In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAZETTE) talks about his opposition to birthright citizenship and why he thinks it s time to end it. He also talks about the dangers of "anchor babies" and their role in the immigration system, and how they contribute to the problem of illegal immigration. He also explains why he believes that the 14th Amendment should be read as a limiting clause in the Constitution and why Congress should not have the power to determine rules for citizenship and naturalization. And finally, he explains why the Supreme Court should be the one to rule on the question of whether or not there is any such thing as a "naturalization" in the United States as a country, and why it should be limited to those born on American soil. Firebrand is a conservative political podcast produced in Washington, D.C., by conservative radio host and radio host Matt Gr unplugged from Room 2021 at the Rayburn House Office Building in the Capitol Complex in Washington. Subscribe to Firebrand Radio and listen to every new episode of Firebrand wherever you get your favorite radio station on the airwaves. If you like what you listen, share it on your social media platforms, and share it with a friend or become a supporter of the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you re listening, we'll be looking for your voice messages. Thanks for listening and support Firebrand! Subscribe, share, and spread the word to your friends about this firebrand podcast! Timestamps: 1:00 - The Firebrand Revolution! 2:00 3: 4:30 - What's your thoughts on Birthright Citizenship? 5:00 | Birthright citizenship? 6:40 - What does it mean to you? 7:50 - What are you would you like to see in the future of the Constitution? 8:15 - What is a naturalization law? 9:30 | What is the definition of naturalization? 11:30 12:15 | What does the Constitution mean? 13:10 - What would you want? 15:40 | What s your answer? 16:40 17: What s the limiting clause? 18:10 | What's the best way to be a naturalized citizen? 19:10 21:00 -- What is your definition of a naturalizer? 22:30 -- What are your definition?
00:04:51.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:59.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:05:01.000He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:05:04.000So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
00:05:08.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:05:44.000We're broadcasting live out of room 2021 in the Rayburn House office building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And what a week it is set to be here in Washington.
00:05:54.000We've got a big hearing on UFOs coming up tomorrow.
00:05:58.000We've got Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
00:06:03.000Before the House Judiciary Committee, we've got tough questions about the state of our border and really the doctrine that That Biden, Harris, and Mayorkas have put in place to ensure that if people show up on our border and they've got any sort of sad song that is pre-baked by some NGO, they get to come to the country.
00:06:38.000We ought to end birthright citizenship as we currently know it because birthright citizenship by fraud has started to predominate in a few areas and in a few industries.
00:07:04.000How have millions of illegal aliens managed to cross our borders illegally and break our laws?
00:07:10.000Remember, unlawful entry into the country is a crime.
00:07:13.000It's not one we ever prosecute with any force or deterrent effect, but it is a crime.
00:07:19.000Anchor babies on our soil create this indefinite sanctuary for the parent.
00:07:26.000And that doesn't really make sense with a coordinated, organized immigration system either.
00:07:31.000So an erroneous interpretation of the 14th Amendment has found its way into the Immigration and Nationality Act and is now the law of the land.
00:07:40.000That's why I've introduced the End Birthright Citizenship Fraud Act of 2023 to To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to reflect the original intent of the drafters of the 14th Amendment.
00:07:54.000The 14th Amendment reads, All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.
00:08:07.000Insanely, and against the wishes of many of the drafters of the 14th Amendment, the powers that be have interpreted it to give citizenship to virtually every human born on American soil.
00:08:19.000This is not a standard that is largely recognized in the modern world.
00:08:24.000And in America, the key limiting term, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, has been totally cast to the wayside and disregarded despite the Supreme Court having never ruled that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone other than children born to lawful permanent residence.
00:08:46.000They haven't really ruled on the meaning of the clause, particularly subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
00:08:51.000So despite what you may have heard about this unqualified birthright citizenship, it's not ensconced in the 14th Amendment.
00:08:59.000At least the Supreme Court has never said that it is.
00:09:01.000is, and I'm confident that if they did rule on the subject, they would find that subject to the jurisdiction thereof is a limiting clause.
00:09:11.000If it weren't in the 14th Amendment, a greater group of people would have access to this birthright citizenship, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof is clearly a limiting clause, meaning that only those subject to the jurisdiction of the United States would be granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment. meaning that only those subject to the jurisdiction of the Those not covered Are at the mercy of Congress, whether you like it or not.
00:09:35.000And we as the Congress have every right to exercise power to determine rules for citizenship and naturalization.
