Birthright Citizenship Must Be Reversed

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The dire consequences of the birthright citizenship decision by the Supreme Court on June 30th are sinking in. It impedes deportation and it gives millions of future votes to the Democrat Party, which is increasingly electing socialist candidates.

Texans had already been in an uproar about foreigners taking over entire communities there. Texans do not want to be subjected to future socialism as voted in by birthright citizens whose parents were illegals or sojourners.

A week after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the backlash in Texas prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to order an investigation into whether “birth tourism” is being encouraged by hospitals there. Birth tourism is foreigners coming to the U.S. to give birth here, and thereby claim birthright citizenship for their children.

Gov. Abbott took action only after several prominent Texas Republicans rebuked the Supreme Court decision and called for Texas to assert its sovereignty by refusing to issue birth certificates to children of foreigners. State Representative Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian), who previously worked in the Trump Administration, demanded that Gov. Abbott call a special session of the legislature to push back against this Court decision.

“I hope every elected Republican in Texas joins my call for immediate action. Delay is unacceptable for a state like Texas!” Rep. Harrison posted on X.

The next Texas Railroad Commissioner, which is one of the most powerful offices because it regulates the oil and gas industries, is Bo French after winning a stunning upset against the establishment candidate. He successfully campaigned against the rise in Islamic culture among migrants into Texas, and he boldly demands that Texas assert its sovereignty against the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.

“The correct response to the traitorous decision today on anchor babies is nullification,” French declared. “Texas can just do things and we should. Texas is sovereign. If I have anything to say about it, Texas will not recognize them as citizens.”

Bo French and Brian Harrison show where the next generation of Texas leaders are headed. Gov. Abbott’s call for an investigation into birth tourism may have been a reaction against the younger, charismatic Bo French, who could run against the aging Abbott for governor one day.

Politicians in D.C. have failed in their initial attempt to downplay this birthright citizenship decision. Proposals in Congress to legislate around this ruling are unlikely to succeed, both because the votes are not there and because the Court declared birthright citizenship to be a constitutional right.

There is a 25-day window for President Trump to seek a rehearing and reconsideration of this erroneous decision by the Supreme Court, which Trump said he would do. The Court has on its own initiative reheard momentous cases in the past, such as the Citizens United case about campaign funding, although it has been more than half a century since the Court has granted a request by a party for a rehearing.

Birthright citizenship is that once-in-a-century issue justifying a rehearing. The harmful impact of this on the sovereignty of Texas and every other State is at stake, just as the notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857 wrongly interfered with States that prohibited slavery.

If the Supreme Court had reconsidered and reversed its Dred Scott decision after seeing the Republican-led backlash against it, then perhaps the lives of 750,000 American soldiers would have been saved by averting the Civil War. The Supreme Court is supposed to act to unite the country, not divide it with a 5-4 decision that invents a new constitutional right for foreigners who are not even domiciled in the USA.

Chief Justice John Roberts seems unlikely to reconsider his pet theories about English feudalism to hand the future of America over to foreigners who will become voters under his decision granting them citizenship. But Justice Amy Barrett, who silently provided the swing 5th vote for Roberts’ ruling, may be willing to listen and reconsider.

A survey just conducted by the Idaho Freedom Caucus, which is a coalition of some of the most conservative legislators in our country, found that stopping illegal immigration remains the #1 issue among the grassroots. This makes the birthright citizenship decision the new equivalent of Roe v. Wade, against which Republicans campaigned for nearly 50 years until the Supreme Court overruled it.

It won’t take that long to overturn this decision that jeopardizes Texas sovereignty. States control the issuance of birth certificates, and as a practical matter they can decide whether to grant one to someone born here to foreign parents as legislation introduced in 2011 in Arizona sought to do.

This argument should resonate with Justice Barrett, who has favored state autonomy on other controversial issues such as the power of states to ban transgender procedures or to protect girls’ sports against intrusion by boys who present themselves as transgender girls.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Supreme Court’s Blunder on Birthright Citizenship

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Supreme Court just blundered badly on birthright citizenship, undermining the credibility of the Court while devaluing American citizenship. By a mere 5-4 majority, the Court declared a new constitutional right to citizenship for millions of children of illegal aliens, tourists, and those on worker visas, which was never intended by anyone who wrote the U.S. Constitution.

