Allowing illegal alien “anchor babies” instant citizenship perverts the historical intent of the 14th Amendment and disparages the history of the black slaves it was originally intended to protect.
Donald Trump deserves much of the attention he receives over his immigration proposal. But let’s not pretend the push to end “birthright citizenship” began in August 2015. Most of the rancor over Donald Trump’s immigration proposal to end birthright citizenship completely misses the point.
Passed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment–through the Citizenship Clause–guaranteed former slaves constitutional rights and citizenship. In 2015, the intent of that law has been mangled beyond recognition, as it is now pretext to permit millions of people to hop-scotch the border or overstay their welcome, have kids, and collect welfare.
How did we get here?
“Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause is a floor, not a ceiling,” writes Ken Klukowski, legal editor of Breitbart News and author of Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.”Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress has absolute power to make laws for immigration and for granting citizenship to foreigners. Congress’s current Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 is far more generous than the Constitution requires. Congress could expand it to grant citizenship to every human being on earth, or narrow it to its constitutional minimum.”
Donald Trump is hardly the first person to call attention to this immigration mess.
It was the senior Democratic Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, who in 1993 introduced a bill that would have amended the Immigration and Naturalization Act. Reid was simply seeking passage of federal law that said children born in America would not be made “a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth.”
So how far out of the mainstream is Trump’s support for reforming the rule on birthright citizenship, when it was once an idea being pushed through Congress by a liberal like Harry Reid?
Before his Immigration Stabilization Act died in committee, Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate and declared that “no sane country” would ever permit automatic citizenship:
If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee full access to all social and public services this society provides. Is it any wonder that 2/3 of the babies born at the tax payers expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?
So was Harry Reid a radical then or is he racist now?
To be fair, Donald Trump has been ringing this bell for years. Trump dives deep into the issue of illegal immigration and government welfare dependency in his 2011 bestseller, Time to Get Tough:
The fact is when it comes to taxpayer-provided social services and welfare, illegal aliens have elbowed their way to the front of the line. In 2011, the Houston Chronicle reported that 70 percent of illegal immigrant families living in Texas received welfare assistance. That’s compared to the already too high 39 percent of native-born Americans who receive welfare. That’s insane. People who broke in the country use our social safety net with greater regularity than our own citizens! How can we ever expect to get a handle on the illegal immigration crisis when we incentivize and reward it with free welfare checks and health care?
There is no comparison between the illegal immigrant who sneaks into America to the 10 million Africans who were stolen, sold, hung, burned, beaten, raped, forced into slavery, and freed–only to suffer under 100 years of Jim Crow.
Harriet Tubman didn’t risk her life, Martin Luther King didn’t march on Washington, Rosa Parks didn’t sit on that bus; a countless many freedom fighters didn’t shed blood and die so that white liberal politicians could come along and trade the promise of government goodies for votes.
It’s just another spit in the face of Black America.
Enough is enough.
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