00:09:41.000After all, Congress has this power in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, which says, quote, To establish a uniform rule of naturalization.
00:09:52.000That is the statement of the rule in the Constitution as to Congress' powers over this area.
00:09:58.000So what does the phrase, subject to this jurisdiction thereof, mean when it comes to the 14th Amendment?
00:10:04.000It is a legal term of art, and it was understood by the drafters of the 14th Amendment to have its basis in English common law.
00:10:13.000So we have to go back now and analyze what that English common law educates us on.
00:10:19.000So the earliest known case, to articulate this in England, it was agreed that statuses of subject and alien to different things, a binary choice, that those were determined by whether a person was born owing an allegiance to the sovereign.
00:10:37.000That actually kind of makes sense in old world England.
00:10:39.000Whether a person at birth is under the allegiance and obedience to the sovereign is not determined by whether The operative question is whether or not the parent is present in the territory lawfully,
00:11:00.000permanently, not only voluntarily availing himself to the jurisdiction thereof, but doing so with the explicit consent of the sovereign.
00:11:12.000Senator Howard, when proposing this language to be included in the 14th Amendment, made reference to these English common law concepts.
00:11:20.000He clarified his intent that citizenship should not be conveyed to everyone born or present in the United States when he stated, quote, This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers, a credit to the United States government, but will include every other class of persons.
00:11:45.000Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not owing an allegiance to any other country.
00:11:56.000Owing an allegiance to the United States and being subject to its complete jurisdiction means not subject to any foreign power, and it excludes those only temporarily present in the country, whether lawfully or unlawfully.
00:12:10.000The 14th Amendment's framers intended to give citizenship only to those who owed their allegiance to the United States and were subject to its complete jurisdiction.
00:12:20.000Primarily, newly freed slaves would qualify.
00:12:23.000They were lawful, permanent residents.
00:12:27.000The 1866 Civil Rights Act further clarified that the 14th Amendment did not apply to temporary visitors or those who remained the citizen or subject of a parent's home country.
00:12:40.000When it stated, You notice the exclusionary language in that declaration.
00:12:56.000American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1942, which would have been redundant if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person in the United States, no matter what the circumstances of the birth of their parent.
00:13:13.000You wouldn't even have needed the Indian Naturalization Act if the version of the 14th Amendment that the broad birthright citizenship Lobby supports were in fact the operative thinking around what that term meant and what the legal consequences were.
00:13:31.000So it's clear the unqualified birthright citizenship has never been the intent of the 14th Amendment.
00:13:37.000Our country is suffering under this absurd interpretation now.
00:13:41.000There's not a serious country on earth that would allow open borders and then grant citizenship to the children of every alien that decided to creep into the territory.
00:13:52.000And it's time that Congress got serious about fixing this problem.
00:13:55.000It's why I've introduced the legislation to end birthright citizenship by fraud.
00:14:01.000Illegal immigrants right now are crossing our borders, they're having kids, and they're staying for life, taking advantage of chain migration to bring over relatives.
00:14:12.000Some of this birthright citizenship by fraud that occurs on the U.S.-Mexico border Results in the person having a child in the United States, moving back to Mexico where it's cheaper to live, and then sending their kids across the border every day to attend American schools, get benefits under America's social services, and taking advantage of American taxpayers by crowding out Americans.
00:14:41.000If you haven't heard that term, get used to it.
00:14:43.000It was really an exploding feature of the black market where people come in on temporary visas to have their babies in order to take advantage of our immigration laws.
00:14:55.000This black market is rampant in US territories particularly, with more births going on every year to foreign visitors than to the native-born residents in some of those places.
00:15:36.000Tell them to vote for the End Birthright Citizenship by Fraud Act of 2023. And if we do this, maybe we can restore some sanity to this crazy place.
00:16:23.000Tons of loose, unpackaged marijuana washed onto shore, enough to cover parts of the shoreline near Florida Boulevard.
00:16:30.000Brian Kruse says it looked like a scene out of a TV show.
00:16:34.000You know, watching shows, I don't know from personal experience, but watching shows, I mean, if it had been all put together compacted, it probably would have been like probably 5 or 10 pounds.
00:16:43.000Neptune Beach Police Department posted these photos on Facebook, warning people not to try and pick it up or take it home.
00:16:49.000It looks a lot like sargasm, so it's easy to confuse.
00:16:53.000But Zach West just knew something was off when he looked at it.
