomes very clear that it was never the intention of the framers of the 14th
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Amendment to make, to grant birthright citizenship to just anybody who was born on American soil.
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And even to this day, that's not the case. For instance, children of diplomats. So say, suppose a diplomat from a foreign country,
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I don't know, say Germany, suppose the ambassador or maybe somebody on the ambassador's staff from Germany is in the
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United States, and maybe his wife gives birth on American soil.
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Well, that child is not considered an American citizen, simply because that child was born on American soil.
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The 14th Amendment doesn't apply to that child. But the vast majority of babies who are born on U .S.
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soil, U .S. citizenship is conferred upon them, regardless of the nationality or the citizenship status of the parents.
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So, I mean, even the Constitution to which Christopher Richard appeals doesn't make this a blanket rule for everyone.
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There are exceptions to that. And I would argue that the exceptions to the rule are far greater than what
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Christopher Richardson seems to want you to believe. He seems to have this idea, if you're born here, you're an
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American. Well, that's what some people say. But again, if you go back and you look at the arguments for the 14th
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Amendment, I don't believe that that's the case. And there are a lot of people who don't believe that that's the case.
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But I'm not going to get into extended argument about the Constitution and the 14th Amendment right here. But I did want to make that point.
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It's not as cut and dried as what Christopher Richardson wants you to think. So Mr.
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Richardson continues, however, the consular officer corps, which is predominantly white, has now been given more discretion to decide who can enter the
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U .S. They will have to rely more heavily on their own judgment and denying visas to a largely brown and black global populace.
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Cultural bias will become more of a factor than it already is. In addition to the new rules allow consular officers to use visual cues to determine whether an applicant is trying to hide a pregnancy, essentially giving officers the license to body shame.
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OK, so this is kind of an amazing paragraph. I mean, you want to talk about, you know, these are the,
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I guess, what's the popular word now? Trope, I guess, is what they like to use. These are some of the popular tropes among identity politics, people who advocate identity politics, you know, the social justice warriors, the cultural
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Marxist, etc. They love to talk in these kinds of terms.
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So what he makes, he talks about the consular officer corps, which is predominantly white.
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Well, I mean, right there, you know, he's trying to turn this into a racial thing.
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So you have a predominantly white officer corps denying visas to largely brown and black global populace.
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So, of course, we know anything that's predominantly white is evil. Everybody, all right -thinking, just all right -thinking good people know this.
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Anything that's predominantly white, it's inherently evil because white people are inherently evil. At least that's the way it's always presented in the popular press.
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Yeah, it's amazing how many stories you see out there about comments by various liberals, and these can be by white people who make these kinds of statements.
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I don't know, Christopher Richardson, maybe he's white. Probably there's a good chance that he is. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's white.
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But there are a lot of white people who like to make these types of arguments to virtue signal, to show what righteous, good -thinking people they really truly are.
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So he's going to put down the consular officer corps, and essentially what he does, he accuses them of being a bunch of racists, or at least allows for that possibility.
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He wants to plant that seed in people's minds, because you have predominantly white people, and probably white men, which is even worse,
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God forbid. You have this predominantly white consular office accord sitting in judgment and denying visas to largely brown and black global populace.
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Well, the whole idea here, this law says nothing about race. Now the fact of the matter is that there are a number of countries that are notorious for abusing the birthright citizenship.
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Understanding, we'll say that the birthright citizenship, the current practice of birthright citizenship in the
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United States, there are a number of countries whose citizens regularly abuse this.
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Now China is one of them, South Korea is one of them, Nigeria is one of them, and I would also point out
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Russia is one of them. There are a lot of Russian mothers that come to the United States to give birth to American children.
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So it's not really, he's trying to make this sound like it's some kind of a racist thing.
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The law says nothing about race, and for him to try to turn it into that, I think is incredibly disingenuous.
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But he's not satisfied with just trying to play the race card here. He also talks about the consular officers having the ability to use visual cues to determine whether an applicant is trying to hide a pregnancy, essentially giving officers a license to body shame.
