When Birthright Citizenship was last "Reconsidered": REGAN v. KING and Asian Americans Part II
Before I go on to speak
about Regan, a little recap on the
current situation may be in order: In April 2010 the state of Arizona enacted a law that, among other provisions,
required police to determine the immigration status of those whom they lawfully
stopped, in case they were in the country illegally. It also made it a state
crime for immigrants not to carry documents, thus placing on them the burden of
proof that they were present legally in the United States. While the Arizona law formally
forbade racial profiling in the search for illegal immigrants, its understood
target is Hispanics, who comprise the vast majority of the state’s immigrants.
These central provisions of the Arizona
law were challenged by the Obama administration. In July 2010 the central
provisions of the law were blocked by U.S. District Court judge Susan Bolton,
and the state is enjoined from enforcing them during its appeal. The controversy over the law testifies to the
existence of an ugly anti-immigrant mood in the country. Indeed, even in its
initial form, which permitted racial profiling, the Arizona law was widely hailed by
commentators and public opinion polls across the country, and legislators in
other states began drawing up similar legislation.
One byproduct of the Arizona legal campaign
and the demonizing of immigrants has been a backlash over citizenship. In July
2010 Arizona
state senator Russell Pearce proposed a new state statute to strip citizenship
from the children of illegal aliens. Legal commentators immediately responded
that such a law would be blatantly unconstitutional under the 14th
Amendment, which provides that all persons born or naturalized in the United States
are citizens. Rather than derailing the idea, the constitutional argument only
inflamed it. In the following weeks, leading Republicans began to call for
repeal or reinterpretation of the Amendment’s provisions, beginning with US
Senators John Kyl of Arizona and Lindsay
Graham of South Carolina,
and then Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell. On August 3rd,
2010, McConnell called for hearings on repealing birthright citizenship. Along
with Kyle and Graham, he pointed to the supposed practice of foreign couples
traveling to the US
to give birth, in order to endow their children with US Citizenship.(In fact such visits are rare,
for the very good reason that they are not of immediate benefit to the
parents--children can not sponsor their relatives for legal residency before
they turn 21). On
August 3rd, 2010, Five days later, House Minority Leader John
Boehner joined McConnell, stating that he was open to either amending the U.S.
Constitution or the interpretation of its provisions. "In
certain parts of our country, clearly our schools, our hospitals are being
overrun by illegal immigrants -- a lot of whom came here just so their children
could become U.S.
citizens."
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