00:17:00.000I mean, I did pick it up and smell and see what it's going like, and it was sweet, so I was like, okay, that's kind of crazy.
00:17:05.000Once he confirmed that it's Beach Bud, his mom called 911. But me and my mom were kind of concerned just because, you know, they're babies and they get it.
00:17:14.000Nowadays, you know, they lace it with fentanyl and so they could have picked it up and there could have been fentanyl on it and baby just dropped dead.
00:17:39.000So this has been a part of the Florida lore for decades.
00:17:39.000So this has been a part of the Florida lore for decades.
00:17:42.000What happens, the growers of marijuana who are often outside the country, oftentimes in the Caribbean or in the Sinaloa Mountains, they then utilize small planes to go and drop bales offshore with tracking devices, homing devices.
00:17:58.000And then oftentimes late at night, maybe it's a fisherman looking to make a little extra money.
00:18:03.000Maybe it's just a smuggler with a pleasure craft.
00:18:06.000They go out and pick up these bales and bring them onto shore where they're loaded onto cars and trucks, sometimes even rail, and distributed.
00:18:14.000So we used to call these the square grouper.
00:18:18.000You know, people would see the large square bale.
00:18:21.000And if folks in Florida in the 1970s, 1980s ever said they were going grouper fishing...
00:18:29.000A question they would sometimes get is whether that was for square grouper, and if it was, well, they were not in the business of catching the traditional type of fish that you and I would eat.
00:18:39.000The serious point to be made here is that we are seeing an increase in the utilization of the Florida Straits for illicit behavior.
00:18:45.000Go back and watch the Don't Haiti My Florida episode, where we chronicled what we learned from the Coast Guard About the Florida Straits being used to move people, being used to move drugs, and while there's an intense amount of focus on what's going on in the southwest border,
00:19:00.000which there should be because that affects every state, in Florida we have unique vulnerabilities and I think we need to have a unique law enforcement presence, a strategy, utilization of technology to ensure that we are not vulnerable to cartels utilizing our beautiful, permissive beaches for otherwise malign activity.
00:19:21.000The next story I want to talk to you about is one of tragedy at the Obama residence in Martha's Vineyard where the chef for the Obamas has drowned.
00:19:30.000According to the Daily Mail, Tafari Campbell, a personal chef for the Obamas, died in a paddleboarding accident at their Martha's Vineyard estate.
00:19:41.000He had previously worked in the White House during the Bush presidency and continued with the Obamas after they left office.
00:19:47.000Campbell had been working for the Obama family for 14 years, first in the White House and then privately.
00:19:53.000And this tragic incident occurred when Campbell was apparently paddleboarding It is unclear who Campbell was with at the time of the accident.
00:20:07.000A 911 call describes Campbell as wearing all black and not wearing a life jacket, which...
00:20:14.000It's just an odd detail that somebody on a paddleboard in the middle of a pond wouldn't be wearing a life jacket.
00:20:21.000It remains unclear whether Campbell suffered any kind of medical episode while on the board.
00:20:26.000Additionally, the Obamas stated that they were not home at the time of the accident.
00:20:30.000They later clarified that they were on Martha's Vineyard.
00:20:33.000They were on the island, just not at their residence.
00:20:35.000Campbell's wife, Sharice, expressed her grief on Instagram, stating that her heart is broken and their family's life is forever changed.
00:20:47.000Users on social media are pointing to a video...
00:20:50.000of Campbell previously swimming in a pool saying it was strange how a guy swimming in a pool would drown in eight feet of water in a pond where you wouldn't see the type of current that might otherwise take down a strong swimmer.
00:21:05.000Now it's important to note for context, in this video he's swimming in a very controlled setting, shallow water, lifeguards nearby, Certainly not out of the ordinary for someone with minimal swimming skills to be able to swim in that type of a setting while still finding a tragic fate somewhere else.
00:21:21.000We certainly send our thoughts, our wishes, our prayers, and our heartfelt condolences to all those that are impacted by this tragedy and particularly the family members of the deceased.
00:21:35.000Oddly, Hillary Clinton's former chef died in a drowning as well.
00:21:40.000Former White House chef Walter Scheib, 61, accidentally drowned in New Mexico, presumably on a fishing trip in 2015. He was last seen Saturday, June 13, before he We're good to go.
00:22:08.000Mountain drainage ditched and there was flowing surface runoff indicating that the cause of death was a drowning.