This decision suddenly grants a future right to vote to millions of illegal aliens, tilting the outcomes of elections away from the candidates preferred by native-born or naturalized American citizens. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is on the Court only because millions of illegal aliens were not allowed to vote in 2004, wrote a decision that hands the future of the United States over to the children of illegal aliens and other foreign citizens.

The notion that the 14th Amendment, which was ratified nearly 160 years ago in response to the Civil War, somehow requires this result is unfathomable. As Justice Thomas explained in his 91-page dissent, this is another judicial distortion of the meaning of a constitutional amendment whose purpose was “to secure equal rights for the freed blacks.”

No Republican will be electable as president in a decade if this decision stands, because of the millions of children born to illegal aliens allowed in during the Clinton, Obama and Biden Administrations. In Republican states flooded with illegal aliens, such as Arizona and Texas, the voting power of these illegal alien children as newly declared American citizens virtually ensures a future Democrat takeover.

“I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time,” dissented Justice Thomas in his modest style. Justice Alito dissented by observing the Court “confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of ‘birth tourists,’ women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home.”

Now the millions of illegal aliens who have been persuaded by the Trump Administration to return voluntarily home have a strong incentive to stay long enough to give birth to another child. Those children will then automatically have a right to vote in our elections and to legalize their lawbreaking parents.

Roberts’ decision was made possible only by the support of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has repeatedly given a one-vote majority to Roberts’ coalition with the three liberal justices. Barrett seems to cling increasingly to Roberts, perhaps overwhelmed by the liberal D.C. culture while taken in by Roberts’ superficial reasoning.

Dating back to his politically tinged memos as a D.C.-based government attorney in the 1980s, Roberts has always been more interested in politics than scholarship. Roberts just outdid prior liberal judicial activists by diluting the future voting power of all rightful American citizens.

This Court decision devalues American citizenship for all. No longer is citizenship reserved to the children of Americans and those who went through the rigorous process of naturalization, but now it includes anyone born in the United States to a mother who was here illegally or who traveled here for school, work, or tourism.

American citizenship now includes many millions who have no known allegiance to the United States. Many illegal aliens demonstrate their hostility to the values of our country by their criminal conduct and failure to assimilate, but the Supreme Court just prevented deportation of millions of them by declaring them to be citizens.

The response to this needs to be, as to prior calamitous mistakes by the Supreme Court, clear and unequivocal. As the future president Abraham Lincoln stated in his immediate response to the Dred Scott decision in favor of slavery in 1857, “We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to overrule this.”

The Republican Party was built on opposition to the Dred Scott decision, which was decided with a larger majority (7-2) than this birthright citizenship decision. In both cases, the Court went far beyond what was needed to decide the controversy before it, as Justice Kavanaugh pointed out in his concurrence explaining that a 1940 law, which Congress can change, should have been the sole basis for this citizenship decision.

Instead of Justice Kavanaugh’s judicial restraint, the Court’s 5-member majority issued a ruling that only a constitutional amendment can change. Such an amendment on this issue would be nearly impossible, but Congress could deny any appropriations to enforce this decision as Congress did in response to court decisions to remove the Mojave Desert Cross from federal land.

Pew Research reports that American adults (who include non-voters) are evenly divided, 50-49%, on the question of whether illegal immigrants’ children born in the United States should be automatically granted American citizenship. This 49% is greater public support than Republicans have on other topics, and should become a campaign issue.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Can Limit Birthright Citizenship

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

When the first oral argument before the Supreme Court on a Trump policy is held on Thursday, May 15, all eyes will be on the divided nine Justices. Trump has asked the high court to rein in the power of district court judges to issue nationwide or universal injunctions against the president’s policies.

Over 100 temporary or preliminary injunctions have been issued by district judges, most of whom were appointed by Democratic Presidents Biden, Obama, or Clinton. The underlying substantive dispute is over the claim to birthright citizenship by which foreigners who give birth here then assert citizenship based on the location of the childbirth.

Our Founders would be dismayed by the theory that merely being born on U.S. soil is enough to automatically qualify for citizenship. Christians know that Jesus and his 12 Apostles were born in the Roman Empire, yet none was a Roman citizen.

