Representative Steve King introduces legislation to end “birthright citizenship”

  Earlier this week I wrote a post about the possibility that 14 states–my state of New Hampshire included–could introduce legislation that would eliminate granting automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to illegal aliens, and now it seems that this movement might be picking up some steam as Representative Steve King introduced legislation that would end automatic “birthright citizenship” yesterday in the new Congress.

  For those who may be unfamiliar with birthright citizenship: the 14th amendment states that “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.” When this amendment was written it had one narrow interpretation and one narrow interpretation only; to guarentee that the children of freed slaves were granted citizenship after the end of the Civil War. Since that time, liberals have used the 14th amendment to give children who were born to the parents of illegal aliens while they were on United State soil citizenship–thereby making these parents basically immune to the threat of deportation. In other words, the liberals have used the 14th amendment to create anchor babies. Clearly this was not what the authors of the 14th amendment had in mind.

  In addition to Steve King’s introduction of legislation that would end “birthright citizenship” comes word that as many as 40 states will try to introduce similar legislation in an attempt to stop what the State Legislators for Legal Immigration called a “misapplication” of the 14th amendment.

  These lawmakers understand that there is no possible way that Steve King’s legislation will ever pass both houses of the Congress and make it to the president’s desk for a signature, and they sure as hell know that Barack Obama would never sign the bill into law even if it did make it to his desk, but what they are trying to do on both a federal and state level with this move is to draw attention to the issue and force the courts to make a ruling on it.

Arizona State Rep. John Kavanagh (R) – an SLLI member – said the group’s goal is to legally eliminate birthright or automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.A. “We want to have our day in court,” Kavanagh said at the press conference.

According to the 14th Amendment, the primary requirements for U.S. citizenship are dependent on total allegiance to America, not mere physical geography,” SLLI founder Daryl Metcalfe (R-Pa.) said in a press release Wednesday. “The purpose of this model legislation is to restore the original intent of the 14th Amendment, which is currently being misapplied and is encouraging illegal aliens to cross (the border) and cost American taxpayers $113 billion annually

The bill also anticipates that there will be litigation on this subject,” Kobach said at a press conference in Washington where the model bill was unveiled on Wednesday. “The bill sets up a very clear question…. What do the words ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ mean?”

  This interpretation of the 14th amendment has been a cornerstone in the push to grant illegal aliens amnesty for many years now and the only chance that we have of ending this abuse of the 14th amendment is to get this issue into the court system and eventually let the Supreme Court rule on this issue. And that is exactly what this combined effort is attempting to accomplish. I applaud Steve King and all of the states who are attempting to bring this issue to the forefront, for it is far beyond time to end “birthright citizenship.”

  As  Daryl Metcalfe said, “the primary requirements for U.S. citizenship are dependent on total allegiance to America, not mere physical geography.” And that is the crux of the matter when it comes to illegal immigration in the first place.