McGroarty calls bill reforming Birthright Citizenship "Unconstitutional"

42nd Congressional candidate Lee McGroarty recently updated the immigration section of his campaign web site. He removed several paragraphs discussing what to do with illegal aliens after sealing the border to allow them to stay in the country, which I call amnesty. He added several paragraphs criticizing Rep. Gary Miller for his efforts to ban children born to illegal immigrants from receiving automatic citizenship. These children are commonly referred to as "anchor babies."

According to Numbers USA there are three bills that have been introduced in Congress to reform Birthright Citizenship. Rep. Gary Miller is the sponsor of H.R. 994 the LEAVE Act, and co-sponsor of H.R. 1868.

Miller's bill has 15 co-sponsors including local Reps. John Campbell, David Dreier, Brian Bilbray, Buck McKeon and Dana Rohrabacher.

H.R. 1868, sponsored by Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia, has 90 co-sponsors. The co-sponsors include Rep. Mike Pence (IN), who is third in House Republican leadership, and California Reps. Tom McClintock, John Campbell, Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Dana Rohrabacher, Brian Bilbray, Ken Calvert, Duncan Hunter, Dan Lungren, Wally Herger and Buck McKeon.

McGroarty wrote, "He (Rep. Gary Miller) has sponsored what I consider to be an unconstitutional bill that would not allow citizenship to be conferred to anyone born here to parents who are here illegally. Some call these "anchor babies"."

McGroarty goes on to say, "Historically, our nation has always recognized citizenship to a person born on U.S. soil, regardless of the status of their parents. The reason we're talking about this issue is because it's become a serious problem. Yet, having a problem doesn't seem to me to be sufficient reason to start interpreting and applying the Constitution in a different fashion than we've done for hundreds of years. Political expediency is NEVER a reason to trample the Constitution."

Finally McGroarty says, "Congressman Miller is grandstanding on the wrong side of the Constitution with this bill."

George Will's column in the Daily Bulletin today (DB doesn't have the article online so I linked to Wash Post) discusses the birthright citizenship issue. Will wrote that reforming the 14th amendment would bring it "into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration."

Last month we did a post on the position of 42nd Congressional candidates on reforming birthright citizenship.