Only Paul among the early Christian disciples was a Roman citizen, which he inherited from his parents who were citizens. Others earned or acquired citizenship, but no one became a Roman citizen merely by being born in the empire.

Within hours of Trump becoming president, he issued an Executive Order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” which clarifies that American citizenship is not bestowed on people simply because they may have been born on American soil. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” Trump stated.

Trump’s brilliant executive order clarifies that children born to a mother unlawfully present in the United States and to a father who was not an American citizen or lawful permanent resident are not entitled to American citizenship. Perhaps those children can become citizens one day as other foreigners can, but merely being born here does not entitle a child to citizenship here.

Likewise, when a child’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but merely temporary, and the father was not an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident, then childbirth does not bestow American citizenship. This executive order took effect for anyone born 30 days after it was entered on January 20, 2025.

There has been a cottage industry of bringing pregnant Chinese mothers to California for them to give birth in a hospital here, go back to China and then claim American citizenship when their children grow up. This racket needs to stop, and the Supreme Court could end it as Trump has commanded with one of his first executive orders.

Children born to foreign diplomats in the United States are not eligible to be American citizens. Citizenship is what defines a country and its future, and must be carefully limited to those who personally or through their families have a long commitment to our values and way of life.

American Indians were not automatically citizens for nearly the first 140 years of our country, because they had not assimilated into American communities but retained loyalties to their tribes. The same is true for many of the illegal aliens brought in by Biden, Obama, and Clinton.

Children born to American parents are American citizens if they are born in the United States, and can claim citizenship here if they were born while in another country. Children born to lawful permanent residents of the United States are American citizens because they are born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, as the Supreme Court held in 1898.

Persons temporarily present (such as tourists, workers, students, and diplomats) and persons unlawfully present (who could be removed without notice) are expected to go back home. Their children, though born here, retain the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin.

The Supreme Court is divided on the issue of birthright citizenship, and it may try to duck the issue for now. Instead it may confine itself to the procedural question presented: “Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.”

Several justices, including Thomas and Gorsuch, have expressed strong opposition to nationwide injunctions that extend beyond the plaintiffs in a case. But it is unclear whether they can muster a majority of the Court to end this practice that is being used frequently by liberals now against many aspects of Trump’s agenda.

Limiting the scope of the injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to only the plaintiffs in the lawsuits would enable his order to go into effect against everyone else. That would mean the “Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of Social Security shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments” implement this order.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Steps on the Gas Pedal for English

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Trump just accomplished what his Republican predecessor George W. Bush refused to do: make understanding of English a requirement for truck drivers’ licenses. In 2002 Phyllis Schlafly urged GWB to repeal Clinton’s extension of commercial licenses to non-English-speaking truckers, but GWB refused to act.

Clinton opened the southern border to Mexican truckers to carry long loads, potentially including drugs, deep into the U.S. without knowing English. Not only did this take jobs away from Americans and create havoc at checkpoints, but it also resulted in horrific highway accidents that Phyllis wrote about two decades ago.

Trump just delivered again for American workers and highway safety: truck drivers must understand English to drive big rigs across America. In the split-second decisions made by truckers on congested highways, they need to understand road signs without difficulty.

Road signs are commonly in English, and the driver of an 18-wheeler must be able to read what he sees. If there is a shortage of English-speaking drivers then wages should increase to attract more, rather than endangering other travelers with truck drivers who cannot read the signs.

On Monday, Trump signed an Executive Order stating that truck drivers “should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers. Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.”

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” Trump stated. In March Trump also made English our official language, which other Republicans failed to do for decades.

To the dismay of liberals opposed to English as our official language, the president of an association of 150,000 truckers immediately applauded Trump’s Executive Order. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer stated, “Basic English skills are essential for reading critical road signs, understanding emergency instructions, and interacting with law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed federal judges in California continue to drive the wrong way on immigration-related issues. San Francisco Federal Judge William Orrick, known for spending years pushing the abortion industry agenda against the young man David Daleiden for exposing its alleged trafficking in fetal tissue, recently ordered Trump not to withhold funds from sanctuary cities.

