Steve King, Congressman from Iowa, who is one of the more extreme of the Republican know-nothings in Congres, is apparently about to become the Chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for immigration legislation. As such, he will undoubtedly play a significant role in driving more Hispanic voters into the arms of the Democratic Party.
I have read in a number of places that one of the "reforms" that King and his allies want to achieve is either a constitutional amendment or a re-interpretation of the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants who have children here. Sounds Simon Legreeish.
But, although I am generally sympathetic to efforts to genuinely reform our immigration laws and systems in order to better regulate the flow of immigrants and to provide a pathway to citizenship, I really don't get why the birthright citizenship issue is so heatedly disdained by the left. It seems to me that, although this policy might once have made sense for the U.S., perhaps it no longer does. What national interest or value is served by automatically conferring citizenship on a child simply because he or she happens to be born here? Doesn't this incentivize illegal immigration, something I think we could all agree we should be trying to discourage? I don't think any other Western nation (or, for that matter, any nation) has a similar policy.
If anyone reads this, I would be happy to be instructed in why the reversal of this policy is unfair, immoral or bad policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment