My wingnut congress critter Brian Bilbray trying to "unnaturalize" U.S. citizens!

[cascadiance]

Check out this piece of crap that he's trying to get passed. And note that if you have at least one American citizen parent, that you're let off the hook. He wouldn't be able to go after those folk without making himself a non-citizen, since one of his parents wasn't a citizen either!

http://www.alternet.org/rights/96964/anti-immigrant_republican_brian_bilbray's_bizarre_crusade_on_the_14th_amendment/

Anti-Immigrant Republican Brian Bilbray's Bizarre Crusade on the 14th Amendment

By Rhonda Brownstein, Southern Poverty Law Center. Posted September 1, 2008.

Since 1995, U.S. Rep. Bilbray (R-Calif.) has tried to deny American citizenship to children born in the United States of non-citizen parents.

In almost every session of congress he has been part of since 1995, U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) has unsuccessfully sponsored a law that aims to deny American citizenship to children born in the United States of non-citizen parents. His persistence is not a surprise: Bilbray is a former lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a right-wing, anti-immigrant group that paid him almost $300,000 to lobby on its behalf between 2002 and 2005, and has headed the hard-line Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus since early last year. The current version of Bilbray's perennially losing legislation is called the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007.

Still, it seems strange that Rep. Bilbray would sponsor such a bill, given that his own mother was a non-citizen. But Bilbray carved out an exception that would conveniently apply to him -- that a child born in the U.S. is considered a citizen so long as at least one parent is (1) a citizen; (2) a lawful permanent resident; or (3) in active military service. Bilbray's father was a U.S. citizen.

Even if Bilbray could manage to get his bill enacted into law, it would almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside." It would take a constitutional amendment, not a mere act of Congress, to deny citizenship to those born on U.S. soil.

Bilbray claims that his bill is simply advancing an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment -- as Congress is permitted to do under its power to enact laws to enforce the Constitution -- rather than proposing a change that would require the very difficult and extended process of amending the Constitution. The crux of his tortured argument is that the Fourteenth Amendment clause "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" denies citizenship to American-born children whose parents "owe allegiance to another country." Not surprisingly, Bilbray is not specific about what that phrase means.

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[im1013]

1. Whaaaaaat????????????

That's just crazy-talk.

:wtf:

[Thothmes]

2. I do not disagree with his basic position

The intent of the 14th amendment was to grant citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of African Americans recently freed from slavery. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision essentially said that there was no way a black person could become a citizen of the United States. The Congress drafted the 14th to get around this court decision. Once it was implimented it met its objective. The original amendment had nothing to do with immigrants.
I think that it should be modified to require one american parent. On edit. If an amendment to the constitution was approved changing the structure of the 14th, I do not think that should in any way be applied retroactively.