On Trump’s first day he signed an Executive Order commanding that his incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stop the flow of federal taxpayer funds to sanctuary cities that defy federal law by harboring illegal aliens. The unlawfulness of these cities results in heinous crimes against innocent Americans.

“Here we are again,” Judge Orrick brazenly declared in issuing an injunction last Friday against Trump to keep the gravy train flowing to many cities that sued in his courtroom, including faraway Santa Fe, New Mexico. Numerous cities picked this San Francisco venue to sue because its judicial bench is composed nearly entirely of Democrat appointees.

But an appeal by the Trump Administration will go immediately to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where Trump appointed 10 judges during his first term out of 29 active judges today. The Ninth Circuit is no longer the Leftist paradise it once was, and even Democrat-appointed judges have already reined in a nationwide anti-Trump injunction emanating from Seattle.

Democrat-appointed Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle blocked Trump’s suspension of the refugee program with a nationwide injunction in February. But on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, a 2-1 Democrat majority stayed most of that by allowing Trump’s suspension to go into effect against all refugees who did not already have confirmed travel tickets by January 20, when Trump was inaugurated and issued his Executive Order.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ban on travel from seven specific countries during his first administration, in a lawsuit liberals filed in Democrat-dominated Hawaii. The Supreme Court confirmed that the president has broad authority over matters related to foreign policy and national security, in which courts should rarely interfere.

Almost immediately after Trump began issuing these Executive Orders upon his inauguration, the crisis at our southern border evaporated. News photos of long lines of migrants have disappeared, and migrants are staying in their native countries where they should remain.

The same liberals who complained about Trump separating families during his first term now whine that children are being deported with their mothers. At her mother’s request, a 2-year-old child born in Louisiana was sent back to Honduras with her mother as she was being deported, and the child was not given a hearing on the issue.

Trump officials acted properly in keeping this family together as much as possible, and federal courts should not try to act like family courts when issues of deporting illegal aliens with children arise.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Went 0-for-4 on Monday

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Supreme Court went 0-for-4 on Monday, which in spring training for baseball would justify sending the batter to the minor rather than the big leagues. In four cases the Court should have stood strongly against wrongdoing by Biden, the Department of Justice, and the State of New York, but instead acted to appease those liberal regimes.

First up was the case that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) calls “the most consequential free speech case in U.S. history,” Murthy v. Missouri. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had properly enjoined the Biden Administration from telling social media, such as Facebook and YouTube, to take down postings that Democrats do not like.

Such interference with free speech is an affront to the First Amendment, and yet most of the Supreme Court justices seemed just fine with it. The Justices should have taken the White House to the woodshed for its interference with Americans’ exercise of freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

It was a dismaying barrage of pro-censorship comments by justices that condoned infringements on free speech by the Biden Administration. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan declared that manipulation of the media “happens literally thousands of times a day in the federal government.”

Five Republican Justices raised no objection to the censorship of free speech by the Biden Administration. Only Justice Alito demanded to know why “There is constant pestering of Facebook and some of the other platforms,” and government officials “want to have regular meetings, and they suggest … rules that should be applied and why don’t you tell us everything that you’re going to do so we can help you and we can look it over.”

“And I thought: Wow, I cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the print media.” Justice Alito explained that the federal government has leverage over social media because of its special legal immunity from lawsuits, and the government has been “treating Facebook and these other platforms like they’re subordinates.”

Next up was the lawsuit by the National Rifle Association (NRA) against New York State officials for telling insurers and bankers not to do business with the pro-Second Amendment group. This case concerns such an egregious infringement on the First Amendment that the Biden Administration even participated in oral argument mostly on the side of the NRA.

But again a terrific opportunity to educate the public about the importance of a robust First Amendment was kicked away. At times it appeared that the attorney arguing for the Biden Administration was a bigger defender of the NRA’s right to free speech than some of the Republican-appointed justices were.

The New York Times’ analysis suggests that the NRA will win its case, but it should win with a broad ruling rather than a narrow one that the justices seemed to prefer. New York State officials actually met with the insurer Lloyd’s to tell it not to provide insurance to the NRA, and the Court’s decision may be limited to the misconduct of that meeting.

