Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And we are actually sharing with you some of these presentations from our Pro-family Legislators conference. We've already shared a couple of those from Tim Barton and from David Barton and one of mine. We're going to share another one from David. This one is only going to be today's program, so this will be the entire presentation in just one episode. But it's about immigration. It's very timely as this comes to a head with President Trump moving into office in an absolute reversal of the Biden policies, which were a reversal of the Trump policies. So really important to get this foundation and this history. Let's jump right in with David Barton speaking at the Pro-family Legislators conference. 

David Barton [00:00:51] This time we're going to get into something that many people thought was solely a federal issue, and that is the issue of immigration. And looking at immigration, states have a big role to play in this. And I want to take you back through some history of what we've done state wise with immigration, because all 50 states now are border states, some well, maybe 48 of them Alaska. You guys having problems there? Maybe not. Hawaii probably doesn't, but probably the Continental 48 all have become border states. And so as a result, with what we had to go through and taxes with with the things that we do here in Texas related to immigration, we've had to do so much because the courts have required us to include, for example, illegal immigrants in all of our social programs, which is a lot of money. So I want to take you back to the original intent of immigration laws as done by the Founding Fathers. So when you look at emigration from a founding standpoint, we all take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Now, I have put a different emphasis on this in the last several years. It's not just an oath to uphold the Constitution. It's an oath to uphold the spirit of the Constitution. And that's a really different thing. A lot of people don't know what the intent was, what the original intent was, and that's key. And if you remember the scripture in Second Corinthians, it says the the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. We finished a book, The American Story, the second volume, and it shows how that our first seven founding father presidents, all of them were war fighters in the revolution or had a role in some way. But it shows two of those presidents use the Constitution is a very onerous document. And it's hard to imagine for conservatives that we consider the Constitution to be a very honored document. But you can apply the Constitution by the letter of the law and completely violate what they intended with it. And at that point, the Constitution becomes a very oppressive document. And so under both Andrew Jackson and under James Monroe, they passed acts that were not unconstitutional, but they were oppressive to large segments of the American population. And that comes because they did not follow the spirit of the Constitution. So that scripture that the letter kills the spirit gives life is the same with the Constitution. So what's the what's the spirit of the Constitution regarding immigration? Or even better said, what's the original intent of the Constitution regarding immigration? So what I want to do is take you back and show you what the state role used to be in immigration, what the state role needs to be. Because just as we covered with religious liberty, this is stuff we want to try to get back in the courts because we now have some Supreme Court justices who actually read the Constitution. In the last three years, we've seen a number of decisions from the courts giving a lot more power back to the states. They understand federalism. They understand enumerated powers, limited federal government. So things are moving back that direction. But to keep it moving, you got to have more opportunities for and make some ruling. So let me take you back to when you go to the original Congress. The first three immigration laws passed in America, passed by Congress was 1797, 1795 and 1798. Now, those in Congress passed that law. Many of them had been authors of the Constitution or the declaration or Ratifiers of the Constitution declaration. So this is the best view you're going to get of original intent. These are the guys that put it all together when they did it. There were certain characteristics that popped up in each of the immigration laws they passed. So here's common characteristics in their original immigration laws. Number one, the immigrant must have good moral character and not just crime free, but you had to have good moral character, which meant you had to do some investigation into the immigrants before you accepted them. The second thing they pointed out was the immigrant must support the Constitution and our government and laws and renounce allegiance to any other nation or loyalty to any other system. Now, this is significant because back then they had something we still have now, and there were many who came that supported Sharia law. Sharia law is a law that says this is the only law you observe. You exclude all others. So under that system, the Constitution gets shoved aside. It's completely set aside. And this is something that even Eisenhower talked about and he talked about how, look, under the spirit of the Constitution, you can't use the Constitution to violate the Constitution. And so he said the Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of Rights. So you come here. Religious freedom. Religious freedom says Sharia law, but Sharia law wants to