New GOP strategy: GOP State Reps Seek to Deny Citizenship to Children of Illegal Immigrants

[pampango]

http://washingtonindependent.com/101162/redefining-birthright-citizenship-one-state-at-a-time

In the best-case scenario, Texas state Rep. Leo Berman hopes his state will be sued. The representative for Texas’ 6th District, along with more than a dozen other Republican state legislators across the country, plans to introduce a bill in the next session calling for his state to discontinue automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. Instead of a birth certificate, children born to parents illegally in the country would be issued a document they could take to the consulate of their parents’ legal country — and would not be granted the right to stay in the United States.

The measure is, of course, a direct violation of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. According to Berman, that’s precisely the point. “If that bill passes, we will be sued immediately. That’s the purpose of the bill,” he said. “The ACLU, La Raza, the Justice Department — someone will sue us for the bill.”

The next step in his desired outcome is a legal victory. “That lawsuit will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where some judge is going to read the background and say there are no Supreme Court rulings affirming the 14th Amendment’s current interpretation,” he said.

Most legal scholars say it can’t be done, especially not at the state level. The 14th Amendment was established in 1868 to overrule the Dred Scott decision that prevented children of slaves from becoming citizens. The language of the amendment specifically refers to birthright citizenship: “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.”
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Given the current activist conservative Supreme Court, the repubs may have hit on a viable strategy to keep people focused on those evil, brown "others" rather than our own power structure.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Leo Berman...whackadoodle who said...

Rep. Leo Berman, who at an up-with-Glenn Beck event over the weekend (attended by the governor), said this:

I believe that Barack Obama is God's punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president.

On his website it says this:

Leo Berman is a principled Republican leader who has been fighting for conservative values since he was a young man. Berman was a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, serving from 1958-1976. During this time, he went to the United States Army Command and General Staff College. He also attended Southern Methodist University, and is a life-long Episcopalian Christian.

That's because he's probably assumed to be Jewish.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Republicans have lost the Latino/Latina vote!

[donco6]

3. Why would you have to sue?

How could a law passed in direct violation of the Constitution be valid whatsoever? Can a state pass a law denying the right of a person to . . . say . . . speak outloud?

[Historic NY]

4. States don't grant citizenship.