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Oh my goodness. Now this is another thing, and it's kind of a feminist thing. And you hear about this quite a bit about body shaming.
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And body shame is simply the idea that somehow it's a bad thing to point out that a fat person is fat, and that being a fat person probably isn't the healthiest lifestyle choice.
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In fact, there was a popular singer out there,
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I had never heard of her until fairly recently, her name is Lizzo. I don't know, she weighs something in the order of like,
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I think 300, maybe 400 pounds. I mean, she's this gigantic person, and she's being celebrated because of her body.
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And that's what we're being told to do. And there's a fitness personal trainer,
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Jillian Michaels, she's pretty well known. She's the host of a show called
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The Biggest Loser. And of course, the whole premise of The Biggest Loser is some of these people who have struggled for years with obesity, and they come on the program, and through diet and exercise, the goal is to get down to a healthy weight.
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And the program is designed to help people to get over some of the health problems.
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And some of these people are, well, in fact, pretty much everybody on that show is morbidly obese, obese to the point where it threatens their life.
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And Jillian Michaels pointed out that we shouldn't be celebrating Lizzo because of her body.
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Because Jillian Michaels, as she pointed out, this Lizzo is so heavy that she's in danger of getting all kinds of weight related diseases, things such as diabetes, for example.
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And anyway, when Jillian Michaels made these comments, and it was on some show that she was being interviewed on, oh,
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I mean, social media just exploded. How dare Jillian Michaels say anything about Lizzo and talking about her body?
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It's body shaming, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, all the trolls and all the haters came out and got over Jillian Michaels.
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And to her credit, as far as I am aware, I don't believe Jillian Michaels backed down. So I'm glad that she stood her ground in what she said.
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You know, and she made the point, she says, you know, it's fine to celebrate Lizzo for her music. But we shouldn't be celebrating her for her body, which is morbidly obese.
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And it's okay to say that. But I mean, there are people out there that want to say that's body shaming, you can't do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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So this guy, yeah, I have to admit, the ability of some of these identity politics folks, some of these people to work cultural
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Marxism, to work feminism into their arguments just never ceases to amaze me.
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Yeah, as someone who's followed the immigration issue closely for a number of years, and is familiar with some of the arguments,
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I have to admit, it's very typical to hear people like Christopher Richardson drop these sort of vague hints, and sometimes they're not vague hints, sometimes they just come out and say it directly.
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You know, if you want to do anything to change American immigration law to try to restrict it in any way, that's you're racist, you're a bigot, you're a very bad person, essentially, is what they say, you're a very, very bad person.
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I'm used to hearing arguments like that. But I have to admit that I never thought that I would hear someone come out and, and complain about possible body shaming.
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I did not expect that. So I have to admit, you know, Christopher Richardson has presented something that I've never seen before.
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That's a new argument. So that's an interesting thing that he said, I think it's complete nonsense.
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I mean, if somebody's sitting there in front of you, and is obviously pregnant, you're not supposed to ask about that.
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That's not body shaming. I mean, it's simply asking questions. It's called due diligence.
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I think that that that's what the lawyers would call that sort of thing. So no, and yeah, that's, that's just absurd.
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Anyway, Richardson continues here. Pregnancy tests will not be administered and officers cannot ask for them.
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The State Department announced, but how long will it take before applicants feel compelled to bring negative pregnancy test results to consular offices and for officers to accept them?
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Well, I don't know the answer to that question. You know, maybe, maybe it won't take long at all. Maybe that's not a bad thing.
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I mean, if somebody can provide proof of their good intentions for coming to the United States, I don't think that that's a bad thing.
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Apparently, Richardson does. Richardson continues, the officers will be forced to spend more time serving as the pregnancy patrol instead of focusing on more important matters, such as security background checks and facilitating legitimate travel.
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Well, I mean, wait just a minute here. I mean, Richardson seems to be suggesting that somehow if, if officers actually have to spend time determining whether a woman is pregnant, that somehow that that's not a matter of security or not a matter of facilitating legitimate travel.
