Birthright-citizenship bills pulled in Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee
PHOENIX - A bid to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants faltered Monday when proponents could not get the votes of a Senate panel.
After more than three hours of testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, yanked the two measures. Gould said he lacked the backing of four other members of the Republican-controlled panel, which he chairs.
Gould said he will keep trying to secure votes. And Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said, if necessary, he will reassign the proposal to a more friendly committee.
The failure came despite Gould’s allowing John Eastman, a Chapman University law professor, to argue for more than an hour that there is no legal basis for the current practice of giving citizenship to all children based on the location of their birth. Eastman said passing the two measures proposed by Gould would finally give the nation’s high court a chance to squarely address the scope of the 14th Amendment.
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Aside from Eastman, all of the testimony was in opposition. Activist Salvador Reza said the debate over which children get legal recognition is “not very dissimilar to the debate that happened in South Africa not too long ago.”
“Young kids like this were denied citizenship for whatever reasons,” Reza said.
Jennifer Allen, executive director of the Border Action Network, said denying citizenship to children born in this country based on a parent’s citizenship would create “a permanent underclass” of people in the state.