`Anchor baby’ initiative won’t fly
Related News
- 07/13/10 — Nevada Immigration Ballot Initiative Fails
- 07/09/10 — Secure Arkansas petitions short of signatures
- 05/18/10 — Group Hopes To Get Initiative On Nov. Ballot
- 03/12/10 — Immigration bill clears Idaho Senate committee
- 12/04/09 — Tancredo ballot measure would require employers to verify immigration status of all new hires
- More Immigration news
Long Beach Press-Telegram: How desperate are some opponents of illegal immigration to get their case before the public (as if it weren't already a top issue)? Desperate enough to put forward a possible ballot initiative that absolutely everyone involved knows would be held unconstitutional the moment it passes. There are plenty of other questionably constitutional measures now in circulation, hoping for a place on the ballot next year. These include one requiring possession of government-issued identification in order to vote and another that would assess a one-time 55 percent tax on all individual wealth that exceeds $15 million for an individual or $20 million for a married couple. But no other current proposal is as baldly contrary to the Constitution as the anti-illegal immigrant measure that's the brainchild of Bill Morrow, a termed-out Republican former state senator from Oceanside and two other anti-illegal immigration activists.
Their aim: Preventing children of undocumented immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens even when they're born here. This, of course, runs counter to the specific language of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, one of the Reconstruction-era amendments enacted after the Civil War to make sure children of former slaves would be full citizens. "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," says Section 1 of the amendment. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." In short, if you're born here, you're a citizen regardless who your parents might be and regardless of their immigration status or citizenship. No state can ever do anything to diminish that right to citizenship. But Morrow and partners paid the state Attorney General's Office $200 to register and seek a title for an initiative aiming to do precisely that. If they can gather 433,971 valid voter signatures, they can even put it on the ballot.
To read more, click here.
Comments
There are no comments for this entry.
