Miami Herald: Immigration debate sinks to new low (revisiting the 14th Amendment a distraction, not

[pampango]

a solution)

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/12/1772346/immigration-debate-sinks-to-new.html

The latest craze in the immigrant-bashing fad is the drive to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants -- never mind what the 14th amendment says. Incredibly, advocates of this notion are ready to toss aside nearly 150 years of legal precedent and the plain language of the Constitution in an effort to gain partisan advantage out of one of the most divisive and complicated issues on the national agenda.

Several top Republicans are calling for hearings to revisit the 14th Amendment ... This suggests either a profound misunderstanding of the law -- Congress cannot write a law explaining what the Constitution really means -- or a desire to plunge the country into a useless political brawl that would serve only to distract lawmakers from finding a real solution to the immigration problem.

The drive to alter the Fourteenth Amendment defies the idea of inclusiveness -- a basic principle in a nation built by immigrants. It would also create a far bigger problem than it purports to solve: According to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, 8 percent of America's newborns are the children of undocumented immigrants. Denying them citizenship would produce some 340,000 stateless persons each year and lead to a huge bureaucratic boondoggle as Americans scramble to figure out how to prove their own citizenship under a system which would require something other than a birth certificate.

The U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants cannot sponsor their parents until they turn 21, and even then the parents would not be eligible for another decade, making the notion of so-called ``anchor babies'' preposterous, not to mention offensive.

[snot]

1. The unreccer's are out.

[wcast]

2. So much for being strict constructionist

Repubs always want to change things when it suits them, and have their activist judges, but don't want the reverse. How far back do they want to go? My great-grandparents sneaked into the country illegally. Was my grandfather an anchor baby? It's just plain ridiculous!