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I mean, it's not legitimate to come to the United States simply for the purpose of giving birth so you can have a, an
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American citizen child. That is not a legitimate reason to come here. That's one of the things that this rule says.
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And in fact, it's, it's really, my understanding is that it's always been a shady practice and it's something that's been discouraged always or for a very long time by U .S.
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consular offices, officers. However, the, the Trump administration ruling has kind of put this into more concrete language.
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But no, it's not legitimate to travel the United States for simply for the purpose of giving birth. And they say that never has been.
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And, you know, expecting officers to actually do their job. Oh my goodness. That's the end of the world.
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We can't have that. Continues Richardson. As they worked on the visa line with other consular officers in the 2010s, applicants seeking to give birth were evaluated in the same way as those who wanted to enter the
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U .S. to seek medical treatment. State department regulations state that foreign nationals seeking to enter the U .S.
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for medical reasons must demonstrate they have the means to pay for treatment, do not pose a security risk and have ties to their home country that will compel their return.
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Pregnant foreign nationals often carry documentation showing the hospital payments for child delivery had been arranged and displayed letters from American doctors and hospital administrators detailing the plan of birth along with any prenatal or postnatal visits.
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Okay. So, you know, again, the, the whole birth tourism thing has never really been on the up and up, although the
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Mr. Richardson seems to want to portray it as such here in this particular paragraph.
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Well, Richardson continues. When I was processing visa applicants, most every pregnant foreigner I spoke with was from a wealthy family.
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They would invariably say that they had no intention of residing in the United States with a newborn American child.
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Well, the reason that they said that was because what they were doing, they knew was, was not legitimate. And they knew that if they came out and said that there's a good chance they might've been denied, uh, denied a visa.
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For this class of individuals, a newborn child would probably serve as insurance should the respective home countries fall apart.
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And as an investment in making it easier to immigrate to the U S should it become necessary for others, having an
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American child and that blue U S passport was cultural currency. The ultimate status symbol back home.
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Okay. Well that proves right there that American citizenship is considered a pretty valuable thing. So should we just be giving away
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American citizenship willy nilly? I mean, if American citizenship really is valuable, shouldn't, you know, maybe there'd be some controls on who gets it.
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You know, um, you know, it's kind of amazing that on the one hand Richardson seems to say that, that, uh, you know, the
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U S passport, that blue U S passport, I have a blue U S passport. Yeah. I'm an American citizenship, American citizens.
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So yes, I have a blue U S passport because I'm actually an American citizen. I'm a legitimate
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American citizen. Both of my parents were American citizens. Both of their parents were American citizens and on and on and on back.
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I mean, my, my family's been here, I don't know, over 300 years, at least on my dad's side in the
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United States, actually before there was a United States. Um, you know, I'm a legitimate
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U S citizen. I have a vested interest in this country. It's my home. That's where my family's from, uh, many generations back.
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Yeah. And, and that's, you know, American citizenship is considered a valuable thing. And if it's considered a viable thing, why are we just giving it away again?
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Willy nilly, you know, you might think that Christopher Richardson might answer that question, but he doesn't really address that issue.
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So Richardson continues here while I may have disdained the practice practice that is birthright citizenship for people who were coming here, you know, elites, maybe they were coming here as he puts it from foreign countries.
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Well, I may have disdained the practice officers are required to evaluate applicants by engaging in frank conversations about their intentions.
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It's far better for applicants to honestly talk about their intentions to give birth and use reputable doctors and hospitals than rely on the criminal gangs and shady consultants that have come to dominate the birth tourism field.
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Okay. So not exactly sure what Richardson's trying to say here.
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Yeah. His argument here almost sounds a bit like what you hear from some people who, who advocate, uh, for, for abortion laws, you know, and they say that, you know, abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
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I think what was it, wasn't that Bill Clinton that said that? Yeah. But those people who think that they call themselves pro -choice,
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I guess is the term that they use for themselves. And they believe that abortion should be legal in all 50
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States. And some of them believe it should be legal right up until the time a woman gives birth.
