Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., said today that Congress should hold hearings to look into denying citizenship to illegal aliens' children born in the United States, as the fight over immigration widens into the explosive "birthright" issue.He wants hearings into a 150 year-old part of the Constitution. Republicans are so terrified of minority groups in this country taking political power away from whites that they are willing to rewrite the Constitution in order to try to stop it. Suddenly, Republicans find something wrong with the Constitution and it needs to be changed to give them political power. Th Citizenship Clause has been settled legal precedent for a century and a half...but Jon Kyl doesn't care. Republicans want immigrants out.
Kyl told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he supports a call by fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to introduce a new amendment to repeal the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Support is growing for this stunning reversal from Graham, who in 2007 drew the ire of Republicans when he lobbied for granting legal status to 12 million undocumented workers, and along with President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., led the failed immigration reform effort that would have given illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
The 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868 to ensure that states would not deny citizenship to former slaves. It reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Arizona's Republican State Sen. Russell Pearce - the architect of the controversial immigration law that was largely struck down by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton - also separately proposed the same measure.
"The 14th Amendment [has been] interpreted to provide that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what," Kyl said. "So the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?"
Hasn't occured to them that if the citizenship clause no longer applies, there are a whole lot of Native Americans who would kindly like their country back...
Posts
1 comment:
Bah, the GOP isn't serious about this, except for the hardcore nativists. The fact that Graham and McCain have so utterly flipped and are now leading the charge in the polar opposite direction is evidence. Even Boehner has to be able to do the math: there is no way to get to 2/3s of both houses of Congress, and 3/4s of the states.
The whole repeal-the-14th thing is pathetic Southern Strategy sabre-rattling. What I actually worry about is what a Republican House or Senate might decide about servicing the national debt.
Post a Comment