U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., one of the founders of the Israel Victory Caucus in Congress, is leading the charge to let U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem designate Israel as their birthplace on passports and other documents.
This week, DeSantis rounded up more than 50 members of Congress to send a letter to U.S. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson, urging the State Department to let citizens born in Jerusalem say there were born in Israel. With the U.S. having recognized Jerusalem as a divided city, the State Department has not allowed Jerusalem born citizens to claim Israel as their birthplace. Jerusalem-born American Menachem Zivotofsky took this all the way to U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 but the Court ruled in 2015 that he could not list Israel as his birthplace in a 6-3 ruling as Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samiel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia dissented.
DeSantis made the case for why he sent the letter to Tillerson on Thursday.
"Allowing American citizens born in Jerusalem the option to list Israel as their birthplace is a simple adjustment that will honor the wishes of thousands of citizens,” DeSantis said. “This change would be consistent with State Department guidelines pertaining to birthplace designations in other areas and I urge Secretary Tillerson to revise their policy immediately.”
Florida Republican U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Neal Dunn, Matt Gaetz, Bill Posey, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Dennis Ross and Ted Yoho signed on the letter.
DeSantis spearheaded the letter with U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio. Last week, DeSantis and Johnson announced the creation of the Israel Victory Caucus which will serve to both educate Congress on the shared challenges faced by the United States and Israel and to advance legislation that supports peace in Israel."
"With the repairing of the United States-Israel relationship under the Trump administration, we have a tremendous opportunity to build on our close friendship by furthering military and economic ties,” DeSantis said when the caucus launched. “Recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is a condition precedent to achieving Middle East peace. The United States needs to be very clear that Israel is here to stay and those who seek Israel’s destruction will earn the enmity of the United States.”
In recent weeks, DeSantis has been focused on Jerusalem. At the start of the year, he rounded up more than 100 fellow members of Congress to send a letter to President-elect Donald Trump urging him to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. DeSantis doubled down on those efforts after a trip to Israel in early March.
Trump has said he supports moving the embassy to Jerusalem, a point Vice President Mike Pence made earlier this week. But there have been reports that the Trump administration has reached out to Palestinians, saying the embassy would remain in Tel Aviv.
First elected to Congress in 2012, DeSantis, who currently chairs the House National Security Subcommittee, has garnered attention as a possible candidate for statewide office in the future. A graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School, DeSantis served as in the Navy JAG Corps. DeSantis waged a brief campaign for the Republican nomination to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., last year. When Rubio decided at the last moment to run for a second term in the Senate, DeSantis dropped out of the race and ran for a third term in the House. DeSantis, who currently chairs the House National Security Subcommittee, is generating buzz as a potential candidate for state office in 2018, being urged by the conservative Madison Project, which backed his Senate bid, to run for governor. He’s also considered a possible candidate in next year’s state attorney general’s race.