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In fact, some people, if you're, you're Ralph Northam, governor of Virginia, maybe even think that abortion should be, be allowed after birth.
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But that's, uh, again, that's, that's kind of getting, don't want to go too far down that, that rabbit trail here, at least on, on this podcast.
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But some of the people who argue in favor of abortion say, wow, we need to have, uh, abortion legal because if we don't have, if, if abortion is made illegal, why women are still going to have abortions, but to just go to back alleys and use coat hangers and, you know, all sorts of horrible things.
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And somehow, you know, what that's supposed to do is if you, if you're pro -life, that's supposed to make you just cringe and say,
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Oh no, I wouldn't want women to have to go into back alleys and have abortions there. Oh, please. Oh, please. You know,
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I, I give up. I cry uncle, something like that. Well, you know, here's, here's the thing.
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You know, if, if somebody is coming to the U United States and is lying about the reason that, that, uh, that he or she is coming here, then
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I think that that's a problem. You know, and if a woman's coming to the United States and she lies about, uh, her intentions to come here and instead of going to doctors and hospitals, she realized that criminal gangs and shady consultants, well, that's her own fault.
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You know what I mean? That that's not a reason not to have, um, honest and frank conversations.
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You know, if somebody is lying, then well, you know, whatever happens, that's kind of on them.
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You know, that, that's not a problem with the law. That's a problem with the person. So Richardson continues the new restrictions on tourist visas for pregnant women, women will only bring these illicit businesses, more customers.
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So, okay. So if we pass a law, you know, by, by this, this, uh, rule change, making it more difficult for people just to come here and have children for the purposes of birth tourism, that new rule, it's that that's driving people into illicit practices.
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Again, this is ridiculous. You know, okay. So by that same token, we could say,
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I guess we should get, should get rid of all, um, uh, all laws, uh, prohibiting murder because why, if we have laws prohibiting murder, that just means that people will go about it in an underhanded fashion instead of just killing people because, you know, uh, killing people out in the open.
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If we just get rid of all the laws against murder, while, you know, we can go around and shoot one another and not suffer any consequences and not have to be afraid.
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It's the murder laws that are the problem. You know, it's not the people who are committed crimes. It's the laws against murder and laws against theft.
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You know, I mean, if, if we just get rid of all the laws against bankrupt bank robbery, why people would just come in and grab cash out of a bank.
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It'd be almost like going to an ATM machine. Thank you very much, sir. How many thousand would you like today? Yes. The problem is the laws against bank robbery.
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So if we just get rid of those laws against bank robbery, then we don't have to worry about that anymore.
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It won't be a crime. Just give the cash away. Hey, no problem. I mean, this is absurd.
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He continues the birth tourism industry also thrives on coaching applicants to lie about their pregnancy and produce fake documents.
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Okay. So what he's talking about here, I mean, this birth tourism industry has been in place all along, you know, and again, so,
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I mean, the Trump administration has simply just made it more difficult for people to, to get through, uh, the consular visa process, but I mean, birth tourism has never been legitimate.
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And if it were legitimate, then you wouldn't have all of these, um, you know, as, as Richardson likes to say, uh, illicit, uh, sorts of businesses out there in the first place, they wouldn't have been needed.
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The fact of the matter is birth tourism has always been, um, something that, uh, the consular offices have sought to prevent.
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Now they just have some more tools for doing so. And he continues, lying can cause a person to be permanently barred from entering the
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U S and rely on honest interactions to make valid, solid decisions. Okay. So if somebody again, comes here in lies, if a woman comes here and lies about her reason for coming to the
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United States and she gets permanently barred from entering the United States, if she gets busted, that's not the problem with the law, the problems with the person who's doing the line, you know, what
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I just, I'm just astounded at the logic that this guy uses. I mean, this is the kind of person we have working in our consular offices.
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I mean, I hope this isn't typical, uh, of the sort of, of the person, the kind of people that we have working at our, uh, at us consular offices around the world, because if it is, we got major problems.
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I mean, you know, this guy has, has serious problems. Apparently he doesn't like enforcing American law.
