ANALYSIS: Citizen by birth? Republicans examine longstanding practise

By Silvia Ayuso Aug 7, 2010, 3:01 GMT

Washington - A judge's suspension of parts of Arizona's controversial new immigration law has not discouraged similar measures across the United States.

Just a week after the judge's decision was celebrated as a victory by civil-rights groups, the debate has pushed beyond the Arizona law, which would require police officers who stop people in criminal or traffic cases to investigate the immigration status of those believed to be in the country illegally.

Now, some senators from the centre-right Republican Party are exploring whether to deny US citizenship to children born inside the country to illegal immigrants. The privilege of citizenship-by-birth - a rarity in Western countries - is anchored in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which in 1868 guaranteed newly freed black slaves citizenship, as well as due process and equal protection under the law.

US senators are now pushing for reform of the 14th Amendment to deny automatic citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants. The proposal bears similarity to one launched in June by the same Republican state legislators who drafted the Arizona immigration enforcement law earlier this year.

Analysts agree that a significant part of the hardened anti- immigrant rhetoric is geared toward November's mid-term elections, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and more than a third of the 100 Senate seats are being contested.

But pro-immigration activists see a larger threat looming as the anti-immigration mood escalates. Only a few months back they were waiting with excitement for what seemed to be an imminent push for 'comprehensive' immigration reform - promised by President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign, when Latino voters mobilized strongly in his favour. Activists hope that such reform will give eventual citizenship to people in the country illegally, but legislation seems at best a distant possibility.

Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona are among those recently calling for a review of the citizenship now given to virtually all children, even those born to mothers without legal status.

Immigration activists were especially disheartened because the two senators had been among the few Republicans seeking a 'bipartisan' response along with Obama's centre-left ruling Democrats to solve the problem for 12 million undocumented migrants believed to live in the United States.

Graham told CNN late Thursday that he remains open to a comprehensive reform, but that automatic citizenship provides an incentive for violating the law.

'I don't want ... illegal immigrants coming 20 years from now,' he said. 'I want people to feel welcome. But I just don't want people to continue to break the law and be rewarded for it.'

Still, Graham noted that he remains in favour of an eventual path to citizenship for workers already in the country illegally. He calls it a practical, humane solution, because it would be impossible to arrest and deport 12 million illegals, though some on the right wing of his own party have harshly attacked Graham's stance.

Still, Graham and other Republican senators have called for a congressional hearing to discuss a constitutional change to deny these children US citizenship.

Legal experts regard it as highly unlikely that a proposal to change the 14th Amendment would be successful, given how difficult it is to change anything in the US Constitution.

'It can't be a serious proposal because it can't be done politically and is simply a distraction from true immigration reform,' said Bill Hing, a law professor at the University of California at Davis.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez, a leftwing Democrat from Chicago and leading Latino voice on immigration reform, accepted the Republican challenge to hold hearings.

'Let's get Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo and NASA astronaut Jose 'Astro Jose' Hernandez on the witness stand to defend all that they have robbed from the US by usurping US citizenship,' Gutierrez said sarcastically on the Huffington Post website.

In The Washington Post, columnist EJ Dionne Jr even called the birthright issue an 'excuse for election-year ugliness.'

Graham conceded that immigration is 'a hot topic.'

'It's dividing the country,' he said. 'The country is really emotionally torn over this.'

By trying to mobilize conservative voters, Republicans run the risk of alienating another important group, Dionne noted: African- Americans, who were the original beneficiaries of the 14th Amendment after the 1861-65 US Civil War, which brought the abolition of slavery.

The anti-immigration tone emanating from Arizona has already put off Hispanic voters, who have coined the slogan 'Remember in November.'