Is there a federal "Born In America" act that would prevent naturalized citizens from elected office being promoted by numerous luminaries including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. John Kennedy, Rep. Jim Jordan, FBI Director Kash Patel, and movie star Denzel Washington? No, that's not true: Nearly identical versions of a dramatic story about the purported bill, changed only to swap in a different famous name, are produced by an international network of websites and Facebook pages that publish mass-produced fake news stories to generate traffic.The records of congressional action show no such bill under consideration. News searches turn up no real reports that included the inflammatory quotes put in the mouths of Kennedy and the others.
One of the Sen. John Kennedy versions of the fake story, for example, appeared in a Feb. 22, 2026 Facebook post (archived here) on the Daily News Update page under the title "NO FLAGS BUT OURS!". It opened:
Senator John Kennedy SH0CKS Congress in Live C-SPAN Showdown Accuses AOC's Squad of 'Selling Out America,' Demands Immediate Expulsion of 14 Naturalized Lawmakers
In a thunderous speech that shook the halls of Congress, Senator Kennedy held up the "Born in America Act" folder and declared: "If your allegiance isn't to this nation, you have no place in the People's House."
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook post.)
The post continued:
He called out what he described as a "coalition of foreign-funded loyalists masquerading as public servants" and left both Democrats and Republicans stunn3d. The live broadcast captured every tense moment as Kennedy outlined his controversial plan to purge the members he claims are betraying American values.
This explosive confrontation has ignited a nationwide debate with reactions flooding social media and commentators calling it one of the most dramatic floor speeches in recent history.
👉 Read the full sh0cking details in the comments below!
That's the template followed by the fake news stories that cast Rubio, Jordan, Patel, Washington and others as the one giving the speech.
Story originated on Vietnam site
The Daily News Update page did not provide customary Transparency Tab disclosures of the country of origin of its page managers. But the story promoted by the post appears on the dailyus.oedn.net website, whose Terms of Service (archived here) lists Vietnam as the home country of the site:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Terms of Service page at https://dailyus.oedn.net.)
The Vietnam connection is significant, since fact-checkers, including Lead Stories, have identified a major source of AI-generated false stories coming from a single operation based in that Southeast Asian country. You can see recent reporting and fact checks mentioning that country here.
No news coverage, no official record of a "Born In America" bill
Legislation that would unseat dozens of members of Congress would be newsworthy, but when Lead Stories searched the Google News index of the contents of thousands of news sites, there were no real stories about such a bill, only a pair of fact checks of the claims made on fake news sites. We used keywords "Born in America Act", Congress, Kennedy (archived here).no matches were found on Google News.
Congress.gov, which tracks legislation in progress and the actions of members on legislation, found no relevant matches for Kennedy, the purported sponsor of the bill, and "Born in America." There was no "Born in America" act under consideration as of Feb. 25, 2026.
The Facebook post promoted a story (archived here) that ran under the following headline:
"NO FLAGS BUT OURS!" Senator John Kennedy SH0CKS Congress in Live C-SPAN Showdown Accuses AOC's Squad of 'Selling Out America -luongduyen
The last word, broken into "luong duyen" is translated from Vietnamese to English by Google Translate as "good fortune".
C-SPAN's advanced search tool found no instances (archived here) of Kennedy or anyone else saying "No flags but ours".
A search on Facebook for the phrase "born in America Act folder" (archived here) brought up multiple versions of the fake story, but with different celebrities and politicians invoking the act.
Lead Stories found posts involving:
- John Kennedy
- Marco Rubio
- Denzel Washington
- Jim Jordan
- Kash Patel
(Image source: Lead Stories animation of Facebook search results for the phrase "born in America Act folder".)
Lead Stories has published a primer -- or a prebunk -- on how to identify these kinds of fake posts exported from Vietnam. It's titled "Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam'"
Other fact checks
A claim about the existence of the "Born in America" act was investigated in November, 2025, by Snopes.
