 Why do we have borders? What purpose do they serve? Where did they come from? And why are they needed in the first place? These are important questions that many people are asking, but remarkably few are able to answer.
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 Most American Christians assume our immigration system represents a reasonable balance between order and compassion. We tell ourselves that America welcomes legal immigrants while simply requiring people to follow proper procedures. This comfortable narrative allows us to support restrictive immigration policies without wrestling with the deeper question of whether our immigration system is acceptable to God. Unfortunately, this narrative rests on ignorance of both what the Bible actually commands regarding immigrants and also what American immigration law actually requires.
 Over the past year, there have been many incidents of ICE officers ordering U.S. citizens to vacate areas, move their vehicles from public streets, and comply with various commands. In cases where citizens have refused to comply with these commands, ICE has often resorted to the use of force. But does ICE actually possess the legal authority to issue such commands? A careful examination of federal statutes and court precedents, demonstrates that ICE’s legitimate authority is constrained by significant limitations.  When Senator Jacob Howard explained the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, he said: "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 accredited to the Government of the United States."
Most people today read this statement and assume Howard was listing four separate categories of people who would not receive birthright citizenship:  In my book The Birthright: A History of Citizenship in America, I devoted three separate chapters to the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" found in the Fourteenth Amendment. With all of the present controversy surrounding this phrase, I thought it would be good to make those three chapters available here. The first two are from the section dealing with the debates in the senate, and the third chapter is from my analysis of the Supreme Court case United States vs. Wong Kim Ark. These three chapters provide a clear explanation of this phrase supported by historical documents.  President Trump likes to pretend that he's the first person to ever think of denying due process to illegal aliens, but that's far from the case. America's history is sadly replete with attempts to deny immigrants the equal protection of the law. Fortunately, this is one area in which our Supreme Court has a remarkably good track record. The Court has touched on the question of the rights due to illegal aliens on many occasions, and I've put together a small sample of their findings to help with refuting the claims made by Trump and his supporters.  President Trump’s denial of due process for non-citizens is not without precedent. The same thing was attempted by President Van Buren in the mid-nineteenth century. In that case, a group of about forty slaves were being transported from Cuba when they rebelled against the ship’s company and attempted to sail back to Africa. The former slaves strayed into American waters where they were captured and taken ashore. Van Buren attempted to circumvent the courts and send the escaped slaves back to Spanish Cuba without trial. His plans were foiled, and John Quincy Adams defended the rights of the former slaves before the Supreme Court. The arguments made by Adams have direct bearing on President Trump’s current immigration policies, and I’ve compiled the following excerpts from a speech that was more than eight hours in length.
 Over the years, I’ve had many people share a video with me that claims to use gumballs to illustrate the problem with allowing large numbers of immigrants into America. I watched the video several years ago and wrote out some thoughts to share with a friend. I’ve shared basically that same response many times since then, and I’ve finally gotten smart enough to copy and paste it into a blog article. Here is my response to the video Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs featuring Roy Beck and produced by NumbersUSA: Original Documents Verify That Birthright Citizenship Was the Standard in 18th Century America2/24/2025  One of the major factors that led to the War of 1812 was the practice of impressment. Under English law, a ship of the British navy could board any vessel and force just about any able-bodied British subjects on that vessel into naval service. This practice often led to the impressment of American citizens into the British navy if Americans traveling abroad could not prove their citizenship. Because of this, America passed the 1796 Act for the Relief and Protection of American Seamen, which was designed to protect American sailors from being impressed into the navies of foreign nations. Part of that protection consisted of giving American sailors certificates of citizenship to show foreign governments that they were in fact citizens of the United States. Here is the text of the 1796 act requiring these certificates to be made available:  There has been much debate over the years regarding the view of immigration and border control that was shared among the founding fathers of our nation. Historians on both sides of the argument have attempted to co-opt the founders into their camp, and there is so much misinformation on the subject that it is difficult to ascertain anything about the actual view of our founders without abandoning modern research and returning to the original source documents from those great men who formed our nation.
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Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL. Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.
Contact Us if you would like to schedule Bill to speak to your church, group, or club. "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning." (Proverbs 9:9)
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