eliminate the Constitution. And the Bill of Rights. Bill of Rights didn't exist to give you the freedom to destroy the Bill of Rights. So he says the Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of Rights, A group dedicated to the ultimate destruction of all civil liberties cannot be allowed to claim civil liberties as its purpose sanctuary from which to carry on its subversion of the government. And so that's what we see in Dearborn and Minneapolis, Saint Paul and others, where you have alternative government set up that they have their own Sharia courts, They have their own, you know, even honor killings are acceptable in those areas. And that's inconsistent with who we are as a people. But. This is immigrants that we've allowed them because we don't see the original intent of law. So you have to renounce allegiance to anything else outside of the American system. Number three, you have to believe in the equality of all Americans. You have to renounce any title nobility. Number four, you have to have a residency requirement of five years in the US before citizenship. Now, this is interesting. Of the 39 signers of the Constitution, nine of them were immigrants. So nine of the folks who signed the Constitution were the guys who had been immigrants in America. They could not have been U.S. president because they weren't born here. But those nine, they are the ones that put the five year requirement in and actually they themselves. Pierce Butler out of Georgia. Signer of the Constitution. So I think it should be 14 years, he said When I first got to America. When I voted, I voted according to what I was used to in my country. He said It took me five years to learn that America was different. And he said, I really think you need about 14 years to understand the American system and to simulate. I think Alexander Hamilton said it needs to be nine years, but they settled in five years. Five years is because when you come in and there's all this stuff now about allowing illegal immigrants to vote or anyone who's present to vote. No, no, no. If you do that, you're going to make it like the country you left. And that's what you don't want to do. You need to understand this system, which is why they put a minimum of five years. And again, at the constitutional debates, it was recommended all the way up to 14. But it was the immigrants themselves who said that it's taken us a while to learn how the American system works in the American thinking. And so that's why that provision is there. So having people immediately come in and start voting that was never a good idea is still not a good idea today. Continue into residency five years in the US before citizenship. Number five is the children of a naturalized citizen also become citizens at the same time? Interesting, they said there's no anchor babies. Citizenship goes from the parents to the child, not from the child to the parents. So this has been a big issue since the 80s, coming to America, having a child. There's this birth, weekends of birth, vacations and then what? You have a child than citizenship goes to the parents. The founding fathers dealt with that and said, no, no, no, it doesn't go from the child to the parents. It goes to the parents to the child. So now anchor babies Security started to be deported and permanently banned from the United States. The federal government was to protect the borders during times of war and danger. Number nine is states are to have a definite role in immigration. This is the new newsflash States don't have a role in immigration day. Not to any great degree they did back then. And here's the reason why. When you came to the United States as an immigrant, you didn't live in the United States. You went to Virginia or you went to Pennsylvania or you went to South Carolina. Ah, you went to Maryland. And all those states had different laws and you weren't living in all the states together. You lived in one state. So they said, you know, if someone's coming to your state, you have a right to decide what the requirements are in your state. And so when an immigrant came in, the Thomas Jefferson said the purpose of the federal law is to make sure everyone who arrived here had good moral character and that they weren't sick carrying some kind of disease. And then once they got here, it's up to the states to determine the levels of what happened with immigrants coming into the states because they live in the States. And so a good example, this is Samuel Chaves. Samuel Trace, as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is a founding father, but he also was a justice on the US Supreme Court and before he was a Justice of the US Supreme Court, he was the Chief Justice of the state of Maryland. I want to show you a document of his from 1790. This is after the Constitution is in place. This document signed by him, Samuel Trace. And if you'll see down here at the bottom, you see where it says right above Samuel Chase and bold print. It says an act for naturalization. So this is an act for naturalization for the state of Maryland. Maryland has naturalization laws and acts and look at the requirements to be a citizen. Maryland. And here it sort of says that this this person appeared before me and did repeat as a scribe a declaration of his belief in the Christian religion and the oath required by the act of the assembly of this state and an act for naturalization. So the states are passing naturalization acts and setting up requirements. Yeah, this is Maryland's requirement. Other states didn't have this requirement. But immigrants don't live in the nation. They live in a state. And so the