“Birthright Citizenship” Fight Lies Ahead

Immigration is going to be a big issue in the 2006 elections, especially in the states along the Mexican border. However, for the social archconservatives (those who believe that if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough from everyone else), the issue is red-meat. They may even try to “fix” the 14th Amendment to the constitution, which gives everyone born in America a Yankee passport. What’s troubling is not so much their focus on the problem, but their wrong-headed “solution.”

Passed right after the Civil War, the first section of the 14th Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The idea was to make sure that those in the US who used to be property and counted as 3/5 of a human being for congressional representation purposes were made full and equal citizens. Well, citizens anyway; the nation is still working on full and equal treatment for black Americans.

However, as the rabid right notes, this creates an odd situation in which illegal immigrants can come to America with their foreign languages (like the tongues of Cervantes and Confucius) and alien customs (like working 16 hours a day for a pittance) and when they breed, their offspring as American as Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Nathan Deal (R-GA). That just annoys the legislators no end.

Messrs. Deal and Tancredo are the leading proponents of changes in immigration law wrongly called “reform.” They have pressed for legislation that would revoke the right of citizenship by birth – denying that the 14th Amendment would need to be changed. They have also backed H.R. 946, The Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2003, which would have allowed only 30,000 legal immigrants to enter America for the first five years after it would enter into force, and 10,000 annually thereafter. Unrealistic and unworkable are just two words to describe it.

Citizenship does need to be redefined in America, and those without citizenship must not have the same standing as those with it lest citizenship be rendered irrelevant. However, to suggest that a person born and raised in the US is not entitled to citizenship demands a greater level of debate than the foreigner-bashing currently offered. For example, should citizenship be stripped from a congressman who violates his own term-limits pledge? That might give Mr. Tancredo reason to reflect.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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