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A reporter in New Hampshire asked Donald Trump this past Wednesday why he used the term "anchor baby" to describe babies born to illegals in the US. He noted that Trump has said he has a big heart and is not mean-spirited.
"Don't you know that's an offensive term," the reporter asked?
Trump responded, "You mean it's not politically correct." And asked, "What term would you use?"
The reporter suggested, "The American born [children] of undocumented immigrants."
Trump responded.
The conversation also raised the bigger question on the minds of many of us.
Does the Constitution actually provide automatic US citizenship for "anchor babies?"
And is illegal immigration and sanctuary cities biblical?
After hearing the reporter's alternate definition, Trump responded with, "I'll use the words 'anchor baby'."
But there are bigger questions than terminology.
Does the 14th Amendment actually say if you're born here you are a citizen?
And what does the Bible say about the sovereignty of nations---and specifically immigration?
Last Tuesday night I heard Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly yelling at Donald Trump saying, "Surely you know that the 14th Amendment says anchor babies are US citizens." "Period."
Author Ann Coulter, a frequent guest on Fox News, was also watching.
Wednesday she wrote, "As FNC's Bill O'Reilly authoritatively informed Donald Trump on Tuesday night: "The 14th Amendment says if you're born here, you're an American." "Period."
She asks, "How could anyone---even a not-very-bright-person---imagine that granting citizenship to children of illegal aliens is actually in our Constitution?"
Fox News later had Judge Andrew Napolitano "explain" why anchor babies are citizens. He said it was to "make certain that the former slaves and the native Americans would be recognized as American citizens no matter what kind of prejudice there might be against them."
This is not completely true.
If true, why then, in 1884, 16 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, a native American, had to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he was an American citizen because he was born in the United States? (Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94)
He lost the case. The Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship, even though they may have been born here.
The Supreme Court explained that the 14th Amendment "was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free Negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black...should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside."
This became precedent.
In the 1967 case, Afroyim v. Rusk, Justice John Marshall wrote that the sponsors of the 14th Amendment feared that: "Unless citizenship were defined, freedmen might, under the reasoning of the Dred Scott decision, be excluded by the courts from the scope of the amendment. It was agreed that since 'the courts have stumbled on the subject,' it would be prudent to 'remove the doubt' thrown over it. The clause would essentially overrule Dred Scott and place beyond question the freemen's right to citizenship because of birth."
In a divided case in 1898 (US v Wong Kim Ark), the Supreme Court granted citizenship to the children born to "legal" immigrants, with certain exceptions, such as for diplomats. The legal community went berserk, including Yale Law Review, insisting the decision was not constitutional.
The anchor baby scam was invented 30 years ago by liberal, secular progressive activist Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He slipped a footnote into a 1982 Supreme Court opinion announcing that kids born to illegal's on US soil are citizens.
This is where the intent of the 14th Amendment was inverted.
Brennan's "oh by the way" comment has since been used by progressives intent on undermining the institutions of our country---particularly those intent on eliminating our borders.
Secular progressives generally support the idea of a one-world government, one-world economic system and feel a one-world religion would solve most social problems.
Thomas Jefferson's reassurance to the Danbury Baptists that there is a wall that protects the church from the intrusion of the state is another example of how the progressive left inverts our founding documents, undermines liberty and attacks religious freedom.
Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is America's most cited federal judge. In 2003 he wrote asking Congress to pass a law to stop "awarding citizenship to everyone born in the United States."
He said the purpose of the 14th Amendment was "to grant citizenship to the recently freed slaves." He added that "Congress would not be flouting the Constitution" if it passed a law "to put an end to the nonsense."
A number of legal scholars and professors agree that the concept of "anchor babies" is not constitutional, and have written extensively on the subject.
For more on the subject, read Professor Edward Erler from Cal State University and The Claremont Institute, Professor Thomas West from Hillsdale College and Professor Lino Graglia from University of Texas Law School.
Among those seeking to weaken, if not remove our borders, is the leadership of the religious left.
What does the Bible say about borders and illegal immigration?
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What about borders and national sovereignty?
Certainly Christians are called to be compassionate and merciful toward immigrants.
However, that is not the question before our nation today. The question concerns illegal immigration.
The question is whether it is wrong to violate a nation's borders and transgress its immigration laws?
The religious left often quote Romans 13:1-7 as a basis for sanctuary cities and essentially open borders.
There is no question that God expects people to obey the laws of the government. The only exception is when a law of the government forces us to disobey a command of God (Acts 5:29).
There is nothing in Scripture that contradicts the idea of a sovereign nation having immigration laws, in fact, God ordained national sovereignty .
Therefore it is rebellion against God to unlawfully enter another country.
Illegal immigration is sin---allowing it is not an act of compassion, but a facilitating of sin.
Romans 13 does not give permission to violate a law just because it may be seen by some as unjust.
Sanctuary cities and illegal immigration is not biblically acceptable, nor is it an act of compassion as the religious left insists.
National borders was instituted by God. In Genesis 11, God Himself instituted nation states as a response to a united effort to usurp His role by creating a united, borderless global community and a universal religion.
What was wrong at the time of the Tower of Babel is what's wrong today.
God instituted national sovereignty.
The religious left misleads Christians and Christian churches using familiar biblical references about "strangers" and "aliens" (Lev. 19:33-34; Ex. 22:21; Ex. 23:9) and applying them to our present immigration crises.
On the radio today, I'm taking a closer look at this and other misleading statements coming from the religious left. Although the motive may be right, the message is wrong. And destructive.
Join me at 9 AM PDT live, and rebroadcast at 7:30 PM PDT. Here's how to join me from anywhere in the world.
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.