states get to have a say. And who lives in that state and what the requirements are to be part of that state. And so this is the founding fathers. So these are signers of the documents. And so it's really clear that that immigration law, the way they did it, is not the way we have it today. So the states had a definite role. This changed, as you can imagine, and not be surprised. It changed when the US Supreme Court said it was going to change and so on. Two decisions in 1875, 1876 called Henderson versus Mayor of New York City and Chelan versus Freeman. The US Supreme Court, for the first time, said. Now we think the federal government should do all immigration stuff and not the states. Now that's not original intent. It's not the way they cast. Titian's written. That's what the court said, just like the court said, you can have prayer in schools and you can have Bible school. The Court again, exercise its will and is supposed to uphold the laws and now it's making policy. So what we've had for the last century has been because the Supreme Court said so, not because the Constitution said so. And this is where having justices on the court who read the constitutions. Make any difference. And they are starting. We've already seen cases decided already where the courts are giving authority back to the states on immigration. What are the case of reason decided was the federal government is not upholding upholding immigration laws, but states were. And can states deport people? And the court said yes. The states take an oath to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution enacts federal law. Federal law says you can't have this kind of illegal stuff going on. And they have a right and states have a right to uphold the federal laws the federal government refuses to uphold. That's a big deal. Allowing states to bypass, like the Bush administration, who didn't want to uphold any federal law. We've got an immigration. But states could. So this is something that's changing. So what happened the first time you see a federal law on immigration controlling all the the immigration process is more than 15 years after those court decisions, 1876, the first federal law you see is in 1891 as that law was being introduced. It's interesting that at that point in time, President Benjamin Harrison, who was present when that first federal immigration law was being done in 1891, he talked about what that law needed to look like. And this is what he said. He said our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenship more careful and searching. We need to really be careful who we let into the United States. We need to look at the character. We look at their beliefs. You don't want to invite people in that are going to kill your nation, and so we want to be careful about that, he said. There are men of all races whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. They should be identified and excluded. And I notice what he said should be identified, excluded by federal law, those that are a burden on our public revenues. 

Rick Green [00:12:57] Alright  friends. Quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:14:08] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. We're going to jump in for the conclusion of David Barton's presentation on immigration at the Pro-family Legislators conference. 

David Barton [00:14:15] So if you're a burden or public revenue, you should not be allowed to come into the United States. If you are a threat to our social order, you should not be allowed to come in the United States. All of these should be identified and excluded. So we were rigorous in looking at who came in. Now we're just open the border. Anybody who wants to come in, come in as many as you want, bring all your friends with you. We're not looking at all in this area. And this this was the first federal immigration law after the courts moved all authority to the federal government. He said we should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless. Said that the character of it. And that's exactly where we are today. So that first immigration law passed in 1891 and when it passed in 1891, passed in the Congress in 1891, it was then that we established our first federal immigration facility, the first federal immigration facility we had and, by the way, and that 1891 law after after Benjamin Harrison laid out what should be in there. I want you to see the requirements, the 1891 law, the immigrant must have permission in the United States before coming. You can't arrive on the borders. You have to have permission before coming. Number two, the immigrants must pass a health exam and be able to support themselves and not become a burden on taxpayers or the government. Number three, immigrants who are here illegally or who become a public charge on the government will be deported. Number four, the federal government must establish border security at all times, not just during war. So this was the immigration thing is, even if we're not at war, like we're not at war now, you still secure the borders. And this is where immigration became a federal responsibility was after that court decision. So it's in 1792, the year after this law goes into effect, that we have the first immigration facility, and that was Ellis Island, Ellis Island Open the next year and 1890. This is the first time the federal government assumes all the responsibility for immigrations 1892. So you look at it, that's when Ellis Island opened. But the goal always has been assimilation. There's always the number one objective as that Ellis Island opened and people start coming in. Teddy Roosevelt shortly after that becomes president. And he's continuing to talk about immigration and how we handle it. This I love the way Teddy explains this. He says there's no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. He said, When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I've ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. And that's true. Some of the most patriotic people we have were not born in the United States. They came here and joined us. And they love us more than the people who are often raised here. And he said some of the best citizens we have were born abroad. They were Americans, but they got over here. I mean, they weren't Americans, but they were in spirit. And so we got them here in the Americans, he said. But a hyphenated American does not an American at all. