When H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, reaches the floor at the vote promised before July 4, cast your vote to pass it. The Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling guaranteed automatic citizenship to every child born on U.S. soil — including, as Justice Thomas warned in dissent, “a child of an alien enemy or a child of a foreign spy,” and even children “raised in foreign countries” who “join foreign armies, and fight wars against the United States.” The executive branch can no longer stop it, and the citizenship rule itself cannot be changed overnight.

Justice Alito drove the danger home: a child born here to a birth-tourist mother from a hostile nation, raised abroad to despise this country, remains a U.S. citizen who can travel the world on an American passport. No president can undo that, but Congress can make the system far harder to exploit. H.R. 2 would end catch-and-release, close the asylum and parole loopholes, criminalize visa overstays, and mandate E-Verify — securing the border and the enforcement system so fewer people are ever positioned to abuse it. It would also lock today’s progress into permanent law, beyond the reach of an administration that could otherwise reverse it with the stroke of a pen. Please pass it.

Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA

Sent to:
Jay Obernolte