00:22:15.000Scheib was a former White House chef for 11 years under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
00:22:19.000He did not tell anyone where he was going when he went to the trail, but a lot of folks believed he had gone there to fish.
00:22:25.000Certainly an odd turn of events and a tragic one.
00:22:30.000We are glad that something else making the news right now did not end in tragedy.
00:22:34.000Everywhere on the internet right now we're seeing that Bronny James, the son of LeBron James, suffered a cardiac arrest while working out with the USC basketball team.
00:22:43.000He was taken to a hospital and it sounds like things were dire.
00:22:46.000He's in stable condition now, which we're certainly grateful for, but it really does.
00:22:53.000Do we have the picture of this young man, Sasha, we could put up?
00:23:09.000Goes off to USC. Is likely what they call in the NBA a one-and-done player.
00:23:16.000One year in college and then immediately to the pros.
00:23:18.000And LeBron James in a lot of interviews has been pretty candid that one of his life goals is to play in the NBA alongside his son.
00:23:26.000I don't know if that's ever happened before.
00:23:28.000Certainly when you look at how elite of an athlete you have to be in today's NBA, the ability for a father-son duo to team up at all, much less be effective, really defies the odds.
00:23:40.000But you look at the choices LeBron James has made Regarding his own physical fitness, keeping himself in shape, managing his workload to be able to play with his son.
00:23:50.000You look at Ronnie James, who probably has had the benefit of the greatest tutor and teacher you could ever imagine in LeBron.
00:23:58.000A physical specimen and to see something so sudden around the heart for someone in their teens is certainly something that is hard to watch because you don't typically associate that type of an ailment with someone that is in the peak human physical condition.
00:24:21.000We saw it with Buffalo Bills defensive back, Damar Hamlin.
00:24:25.000We've seen it with Sergio Aguero, Christian Erickson, soccer players who had cardiac issues.
00:24:34.000One had to be resuscitated at the pitch.
00:24:37.000Others have had to make different career choices.
00:24:40.000We also saw it happen with Damar Hamlin.
00:24:42.000So whatever it is that is ailing these young men In near perfect physical condition, we hope it's something that's resolved, but it's something we're certainly going to pay a good deal of attention to.
00:24:55.000As we typically do, we're going to take a look at an incident going on in the world right now.
00:24:59.000Many of you know that I've been a strong advocate to get the United States out of the conflict in Syria.
00:25:07.000Our reason for being in Syria has largely With changing geopolitical circumstances.
00:25:13.000And the point I've made over and over about Syria is that with Iran there, with Russia there, with a lot of great power competition playing out in this very small desert country, there is a high probability for escalatory accident.
00:25:29.000We do not want to see World War III break out over some sand dune in Syria.
00:25:36.000The United States Department of Defense has recently released declassified information where a Russian jet harassed an MQ-9 Predator drone from the United States.
00:25:46.000It was flying and here, if you're watching, you can see this is the Russian jet approaching the drone and it gets very close.
00:25:55.000And thereafter actually gets in front of the drone and deploys a series of flares.
00:26:00.000One of those flares ends up striking the propeller of the drone and causing damage to it.
00:26:09.000You've got a lot of activity going on there, and you can only imagine if instead of a drone that had been some sort of manned system, what could have possibly occurred and what that could have started for the sake of the world, certainly for the worse.
00:26:23.000I don't know what we're trying to win in Syria.
00:26:25.000I don't know why it's worth bumping around Russian aircraft in this place in the Middle East.
00:26:30.000And I certainly think that wiser heads should prevail.
00:26:33.000The last time we had a vote on this question, I only had a couple dozen Republicans hang with me.
00:26:38.000A great many more of them wanted to keep a national emergency in place that gaslights a lot of your money to Syria and certainly undergirds the argument that we have to continue to maintain some sort of military presence there.
00:26:52.000Those who tell you we do, I think, adhere to a more neoconservative theory that I think has largely resulted in misadventures for our country, and we can make sounder decisions going forward.
00:27:12.000If you've got suggestions for questions you want to see me ask, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, leave them in the comments.
00:27:21.000I crowdsource questions a good amount going into these.
00:27:24.000And on the UFOs as well, my colleagues on Apolino Luna, Tim Burchett, Jared Moskowitz are all teaming up for a bipartisan briefing about some of these.
00:27:33.000I guess now they're not UFOs, they're UAPs, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.