Is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) starting to step away from his image as a relative GOP moderate? He’s now calling for a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, an idea that has become a cause célèbre on the right.
“But there’s another problem we have in this nation that I think is novel and needs to be fixed. If you come across the border illegally and you have a child in America, automatically, that child becomes an American citizen. Under the 14th Amendment, three court cases says there’s a constitutional right to that,” Graham said in an appearance Wednesday on Greta Van Susteren’s show.
He also added: “But I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here. Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake, that we should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”
Birthright citizenship is a legal principle based in the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” In the absence of birthright citizenship, it is possible for someone to be born without having citizenship in any country at all, due to failure to meet some extra requirement that could be imposed, such as ancestry or other circumstances.
(Via Adam Serwer.)
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