The third case was the application by Trump’s senior advisor Peter Navarro, Ph.D. from Harvard, to remain free from prison pending his appeal of his conviction in the anti-Trump D.C. venue for declining to testify before the Trump-hating congressional January 6th committee. Navarro invoked executive privilege, as other high-level Trump officials have, and he is likely to be pardoned by a re-elected Trump on the next January 20.

Chief Justice John Roberts withheld Navarro’s application from the full Court, and Roberts then denied it in a one-page ruling Monday afternoon that failed to address any of Navarro’s compelling defenses. Roberts’ superficial ruling relied entirely on procedural technicalities, failing to recognize that most defendants in Navarro’s circumstances are allowed to remain free pending appeal.

Navarro reported to prison on Tuesday as required, and will be free again in about three months. “There is much at stake here and it is worth the fight,” Navarro declared about continuing his appeal in the courts.

Finally, the Court’s fourth strike-out at the plate on Monday was to extend again an injunction against the good new Texas law, SB 4, which authorizes Texas officials to arrest illegal aliens and remove them to the border for deportation by federal officials. Fortunately, on Tuesday the Court voted 6-3 to allow this law to go into effect, but two Justices (Barrett and Kavanaugh) weakly did so for procedural reasons conditioned on the Fifth Circuit deciding Biden’s lawsuit against it soon.

In all four of these cases the Supreme Court could have acted in a way to strengthen our Constitution and our rights under it, including freedom of speech. Instead, the Court makes it painfully clear that it cannot be relied upon to save our country.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Mexican Standoff in Texas Special Session

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

There is a Mexican standoff as Texas begins its third special legislative session, precariously close to its early primary next year. A Mexican standoff is a confrontation in which neither side has a winnable strategy, and neither side can retreat.

Education, immigration, a flourishing new community known as Colony Ridge northeast of Houston, and vaccine mandates by private entities are all on the agenda. Gov. Greg Abbott needs to rehabilitate his political reputation after he quietly supported the failed sham impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court heard oral argument last week on the Biden administration’s challenge to the 1,000 feet of orange buoys and barbed wire that Abbott had strung along the middle of the Rio Grande. The Democrat-majority appellate panel signaled that it would probably order Abbott to remove the buoys.

Migrants continue to flow illegally into Texas at many points along the Mexican border. Some lawmakers are casting blame on the fast-growing Colony Ridge community, where illegal residents lacking a valid Social Security number have reportedly been allowed to buy property with financing.
Yet these issues are not the biggest conflict in Texas right now. Instead, it is the fierce opposition by Texas teachers and rural Republicans to enacting a voucher program proposed by Gov. Abbott and an influential think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

A new voucher program this year in Iowa has resulted in applications exceeding projections, sparking concerns about its impact on rural areas. The Iowa law allows families to take $7,600 per student from public school funding to spend on an accredited private school.

Despite skepticism by many conservatives, Gov. Abbott has staked his political future on enacting his voucher plan. There are approaches other than leaving low-performing public schools, including Donald Trump’s proposal to allow parents to fire public school principals who tolerate poor outcomes or bad behavior.

Public school teachers are so opposed to giving parents vouchers to redeem at private schools that they are even willing to forgo the raises they had been demanding. Teachers oppose vouchers even though the Texas bill would not directly siphon funds from public schools, but instead would fund the vouchers out of general state revenues.

Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) was introduced on the first day of this special session, with state Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) as its author. It would provide up to $8,000 in taxpayer-funded vouchers for families to pay private educational expenses, which could include tutoring, homeschooling, textbooks, transportation, and uniforms in addition to tuition.

Simultaneously SB 2 was introduced to provide billions of dollars in raises to Texas public school teachers. Boosted by revenue from higher oil prices and many Americans moving to the Lone Star State, Texas enjoys a surplus of $19 billion in its upcoming fiscal year.
Tapping that surplus, $5.2 billion in new funds would be allocated to public schools, mostly to increase teacher salaries. But Democrats are united against raising teacher pay if the tradeoff is vouchers in any form.

For example, the chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (San Antonio), announced that his party’s position is “very clear: no vouchers and no deals.” Abbott vows to call a fourth special session if his voucher program does not pass.

But with illegal aliens overrunning Texas schools without the legislature doing anything meaningful about it, the contentious debate about vouchers seems like a distraction. Immigration is on the agenda but there is no leadership by Gov. Abbott or Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for meaningful action.

