Back at it again: Sen. David Vitter attacks constitutional right guaranteeing citizenship for children born in U.S.
by Sandhya Bathija
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is attempting, once again, to attack an important constitutional right that guarantees that children born in the United States are American citizens.
He has introduced an anti-immigrant, anti-American amendment to a larger piece of Senate legislation called “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015.” His amendment, which has nothing to do with the victims of trafficking, attempts to rewrite the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to limit birth citizenship to only three categories of people: children of U.S. citizens or nationals, children of lawful permanent residents (green-card holders), and children of non-citizens in active-duty military service. Vitter introduced similar legislation in 2011.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Los Angeles sent a letter to every senator calling on them to reject Sen. Vitter’s misguided amendment.
The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment and its benefits have a particular resonance for the Asian American community. The true meaning of the clause was determined through an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.
In that case, the high court held that that the son of a Chinese national — who was forbidden under the Chinese Exclusion Act from ever becoming a U.S. citizen — should not be deprived citizenship because of his parents’ immigration status. The U.S. Supreme Court said that in America, every child is born with the same rights as every other U.S. citizen, and this has been the law of the land for more than a century.
But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen birthright citizenship called into question. The Right Wing media has called to end birth right citizenship repeatedly over the years and of course has found members of Congress to push this agenda.
On Tuesday, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said the “law’s got to change,” rallying up anti-immigrant sentiment, even though passing this legislation will do nothing to amend the U.S. Constitution and this right guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. The only way to change the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment is to amend the U.S. Constitution and overturn centuries of post-Civil War Supreme Court precedent.
That’s unlikely to happen, because if it did, it would fundamentally change a key constitutional freedom that protects us all. It’s also not very practical and would have disastrous effect on each and every one of the 300 million U.S. citizens today.
If Vitter, O’Reilly and other anti-immigrant forces had their way, the citizenship of every person born in the United States could be called into question — requiring parents to prove their citizenship, which would mean more government bureaucracy, privacy intrusions, higher costs, delays and error.
Rather than try to push these waste-of-time measures for political gain, Sen. Vitter and other members of Congress should find a real solution by passing true immigration reform.
Sandhya Bathija is the director of strategic communications at Advancing Justice | AAJC.
