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Levin: Paul Ryan was dead wrong on birthright citizenship. Here's how

Levin: Paul Ryan was dead wrong on birthright citizenship. Here's how

Tuesday on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin ripped Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., for his response to President Trump's statement that he plans to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship.

Ryan claimed the 14th Amendment creates the birthright citizenship and that therefore such an executive order would be unconstitutional.

"There's been no law passed that conveys birthright citizenship onto illegal aliens. There's been no Supreme Court decision that definitively confers birthright citizenship onto illegal alien children. Nobody's a hundred percent certain how this came to be. But everybody seems to be a hundred percent certain that the president can't fix it. ... Well, does the Constitution confer birthright citizenship on the children of illegal aliens? Of course it doesn't!"

Listen:

Levin replayed a clip from his show in 2015, in which he laid out the stated purpose of the 14th Amendment and read Senator Jacob Howard's explanation.

"'This will not of course include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens ... but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship.' ... Is it not plain English? Is he not as clear as can be that it does not include aliens, it does not include foreigners. ... The republican basis for citizenship is consent! Consent of the country! You can't self-immigrate. You can't claim jurisdiction because you happen to walk into the United States."

"What is the bottom line here? Let's number this: They wanted to make certain that former slaves would be treated as citizens of the United States, because certain states were still resistant. ... They exempted Indians, because Indians still, certainly back then, were often considered citizens of particular tribes. But these actually were very forward-looking individuals. They specifically excluded aliens and foreigners."


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