❓WHAT HAPPENED: Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) bizarrely claimed that Thomas Paine, a Founding Father, was an “undocumented immigrant” during a congressional subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Rep. Jamie Raskin, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and members of the Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday, during a Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government hearing.
💬KEY QUOTE: “I didn’t say he was an illegal immigrant, I said he was an undocumented immigrant, just like Thomas Jefferson’s family was.” – Rep Jamie Raskin
🎯IMPACT: The comments sparked debate over American history and immigration at the hearing.
A top House Democrat is claiming America’s Founding Fathers were mostly “undocumented” immigrants, in a bizarre attempt to undermine a Republican hearing regarding the effects of the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe, which determined that states cannot block illegal immigrant children from attending school, citing the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) described American revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, as an “undocumented immigrant” during his opening remarks during the Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government hearing on Wednesday.
“I want to start by invoking Tom Paine, who was an undocumented immigrant who came to this land in 1774, two years before the revolution and wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that ignited the American Revolution,” Raskin said. “And he said that this land, if it lives up to its ideals and its promise, would become an ‘asylum to humanity,’ he said. Not an insane asylum, but a place of refuge for people seeking freedom from religious and political, intellectual, and economic persecution from all over the world.”
The rabidly anti-Trump Democrat lawmaker further asserted that Thomas Jefferson descended from “a long line of undocumented immigrants both on his mother’s side and his father’s side to the country.”
The claims prompted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to interject, “I was just curious, Chairman [Chip Roy (R-TX)], the ranking member [Raskin] said, I think his opening sentence was Thomas Paine was an illegal immigrant. My understanding was Mr. Paine was born in the UK, came to America, then a British colony, in 1774. So I was just struggling how he was…” He was then cut off by Raskin, who replied, “I didn’t say he was an illegal immigrant, I said he was an undocumented immigrant, just like Thomas Jefferson’s family was. Most of our ancestors did not arrive here with documents.”
Raskin: “Thomas Paine was an undocumented immigrant.”
Jordan: “How was he an illegal immigrant? He was born in the UK and came to America, then a British colony.”
Raskin: “I didn’t say he was an illegal immigrant. He was an undocumented immigrant.” pic.twitter.com/3H6fDV02rf
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 18, 2026
The shift in Democrat rhetoric regarding America’s Founding Fathers is curious. Over the last several years, the party has pandered to its far-left base by pushing to remove America’s revolutionary leaders from public spaces, including an attempt to take down statues of Founding Fathers like George Washington displayed in New York City.
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