Sink, Anchor Babies, SINK!

We are — and always have been — a nation founded by immigrants and a people of immigrants.  We spin in a transient world.  Yet, there are some among us who believe majority occupation sets nation lines and international boundaries and that location, and not morality, should determine citizenship.

A survey by Rasmussen Reports shows 67 percent of Arizonans believe American-born babies of undocumented immigrants should not get citizenship status.

Twenty-eight percent think the child should qualify as an American citizen, according to the July 29 poll of 500 adults.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in the Civil War era, says a person born on U.S. soil is an American citizen. State Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, Gov. Jan Brewer, R, and U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., are among those who want the amendment reassessed.

Rand Paul, who is now officially nuttier than his father, doesn’t want any babies born in the USA with “foreign parents” to have anchor status or preferential standing for citizenship:

When asked why not, Paul responded, “I don’t know. Some of it may be labor force, things like that. But I’m not opposed to letting people come in and work and labor in our country. But I think … we shouldn’t provide an easy route to citizenship. A lot of this is about demographics. If you look at new immigrants from Mexico, they register three-to-one democrat. So the democrat party’s for easy citizenship and for allowing them to vote. I think we need to readdress that. We’re the only country I know of that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.”

Ah!  The truth speaks the lie!

So banning “anchor babies” from citizenship is, of course, all about playing politics — and the want of the fading, minority, power — to punish a 1-3 voter registration favoring liberal ideals over punishing, conservative, ploys.

The Star-Ledger gets it right in a recent editorial:

Republicans usually position themselves as fierce defenders of the Constitution against what they characterize as an onslaught of liberal re-interpretation. But suddenly they want to re-examine the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil.

They’re concerned with babies born here to illegal immigrants and say they want to yank the citizen status of these so-called “anchor babies.” It’s a terrible idea that would establish a permanent underclass within our borders and does nothing to address our larger immigration problem.

Immigration is broken in the USA — but we can’t fix it by punishing infants of parents who seek out a better life for their children in America — and our inconvenient history as a national is stained in bloodshed fighting for that very ideal of inclusion over rejection.