In late May, La Plaza reported that on the heels of his success with passing SB 1070, Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce was setting his sights on a new target – the US born children of undocumented workers. https://www.latinovations.com/2010/05/24/arizona-lawmaker-now-targets-citizenship-rights/
Since that time, many national news outlets have picked up on Pearce’s efforts and those of others on the far right to defy the US Constitution and deny citizenship to what they have termed “anchor babies.”
Citizenship is granted to all individuals born in the United States according to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment, which was adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, reads: “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.”
This has not deterred some including Tea Party supported Republican candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky who supports the idea.
Anti-immigrant groups and candidates are using the argument to rally their base claiming that not granting citizenship to their children will deter immigrants from entering the US illegally.
According to Michele Waslin, a policy analyst with the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, “Adopting such a practice in the U.S. would be not only unconstitutional but also impractical and expensive.”
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