Sen. Schmitt says Supreme Court misinterpreted birthright citizenship, outlines fix
By Daily Caller News Foundation (/journals/dcnf)
Republican Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt unveiled his plan to fix the country’s broken laws governing immigration — both legal and illegal — as well as the one issue on which both parties appear to agree.
Schmitt called the Supreme Court’s June decision that President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order was unconstitutional a “ridiculous interpretation” of the Constitution in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF). The GOP lawmaker discussed why he has been especially active on the issue in recent weeks and laid out what his fellow legislators can do to ensure the Constitution is interpreted as its framers intended.
The 6-3 Trump v. Barbara decision “misinterpreted the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act [of 1866] that followed after the Civil War, which were meant to make sure that the children of former slaves were indeed full-fledged citizens,” the senator told the DCNF.
“That was the right thing to do,” he added, emphasizing that this was the “purpose” of establishing birthright citizenship in the country. “It certainly didn’t mean, nor was it contemplated, that you could come here from China, give birth, leave a week later, and then have a child raised in the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], come back on their 18th birthday, and run for office or contribute to political campaigns and be a citizen just like somebody who spent their whole life here.”
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Schmitt has proposed a constitutional amendment to address this practice, widely described as “birth tourism.” The senator’s proposed amendment, “among other things, would restore the scope of birthright citizenship to only the children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents,” according to a June 30 press release from his office, the day the Barbara ruling was handed down.
Two weeks after the Court’s decision, Schmitt introduced the American Citizenship Act, which also seeks to accomplish this same goal.
The senator also pointed out Justice Brett Kavanaugh laid out a “statutory fix” to the problem in his concurring opinion in the Barbara case. The justice argued Trump’s executive order, while violating the Immigration and Nationality Act, did not run afoul of the 14th Amendment.
“A statutory fix that Justice Kavanaugh kind of laid out — which is to make clear that the language should be not subject to a foreign power — it’s just kind of a technical issue, but it’s what the authors of the 14th Amendment meant,” Schmitt told the DCNF. “I think the Supreme Court got it wrong so we’re working on that.”
The Court, however, also made it clear in the Barbara decision that children of foreign diplomats are not “automatically citizens if they’re born here,” he continued.
“This is pretty obvious to folks because they are subject to foreign power,” Schmitt noted. “So, we believe that there’s lots of children of current diplomats or previous diplomats that have been conferred citizenship. We want the secretary of state to take a look at that to address that issue now that the Supreme Court spoke clearly on that as well.”
The senator urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to take immediate action to investigate the extent of illegal grants of citizenship documentation to foreign diplomats’ children” in a July 16 letter.
Schmitt also told the DCNF about his work to both crack down on illegal immigration and reign in so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities to apprehend criminal illegal aliens.
The Republican noted that, in the reconciliation bill Trump signed in June to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he successfully fought for a provision providing “$350 million for ICE agents to actually be able to arrest criminally illegal aliens as they’re being released from prison.”
“Right now, sanctuary jurisdictions across this country don’t tell ICE or federal law enforcement when a child rapist who’s here illegally is being released from prison. It’s totally insane,” Schmitt told the DCNF. “And so, I think that’s a big deliverable for the American people who want American sovereignty. They want to enforce our immigration laws.”
“The Democrats have stood in the way,” he added. “But that was a big win that we got. And I think you’re going to start seeing more and more deportations because of that.”
Schmitt introduced the Protect America Act in February which seeks to permanently end sanctuary cities and the practice of “catch-and-release,” as well as impose penalties for people who interfere with immigration enforcement operations. It also seeks to revoke the tax-exempt status of any non-governmental organization “that promotes, incites, or provides material support for criminal violence.”
The Missouri Republican chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution and served as Missouri attorney general before winning election to the upper Congressional chamber in 2022.
In addition to his multiple bills addressing immigration, the senator is also working to fix an American institution enjoyed by millions across state and party lines: college sports.
Schmitt told the DCNF that the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act, which he is cosponsoring, “is aimed at protecting a really uniquely American thing.”
“I love it. I got to play. I watch it. I’m a fan and I’m in a position now to work with colleagues to try to address some of the challenges that that are facing college athletics,” he said. “If you would have asked me a few years ago if Congress, like our government, should be involved in this, I would have been very, very skeptical.”
Schmitt starred as a two-sport athlete at Truman State University in northern Missouri, playing both college baseball and football. In June, he was named Most Valuable Player of the 2026 Congressional Baseball Game, helping lead the Republican team to a blowout 11-2 victory.
“But the truth is, because of what’s happened in litigation and court cases over the last ten years, the NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] or any governing body really can’t make or enforce any rules,” Schmitt continued. “It’s why you see people getting seven years of eligibility or these unlimited transfers that happen every six months. It’s really created a lot of challenges in the system.”
He added that Congress “is the only entity on the planet that can provide the antitrust protection to the NCAA or some other body to make the rules and enforce them.”
According to its official summary, the bill “establishes requirements for name, image, or likeness (NIL) agreements for college student athletes and provides a limited antitrust exemption for schools and conferences to pool and sell certain college sports media rights.”
Schmitt said at the July 17 Associated Press Sports Editors meeting that he and his fellow co-sponsors “probably” have the requisite 60 votes to pass the bipartisan legislation through the Senate and avoid a filibuster.
“Part of the reason why we’ve got to do this is because college football for a long time was how universities sort of made the money to subsidize all the other non-revenue sports: the women’s sports, Olympic sports,” he told the DCNF. “Even men’s sports, like baseball, they don’t really generate revenue, but they’re important opportunities for student athletes. And so if a school’s losing money on the college football program or spending all their money on their college football program, they’re just not going to be able to subsidize those other sports.”
“They’re going to start dropping those sports. They’ll be club sports. You’ll have hundreds of thousands of fewer scholarships out there for student athletes,” the senator explained.
He noted that there are currently about half a million student athletes in the U.S.
“So, this is a very uniquely American system that allows us to compete in the Olympics. It helps build leaders while they’re in school,” Schmitt said. “And we want to protect that, which is why we’re working really hard in a bipartisan way to get something done here.”
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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.