In a stretch of desert just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, men and women in khakis and the colors of the U.S. flag recently gathered at a border watch post they call Camp Vigilance and discussed their next offensive in the nation’s immigration wars.
The targets: illegal immigrants and their U.S.-citizen children who receive public benefits. The tool: a California ballot initiative that would end public benefits for illegal immigrants; cut off welfare payments for their children who are citizens; and impose new rules for birth certificates.
“We will be out in full force to qualify this initiative,” said Barbara Coe, who helped develop Proposition 187, the 1994 measure that would have ended benefits to illegal immigrants but was ruled unconstitutional. “Illegals and their children are costing the state billions of dollars. It’s invasion by birth canal.”
The proposed initiative, recently presented by San Diego political activist Ted Hilton, is thought to be one of the first attempts to end benefits for the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. Supporters hope to use it to challenge the automatic citizenship of children born in the U.S. to parents here illegally.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says “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.”
Backers of the initiative contend that illegal residents are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and that, as a result, their U.S.-born children should not be citizens.
The nonpartisan state legislative analyst’s office has reviewed the measure and calculated it could reduce costs by more than $1 billion a year.
In California, officials estimate that the state’s 2.7 million illegal residents add $4 billion to $6 billion in costs to the state’s roughly $105 billion budget, primarily for schools, prisons and health care.