With no way to vet migrants hailing from all over the world, terrorists like those who massacred innocent civilians in Israel could be slipping across our open border, waiting for an opportunity to strike Americans here. Abbott has spent $4.5 billion on Operation Lone Star, which was supposed to curtail illegal immigration but has failed to make a dent in it.

Gov. Abbott wasted five months and millions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to remove the Attorney General who has been the strongest in our country against illegal immigration, Ken Paxton. Abbott never defended Paxton against this witch-hunt, as Trump and many conservatives did.

In New Hampshire Monday night, Trump again read from “The Snake,” an allegory about the terrible consequences to a “tender-hearted woman” who invited a menacing creature into her home. Abbott and the Texas legislature should make stopping illegal immigration their top priority of this special session.

With his Attorney General sidelined for the last five months, Gov. Abbott allowed Biden’s lawsuit to halt expanding his border buoys beyond a mere 1,000 feet, when by now they should have extended the entire Texas-Mexico border, which is 1,254 miles. Texas should also be building additional walls to stem the tide of illegal migration, and cutting off their benefits.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Democrat Demagoguery Heats Up “Climate Reparations”

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

America’s Climate Czar, John Kerry, is in China this week meeting with its top officials about climate change, which today means everything from droughts to floods to inevitable heat waves. There was never any Senate confirmation for this office, yet Kerry reports directly to Biden without transparency for Kerry’s large staff.

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability caught up with Kerry last Thursday to ask a few obvious questions. His answers were more alarming than anything genuinely caused by forever-changing weather patterns.

The committee Chairman, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), asked Kerry, “Are you planning to commit America to climate reparations? That is to say, we have to pay some other country because they had a flood or they had a hurricane or a typhoon or a wildfire.”

While many today are familiar with the concept of slavery reparations, being seriously considered by the liberal California politicians, climate reparations have been demanded by some countries for several years now. Natural disasters have occurred worldwide since the beginning of time, but are blamed now on energy use by industrialized nations such as ours.

“No, under no circumstances,” was Kerry’s response to Rep. Mast’s question about whether the Biden Administration will obligate our country to pay climate reparations to foreign governments. But a close review of what Kerry publicly stated elsewhere suggests that there could be a “mental reservation” lurking here.

Well known to philosophers, biblical scholars, and legal experts, a mental reservation is an incomplete response due to a perceived greater good, by relying on a private interpretation of the question asked. To reduce this, the oath taken by Members of Congress includes the phrase “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.”

“We have to pay” was the premise of the question, connoting a legal obligation that Kerry denied. But voluntary climate reparations are definitely being considered, and are on the agenda for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) scheduled to occur on Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in the oil-rich kingdom of Dubai.

The vehicle for climate reparations is a global “loss and damage fund,” about which Kerry needs to be pinned down. Already some NATO countries in Europe have committed to send taxpayer dollars to this fund, which has existed since last year under the UN Environment Programme office.

In an interview last January with Britain’s left-wing newspaper The Guardian, Kerry indicated the U.S. would contribute to the loss and damage fund for the benefit of foreign countries claiming to be damaged by climate change. So he considers it a voluntary contribution, but it would burden American taxpayers with a legal obligation.

“How can you look somebody in the eye, with a straight face, and not accept the notion that there are damages, there are losses? We see them all around the world,” Kerry declared earlier this year to the British press.

Kerry made similar comments to the congressional committee. Incredulous, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) asked Kerry “why do the good folks in east Tennessee – they work very hard for their dollars – why do they have to pay for a flood in Africa or South Asia?”

Kerry responded, “We’re not specifically paying for a flood in Africa although sometimes money may go to something like that but the United States is proudly the largest humanitarian donor in the world … we try to help the world.” That opens the door to the Biden Administration sending hard-earned American dollars to the globalist “loss and damage fund,” which is climate reparations by another name.

Meanwhile, our competitors like China are using the most cost-efficient energy, coal, to its maximum benefit. In 2021, China had its biggest increase in coal use and energy consumption since 2011, and Kerry is doing nothing meaningful about that.

China approved more coal-fired power plants in 2022 than any year since 2015. Yet Kerry praised China on Monday for what Kerry called its “incredible job” of increasing renewable energy, which supplies only a tiny fraction of total energy consumption.

