WASHINGTON — A group of state legislators came to Washington on Wednesday to unveil legal language they say is a blueprint for states to pass immigration laws that might force a Supreme Court review of the 14th Amendment, which grants U.S. citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of the parents’ citizenship.
The group is pushing state legislation with two approaches: It would create two tiers of birth certificates, one that states would produce only for babies born to U.S. citizens and legal residents; and it would attempt to skirt laws stipulating that the federal government defines U.S. citizenship by adding a “state” citizenship.
Experts say such laws would be challenged as unconstitutional before they are ever implemented. The legislators say they welcome such opposition: They see a multitude of court fights in several states as the best vehicle to force the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a re-interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
The announcement is the latest salvo by some lawmakers in statehouses and Congress who seek to change who receives citizenship.
Denying citizenship to a specific group born in the U.S. would create a “modern- day caste system,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
It is “extremely doubtful” that the Supreme Court would be willing to hear a case on this issue, said Walter Dellinger, a Duke University law professor and former solicitor general under President Bill Clinton.
Lawmakers from at least five states — Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina — said Wednesday that they planned to take the suggested laws to their legislatures. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania who founded the group of lawmakers from 14 states, said that the laws would help slow down an “illegal alien invasion.”
U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who takes control of the immigration subcommittee in the House this week, has stated he would like to see the Constitution changed. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sparked a firestorm in August when he said he would consider introducing a constitutional amendment to prevent the children of illegal immigrants from becoming citizens.
Post-Civil War law
The 14th Amendment, part of a package of Reconstruction laws passed after the Civil War, guaranteed citizenship to freed slaves.
For more than a century, it has been interpreted by the courts to protect the U.S. citizenship rights of American-born Chinese children, American Indian children and children born to Japanese-American families when their citizenship was challenged during World War II.
