Arizona lawmakers file 4 birthright bills
Another Democrat compared the situation to Jim Crow, while another went Godwin on the issue. A good read.Arizona lawmakers on Thursday filed four bills for consideration that they hope will change how the U.S. recognizes children of illegal immigrants.
House Bill 2561 and Senate Bill 1309 defines an Arizona citizen as someone “lawfully domiciled” in Arizona who is born in the U.S. and is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” It defines individuals who are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. as children who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national or a legal permanent U.S. resident.
House Bill 2562 and Senate Bill 1308 would require Arizona to create separate birth certificates for children who are deemed to be Arizona citizens under House Bill 2561 and those who are not. It also seeks permission from Congress to form compacts with other states doing the same thing.
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States have oversight over birth certificates and, to an extent, over who can receive state services, but citizenship is a federal issue. Creating different birth certificates, or giving people different levels of access to state services based on information on birth certificates, would open the state to federal lawsuits.
Kavanagh, Pearce and the other lawmakers say that’s exactly what they want: to force these lawsuits so the federal courts will consider whether the 14th Amendment truly grants citizenship to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants.
“The court needs to rule on this so we can figure out how to treat these kids,” Gould said.
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Rep. Albert Hale, D-Window Rock, a Navajo, said that under these bills he would be considered an “anchor baby” because Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924.
“My grandfather was not a citizen. My mother, born in 1919, was not a citizen,” he said. “So I am a child of a non-citizen and therefore illegal. Am I to be deported? And If I am, where are you going to deport me to?”
He warned that passing these bills would create a crisis of children “who are stateless and without a country.”
“This will create a class of people who are not welcome in the country where they are born,” he said. “This is not the Arizona I know. This is not the Arizona I want.”
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