Kerry merely chastised China gently about coal for which it “has six times as many plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.” We won’t be able to compete with China if our economy shifts to inefficient wind turbines and solar power.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), showing that he is not intimidated by Deep State bullying of him in seizing his cell phone while on a family vacation, interjected in Kerry’s testimony to explain why world leaders give lip service to the global warming agenda. “Because they’re grifting like you are, sir,” Perry told Kerry when he invoked foreign leaders who side with Democrats, while expecting reparations.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Who Will Close the Border?

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

More than 1,000 illegal migrants openly walked across the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas Sunday night, capping a record-breaking 3-day weekend in which 2,460 illegal migrants were “processed” there by federal agents. El Paso is just one of nine sectors defined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

About 500 miles downriver from El Paso, two large groups totalling 1,000 migrants crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, in the Del Rio Sector, last Friday, after 700 migrants had crossed the day before. On Saturday, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted that “CBP sources tell us more than 4,800 migrants have crossed illegally in just these two sectors in the last 24 hours.”

From his first day in office, Joe Biden has signaled his administration’s policy and promise not to enforce our nation’s immigration laws. The predictable result is that a relentless human tide of uninvited people from around the world have been entering our country from the south, after first passing through the lawless narco-state of Mexico.

The roughly 5,000 people who surrender every day to be “processed” by Border Patrol agents in CBP do not even include the thousands of known “got-aways.” That’s the official term for migrants who evade arrest when they sneak across the border, because they have prior criminal records for drug trafficking or sex crimes.

The number of got-aways has exploded under Biden because no Border Patrol agents are available to stop and arrest them. That’s because Biden’s anti-American DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has reassigned CBP and Border Patrol agents to “processing” the unprecedented hordes of illegal migrants who voluntarily turn themselves in every day.

Nor do the numbers include the thousands of people who enter legally through airports or other ports of entry, but then violate the terms of their admission by staying too long, working illegally, or committing deportable crimes. These people are just as illegal as the migrants who waded across the Rio Grande, but we can’t find them without implementing the entry-exit system that Congress mandated over 20 years ago,

The sheer numbers of these unwanted people are so gargantuan that we struggle for words to express how rapidly our country has changed for the worse since Joe Biden took power 23 months ago. The best estimates are that the number of illegal aliens has increased by at least 5,000,000 since Biden became president less than two years ago.

Five million is greater than the population of half of the 50 states. It’s greater than all but one of our cities and all but two of our counties.

The number of invaders is projected to increase substantially when the Title 42 expulsion policy goes away on December 21 as ordered by Judge Emmet Sullivan. That’s the same federal judge who persecuted General Mike Flynn on trumped-up charges, even refusing to recognize the Justice Department’s dismissal of all charges against Flynn.

More than half of the five million new migrants have been wrongly classified as asylum seekers, despite the principle that requires refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country they come to. All of the migrants crossing our southern border passed through at least one safe country on their way to the United States, so their bogus asylum claims should have been tossed without further ado.

Even the newly elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives has not shown the appetite or the will to reverse the flow of people across the border. Many Republicans speak only of the crisis “at” the border, as if the problem is just the 5,000 people who crossed yesterday, rather than the 5,000,000 who crossed in the last two years.

“One of the highest priorities, when the Republicans take back Congress,” Donald Trump declared at a rally in Florence, Arizona on January 15, “will be to . . . find and detain and deport every one of the illegal aliens that Joe Biden has released into our country.”

Trump’s commonsense promise was cheered by his thousands of supporters, but it has gained no traction in the halls of Congress, where Democrats and even some Republicans are trotting out discredited ideas to extend amnesty to illegal migrants. A week after the midterm elections, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer was bold enough to say the quiet part out loud.

“We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to,” Schumer declared. “The only way we’re going to have a great future is if we welcome immigrants.”

Schumer’s avowed goal of replacing the American population with immigrants is an open declaration of war on the family-friendly, hard-working, middle-class Americans who form the base of the Republican party. Will Republican leaders rise to meet the challenge?

