It would seem that Republican lawmakers where just getting started on their assault of the 14th Amendment and the children of immigrants.
While GOP state legislators were introducing plans to target the children of immigrants, the incoming chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration Peter King (also a Republican) introduced H.R. 140, The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011.
King in a press release commented:
“The current practice of extending U.S. citizenship to hundreds of thousands of ‘Anchor Babies’ every year arises from the misapplication of the Constitution’s citizenship clause and creates an incentive for illegal aliens to cross our border. The ‘Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011’ ends this practice by making it clear that a child born in the United States to illegal alien parents does not meet the standard for birthright citizenship already established by the Constitution. Passage of this bill will ensure that immigration law breakers are not rewarded, will close the door to future waves of extended family chain migration, and will help to bring an end to the global ‘birth tourism’ industry.”
There is much wrong with the above statement… However, in the name of time and space let's look at this from a macro level.
In a time when states are going bankrupt, Republican members at both state and Congressional levels have decided that the best use of their time is, not to tackle economic problems facing the country but rather to introduce legislation which will set up a debate about the interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Not actually engage in any real discussion's or plans for reform of our broken immigration system or the economy.
Mind you, this debate will most likely result in lengthy legal battles which, best case scenario (for those who want to change the 14th Amendment) would result in some 2-3 years from now the Supreme Court re-interpreting the Constitution.
The problem with all of this is that at a basic practical level, even if states and Congressional GOP members are able to change the 14th Amendment, they have no actual plan on how to enforce this law.
Yesterday at a press conference unveiling the state version of the law, members of the group where visibly confused when asked how if passed a law revoking birthright citizenship would actually be enforced.
Their confusion was based on the idea that the laws would ever actually be enforced. Some members actually came out and said that they were skeptical, that even if states passed the law it could ever be enforced as it would result in immediate legal action. This begs the question, if GOP legislators are so skeptical about actually having to enforce this law on the state level, what do they actually intend to do with this legislation?
To these eyes, this is another case of base baiting, of political gamesmanship that has very little to do with actually reforming the immigration system. From a policy stand point it is hard to discuss the merits of this plan as it seems that the very virtue of its existence is political.
The problem with the GOP assault on the 14th Amendment, is that despite its political nature it has very real dangers of passing in individual states. Given the presentation by GOP members yesterday one has to wonder if they even know what will happen if they succeed. Even the state legislators who are pushing for a fight on the 14th Amendment where not altogether comfortable with passing laws in which they would be prosecuting small children.