Q. 62. What is the visible church?
A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.
– Westminster Larger Catechism
Last week it was announced that the U.S. State Department had adopted a new rule governing the issuance of category B nonimmigrant visas. The rule, which took effect on Friday, Jan. 24, is aimed at reducing birth tourism. Birth tourism is the practice of expectant mothers traveling to the United States to give birth on U.S. soil for the purpose of acquiring American citizenship for their children.
For those of us who have advocated for reform of America’s disastrous immigration laws in a way that protects the legitimate interest of American citizens, this was a welcomed, if limited, victory. It is a welcomed victory in that, in the words of the State Department document outlining the ruling, “This rule will help prevent operators in the birth tourism industry from profiting off treating U.S. citizenship as a commodity, sometimes through potentially criminal acts…” It is a limited victory in that it leaves open the larger, more important question, of birthright citizenship. Specifically, the question of to whom birthright citizenship properly applies.
In the opinion of this author, birthright citizenship properly applies only to children born to parents, either both, or at least one of them, possessing American citizenship. The notion that a child can rightfully acquire American citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, is foreign both to the Bible and, in the view of this author, to the Constitution.