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I mean, among other things, and, and he comes up with a very twisted rationalizations for, for not wanting to do so.
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And he just, he just continues in this vein. Here's the next paragraph. Instead of cracking down on consular offices, the
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U .S. should crack down on the birth tourism industry. Well, wait just a moment. You know, the Trump administration is not cracking down on consular officers.
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The Trump administration is simply asking consular offices to do their job and giving them some tools, some additional tools to do so, not cracking down on consular officers.
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The crackdown is on the people who are violating American law. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, the, the logic, the, the, the, the absurd statements in this, in this, uh, op -ed just come, come fast and furious.
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So he goes on here. A big part of the problem should be addressed by identifying hospitals and other medical facilities that profit from foreign national birth business in a post -prohibitive fine zone if they continue to engage in the practice.
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These facilities often work hand in glove with birth tourism consultants, would help suppress that element as well.
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Well, okay. You know, now I, maybe what he says here may, this might actually be a fairly reasonable statement.
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Yes. I mean, I think that if you have hospitals and medical facilities who are working hand in glove with birth tourism consultants, should those hospitals and medical facilities, uh, suffer some kind of a punishment?
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Well, yeah, I think that they should because they're engaged in helping subvert American law. So yes,
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I think there should be some, and maybe that there, and maybe there is, I don't know. Now what's interesting is, is he, he, he implies, and I think he implies correctly.
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He talks about these hospitals and medical facilities that work hand in glove with birth tourism consultants.
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Uh, and, and by going after the hospitals and medical facilities, it would also tend to suppress the birth tourism consultants too.
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Yeah. I think that that's a true statement. I would agree with that. So, I mean, I, I think that that's not an unreasonable thing that he says.
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One of the things that's interesting though is he doesn't ever talk about the fact that the U .S. government has gone pretty aggressively after some of the birth tourism consultants.
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In fact, there was a big bust about a year and a half back or so. There was a, uh, she was a
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Chinese national. Her last name was, was Li, L -I, and she was running a pretty substantial ring and she ended up having to forfeit a, um, a very expensive house and several luxury vehicles.
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And she was fined a substantial amount of money. And I believe she was also put in jail as well for running this, this, this ring.
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And if you look at the, the Trump administration's rule that they, they gave giving some additional, um, definitions to birth tourism and giving the, the, the, the rule that this
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Christopher Richardson's complaining about, if you read through it, you're actually fine that the, um, the people who wrote the rule cited that case with that, that Lee case quite a bit in there, uh, as, as the basis for, uh, for the reason for creating the new rule.
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So there is a legal enforcement that does go on and there are a birth tourism consultants who do get busted.
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That was just one example of it. So Richardson continues here, but if Trump's true goal is to tighten the restrictions on birthright citizenship and a piece of supporters, he should seek a constitutional amendment like Ireland did in 2004, even it is notoriously difficult process.
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Well, that is, is the opinion of some scholars. I mean, if you think that the, the 14th amendment really does give birthright citizenship to everybody who is born here, then, then yeah, you would need to have a constitutional amendment.
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As I said earlier, there are classes of persons who are not covered by the 14th amendment.
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So really the, the question becomes, and there are many people, um, who, whose judgment
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I trust to know Ron Paul has talked about this, for example, that, you know, that, that say, you know, it's a question of, of application and the fact that the children, uh, of diplomats who are born on us soil are not
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U .S. citizenship, considered U .S. citizens, I think really undermines the argument that, that Richard seems to be putting forth that the 14th amendment applies to, you know, the, you know, absolutely applies to the, the children of, uh, of parents who come here as, uh, for birth tourism.
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I don't think that it does. I think that you could, I think that, I think that the language of the 14th amendment suggests that it does, in fact, does not apply to them.
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But again, that's kind of getting into a legal argument. It's not my point here to do so, but I think
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Richardson, I think one of the reasons why he's, he's banging the table so hard about a constitutional amendment is because he knows it's extraordinarily difficult to do that.
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And he probably doesn't really think he's making much of a concession. He's probably thinks in his own mind that that's impossible to do.
