This would never pass constitutional muster without an army of conservative activist judges or a Constitutional Amendment, but Kansas Republican Secretary of State nominee Kris Kobach, one of the authors of Arizona's SB 1070, is apparently helping Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce construct one:
“Most countries — almost every country on earth — do not confer birthright citizenship,” said Kobach, a constitutional law professor. He said he supports a bill in Congress that would grant citizenship to children only if at least one parent already was a citizen or legal resident.
Kobach helped Pearce and other Arizona legislators write the controversial new law designed to crack down on illegal immigration. He's also advised other governments around the country on anti-illegal immigration proposals.
I never tire of hearing conservatives "cite foreign law" when arguing for repeal of birthright citizenship.
It's worth noting that repealing birthright citizenship, aside from demanding an expansion of the federal bureaucracy in order to enforce the new rules, would increase the number of undocumented immigrants in this country, not lower them. One of the effects of only increasing border enforcement is that the cyclical pattern of migration is interrupted, so people who might otherwise return home end up stuck here, and, as happens in life, many of these people have children.
The Migration Policy Institute recently did a study that found without birthright citizenship repeal, the number of undocumented immigrants would remain relatively constant at 11 million--although there's reason to believe that number might be low, particularly in the case of an economic recovery.
They evaluated several different rubrics under which citizenship could be denied. If citizenship for a child born with either parent being undocumented is repealed, the undocumented population would rise to 24 million by 2050. If the rule applies to children born to undocumented mothers, the undocumented population rises to 19 million. If it only applies to children whose parents are both undocumented immigrants, the undocumented population rises to 16 million. But again, I think it's likely that all these estimates would be surpassed in the event of a strong economic recovery.
So the end result of repealing birthright citizenship would be a massive increase in the number of illegal immigrants. Border hawks have this idea that repealing birthright citizenship is a "deterrent," but these people also think that throwing more tech and personnel at the border can prevent people from coming over illegally, and they're plainly wrong about that. As long as there's demand for labor and the legal means of coming here to work is so restrictive, people will continue to cross the border no matter how difficult or dangerous it is.
If you're trying to reduce the number of illegal immigrants, repealing birthright citizenship is a profoundly bad idea. If, however, your goal is to effect the political and social disenfranchisement of large segment of people living in this country by creating an entire class of stateless human beings, it's an awesome plan.