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, a preventing all possibility of us continuing to be a nation at all would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. And then we could not have German Americans, Irish-Americans, English, Americas, French, Americans, Scandinavian Americans, Italian-Americans. Each preservatives national identity, each at heart, feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than were the citizens of the American Republic. This is what Marxism does. It breaks you into groups. Are you male or female? Are you older? Young? Are you Gen-Y? Gen Z, Boomer buster? Are you millennial or are you black or are you. Why are you native? Are you Asian? That's that's what progressives have done is put the focus on the group and that's why CRT, things like that have been so destructive. D-r.i. It's all the focus on. The group noticed that everything was we don't have groups here, we're all Americans. And that's a philosophy we voluntarily adopted. So what happened after we were at war and World War One, We bring the troops home. But then there's so many people in Europe that want to come to America. They're tired of all the fighting there. They're tired of everything that went on, the millions, tens of millions of deaths. And so they come to America. And as a result, we have a lot of influx of people wanting to be immigrants to America. At that point in time. In 1919, this emigration book came out, How to Become an American Citizen The Naturalization Laws of the United States. This is put out by the chief of naturalization, says, okay, if you're wanting to come here and be a citizen, here's what you need to know about America. And right up front, I want you to see the introduction that's in front of this book right up front. It says, I and by the way, this is the book right up front. It says, An American is a man who's greater in his soul than in his class creed political party. The section which he lives to be an American. A man must have an American soul and believe in the spiritual realities out of which America rests and out of which America was born. America was created to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and the base. We came to America to get rid of the. Things that divide and make sure of the things that unite. Now, this was the spirit of America anyway, and this is what we wanted the immigrant to understand. Now we've allowed, again, education, public education, university education, etc., to introduce Marxism, which makes us into groups and your values on your group. But this book was also reprinted in 1939 because Hitler was moving in Germany and people in Germany said, Here we go again. And they started wanting to get away and get in the United States. So this book came out again in World War Two. It was still our policy. This is still what we did. It's a great book on the immigration policy of America point in time. But again, the issue was always assimilation. So I want to take it now and do from a Christian perspective, because in watching the hearings of the US Congress, there's a lot of Christian folks who say we have to have open borders. And so I want to explain to you, so what does the Bible says about immigration? This is the verse as quoted in Congress on a regular basis by those, particularly from the religious left. It says, But the stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and you shall love him as their self. For you were strangers Lend Egypt and Lord your God, you need to treat all the strangers that come in like you were because you wanted Egypt. You didn't have immigration papers to get there. And I took it. And so notice the thing, it would tend to suggest open borders. And that's the way it looks when you read that. So the important part here is the word stranger. What does that word mean? Well, in English it means someone from not here, someone outside our borders. Let me remind you of a book that C.S. Lewis did back in the 40s. It was a book that dealt with love, and particularly the Four Types of Love. That was the name of the book. And you know that in Greek, our rabbi friend, Rabbi Lafon, who speaks here regularly, he says English is the worst language in the world to express biblical concepts. He said because there's not enough words in the English language. When I speak in Spanish, in churches, Spanish, and I'm translated, it takes some 20% more words to translate what I'm saying in English. So if I'm going to speak for an hour, I get 25 minutes, the translator gets 35 minutes because it takes some more words to say, what? Because we don't have enough words. As Rabbi Lapin points out, he says they know a people in Alaska. They have 22 different words for snow. We only have one. It's snowing. Is it wet snow? Is it driest nose at blowing snow? There's all these other adjectives