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Out-of-Touch Globalists Seek NATO Expansion

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Amid chaos on many fronts, globalists march forward into the night. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum convening in Davos, Switzerland, welcomed fellow globalists with this: “The future is built by us, by a powerful community, as you, here in this room.”

Meanwhile in the United States we face soaring gas prices, shortage of baby formula, and the highest inflation seen in 40 years. The global elite would find more reality than their self-aggrandizing meeting if they drove to nearby France for the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival, where Tom Cruise drew a five-minute standing ovation for his new Reagan-era movie, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Covid restrictions were rescinded for this film festival, and the French Open in tennis is not banning the top men’s player for being unvaccinated, as Australian authorities did. Over the weekend, Australian voters rejected the Fauci-like policies of lockdowns and vaccination, by defeating their ruling party such that its Covid-dictatorial prime minister, Scott Morrison, resigned Saturday.

Democrat incumbents should brace for the same defeat here, with the average price of regular-grade gasoline spiking in the last two weeks by 33 cents to a kneecapping $4.71 per gallon. Baby formula is widely unavailable in the United States now, while Congress instead sends our money to Ukraine.

The unelected globalists convening in Switzerland plot their next moves to entangle us further in foreign conflicts. High on their list is to add Sweden and Finland to NATO, thereby provoking Russia even further.

Turkey has already vetoed this, which it has the right to do, but globalists do not take “no” for an answer. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) insist on pushing this expansion anyway.

Donald Trump lifted McConnell to reelection in 2020 when Trump won Kentucky with 62%, having coattails that pulled McConnell up to 58% against a spirited, $90-million-funded challenger. Without gratitude, McConnell rejects Trump’s “America First” principles and probably resents Trump’s greater popularity.

McConnell-led senators voted against oversight and transparency for the $40 billion in new American funds to be sent to Ukraine’s “NGO regime,” a web of shadowy non-governmental organizations unaccountable to voters and taxpayers. Billions will thereby flow to Leftist groups, some likely associated with George Soros, to promote liberal politics in Europe and possibly even back here in the U.S.

Indeed, we have already seen much clamoring for Poland to rescind its pro-life laws in order to accommodate liberal politics for the 3 million Ukrainian refugees charitably accepted by that country. A tiny fraction of the $40 billion blank check might be enough to flip conservative Poland to the Soros side.

Hungary’s conservative president, Viktor Orbán, was just reelected for the fourth time in a landslide, and he has criticized the globalist approach to the Russian-Ukraine war. The European Union is not supposed to impose embargoes unless there is unanimous consent, and Hungary does not consent to an embargo by the EU on Russian oil.

The U.S. Constitution requires a 2/3rds vote in the Senate in order to ratify any treaty, such as the proposal to expand NATO at this perilous time. This Treaty Clause is the provision in our Constitution most hated by globalists, and there should be conservative opposition to any attempt to ratify treaties to entangle us further in the European conflicts.

Polling data does not support what the globalists are doing to our country. A CBS News Poll taken over the weekend reveals an astounding 69% of Americans say that our economy is “fairly bad” or “very bad," most of whom chose the "very bad" description.

By a 53-47% margin, Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling the Russia-Ukraine war, and by a 70-30% margin Americans disapprove of his handling of inflation. Fully 74% of Americans feel things are going somewhat or very badly.

Yet McConnell and the attendees of the World Economic Forum do not seem to have gotten the memo. Some Republican primary candidates have gained support by criticizing McConnell, including Mo Brooks in Alabama to rejuvenate his campaign and Eric Greitens in Missouri to remain competitive there.

Democrat Party voters are also toppling the globalists. The Establishment-preferred Democrat candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, clean-cut Rep. Conor Lamb, lost by a landslide 33 points to a tattooed stroke victim whom no one would mistake for a globalist.

In Oregon where ballots are still being counted from a week ago, globalism supporter and 7-term Democrat Rep. Kurt Schrader apparently lost to a school board member who criticized D.C. politicians for not addressing American needs. Incumbents were also surprisingly defeated in state legislative races in Kentucky and Pennsylvania last Tuesday.

Challengers are emphasizing how out-of-touch Congressmen are today. Biden and congressional leadership seem intent on sending endless cash to Ukraine without any accountability, and focusing on expanding NATO to provoke still more military conflict.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.