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Anyway, Richardson goes on, he makes an interesting point here. He says Ireland eliminated the automatic right to citizenship for anyone born there.
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And in most cases requires foreign national parents to prove a genuine link to Ireland based on residency before a child born there can be considered a citizen.
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Well, yeah, I think that that's entirely sensible. There should be a genuine link to the country. I mean, a lot of times, you know, what's, let's say, give an example.
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Say some wealthy parents from China come to the United States for the purpose of giving birth here. They have a child here on US soil, get on an airplane, maybe a few days later, fly back to China.
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Now, it's entirely possible that that child and those, those parents never come to the
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United States again for decades. Now, that child doesn't have any ties, any genuine link to the
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United States, other than the fact that maybe he was born in a hospital in LA somewhere. I mean, that's not a genuine link to the
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United States. There's no constructive interest in the United States. I think that's the rule, the term that's used in the revised
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Trump or the new rule that was put forth by the Trump administration. They don't have any genuine interest in the
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United States. The people who came here simply, essentially, to take advantage of a loophole in American law.
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And that child is no more an American citizen than if he had been born in Beijing.
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So, Richardson continues here, and he says, instead of coming up with an actual solution to birth tourism, Trump has chosen to use government agents to circumvent the law and satisfy his base.
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Now, that's quite a way to wrap up his argument here. Instead of coming up with an actual solution to birth tourism, well,
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I mean, the ruling by the Trump administration, this new rule, it doesn't solve every problem with birth tourism, but it's actually a fairly tightly targeted rule.
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And I think it's actually a smart way to go about things. Instead of trying to solve everything all at once, what's been done here is a rule that's been passed that solves part of the problem.
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Now, I would like to see a lot more done on this front, and hopefully, by passing this rule that makes it harder for women to come to the
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United States solely for the purpose of giving birth, I'd like to see more done.
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But this is a good start, and it will prevent some people from doing this.
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They've raised the bar. They've added barriers to prevent people from engaging in birth tourism.
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And I'm sure that people will still do it, but I'd say there's probably a pretty good chance that you have fewer.
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So I think it is an actual solution. So I do not agree with to think that somehow it's this bogus nonsense.
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He said it's not. And he goes on to say, Trump's chosen to use government agents to circumvent the law.
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No, he has not. That is a flat -out lie. Again, Christopher Richardson likes to put light for darkness and darkness for light.
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He's not using you as government agents to circumvent the law. They have this ruling. They have this rule.
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And they're ordered, the conservationists are ordered to abide by it. It's a legitimate rule.
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It's not a circumvision of the law. It's a legitimate lawful rule that's been set forth by the
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State Department. And it's absurd for Richardson to even try to argue that way.
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And then he concludes that Trump did this to satisfy his base. Well, you know what? As part of Trump's base, and I voted for Donald Trump, yeah,
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I'm happy about it. I'm glad that he did what he did. That's a good thing. It's a good start.
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Now, there's a lot more that needs to be done, but this is a good rule. But here's the thing. It's not just about satisfying his base.
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And this is what people like Richardson never seem to grasp. This is good for the United States.
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You know, there's no legitimate reason why we should be granting American citizenship to children who just happen to be born here, regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.
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So that's nonsense. And I've argued this elsewhere, and I'm not going to go into the argument right now, but I've argued this elsewhere, that if you look at the
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Bible, that the Bible's requirement, that is,
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I think it's consistent with what the scriptures teach to require that at least one parent have
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American citizenship before a child born here is actually considered an American citizen. You can find the arguments for this in the scriptures.
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It's also very nicely summarized in certain portions of the Westminster standards as well.
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And I did talk about that. There's an article I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It was titled, what was the title?
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Birth Tourism Reform, a Win for Immigration Sanity. And I actually went into some detail about the rule and some of the reasons why it is consistent with what scripture teaches.
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But anyway, I'll put that link in the show notes. That's about all I have for today. So thanks very much for listening.
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I really do appreciate that. And I hope you got something out of this podcast. Until next time, may the spirit of truth guide you in all truth.