that they have. We're stuck with one word. And that's the way the word love is in the Bible. And so C.S. Lewis went back, said, now in the Greek, there are four types of love. There's Eros is agape, a fellatio stork. Eros is the physical or sexual love. The gap is God's unconditional love. He loves you, period. Folio is brotherly love that the love that we have for for close neighbors. John and then David. And this dog is like a family love a parent for each child. There's four different types of love. So when the Bible says love your neighbors that mean have sex with your neighbor? No, that's not what is saying. That that's not the meaning. You have to know which of those four Greek words we're talking about. You can't just use the word love without understanding the purpose of it. So when the Bible says love your neighbor, we look and say, now here's here's what that means. It's not Eros. And so we go through and say that or when you do that, take that and apply it to the Old Testament, the stranger. What does the word stranger mean? Well, I asked Rabbi laughing about this, and he says in Hebrew, the word stranger, the best word for stranger in English is the word proselyte. So the proselyte that comes among you, you treat him as yourself. What's a proselyte? Well, proselyte is not a word we use much. It is a word that's understood in the Jewish faith for sure. So it really reads that the stranger that comes among use the proselyte that comes among you. He said. The best example of what proselyte means in English is a story of Ruth and Naomi, because Ruth is a Jewish lady and now she has a daughter in law who's from Moab. The daughter in law is not Jewish. And so Naomi is going back to her people, back to Israel. And what does Naomi say? I want to go with you. And Naomi says, and Ruth, once Ruth says and Ruth 116 says, Naomi, wherever you go, I will go Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people should be my people and your God would be my God. He said, That is the meaning of the word proselyte. So proselyte is someone that says, I want to do with you. I want to go where you go. I want to be like you. I want to think like you. And so when you look at that scripture that says a stranger, it really means the proselyte. So the scriptures are saying, open your borders to everybody that wants to come. And if there's anybody that wants to come and be like you and think like you and act like you and follow your laws like you, anyone who wants to do that type of man now say that's what immigration law was all about. And so the base we have now and if you start immigration laws in the states, you're going to have the same debates. The religious left is going to show up and then quote Leviticus 1934, you've got to have open borders and you can't restrict people. Yes, you can. You can restrict not every. But he gets in the habit. You have to follow the rules to get the habit. And it's just real simple. There's no open borders in heaven. I mean, you have to you have to follow the rules. So. Finishing this up. The melting pot concept came from a great Jewish guy, Israel, saying, Well, that's where we get the melting pot back in the early 1900s. I love his quote. This is what he says. He says, America is God's crucible. The great melting pot were all the races of Europe are melting and reforming. When I see you at Ellis Island here, you stand in your 50 groups with your 50 languages and histories and your 50 blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers. For these are the fires of God you've come to. These are the fires of God. Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians enter the crucible with you. God is making the American. And that was the melting pot idea is you don't keep your distinctions. You come and become part of the nation. And so the common values commonplace. So assimilation is the issue. And again, states definitely have a role. This is time to reassert that role because we have courts now there listening doesn't mean that your efforts won't be wasted. The courts may strike it down. The Supreme Court may refuse to pick it up. But we've got to give the courts some opportunities to get this thing back on the federalism stand. So looking at state law, look for opportunities you can to do things, to enforce federal law, to stop being enforced, or look for things that you can do to help keep the spirit of immigration going according to what the spirit was in the Constitution. So just throwing that out, there's another topic for you to think about. This is not what states usually covers immigration, but it's now time to start looking at that because we can get back to that original intent. 

Rick Green [00:25:59] Alright friends out of time for today. That was David Barton speaking at the Pro-family Legislators conference. Hope you enjoyed that. Great information on immigration. Get educated on all these issues by becoming a constitution coach. Now you can get our biblical citizenship in modern America course at wallbuilders.com right now that you should get that for friends and family while you're getting some of that WallBuilders swag. Some of those shirts and coffee mugs and everything else. But also you should sign up for free as a constitution host or coach at Patriot academy.com so that you can then host these classes and get this kind of information about our history and our Constitution, not only into your own brain so that you can speak these things in your community, but for your friends and family as well. Check that out today. Sign up today for free at Patriot academy.com. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.