Sen Lindsey Graham is proposing to ammend the Constitution to remove the 14th Amendment clause granting automatic citizenship to anyone born in the US. Good or bad? More after the jump.
For disclosure, I'm a multi-generational US citizen (at least as far back as great grandparents on both sides) but my wife is an immigrant. We went through months of waiting and piles of paperwork for her to come over legally. She is as progressive as I am on most issues but when it comes to immigration she has some serious problems with the idea of illegal immigrants having the same privileges as those who went through the system.
The 14th Ammendment made sense when it came to granting citizenship to those who had been held in slavery. Does anyone really think that the drafters for this ammendment had any idea that it would be used by people sneaking across the border to establish an anchor in the US?
I don't know what language Sen Graham intends to include but if I was drafting this I would likley have it state something along the lines of that a child will be granted citizenship at birth if 1) born anywhere to one parent who is a US citizen or 2) born in the US to one parent who is a legal permanent resident. I don't consider this to cover people who are in the US on any type of visa, only those who have been granted permanent residency.
The US laws regarding immigration need many reforms. Work visas for unskilled labor is a key one as an easy path for a work visa would remove most of the incentive for those illegally crossing the border to work. That is a topic beyond the scope of this diary. For now I'm concerned as to when and under what circumstances birth right citizenship should be granted.
Now, will Progressives be against this just because it is coming from a Republican or will at least some Progressives see this as one of the steps in a long road to immigration reform?