Immigration reform advocates said they intend to aggressively challenge new calls for an examination of the birthright allowed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, with top officials saying the mainstream push is alarming.
“Many of these positions have been coming from the extreme side,” Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, said in response to a question from TPM. “Now we’re starting to see obviously more mainstream voices with that push and it’s extremely troubling to us.”
Murguía was referring to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain and other top Republicans who say they are open to hearings looking at whether the Constitution should be changed to deny citizenship to children born of illegal immigrants who are on U.S. soil.
Comments from McConnell, Sen. John Kyl and Sen. Lindsey Graham are “an affront to the constitution we’ve established in this country, Murguía said. “It’s pretty clearly established in the Constitution that that is recognized law, and this kind of a challenge should give us all pause.”
Murguía and other immigrant rights groups said they “fully intend to push back” against the new efforts from Republicans.
But others aren’t fighting quite that hard, since Democratic operatives believe there’s a political silver lining if the Republicans keep pushing birthright through the fall election. It’s one more way for the Democrats to keep Latino voters from choosing the GOP, they said.
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