by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona lawmakers are expected to introduce an "anchor baby" bill today that would deny birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Modeled after birthright citizenship legislation unveiled by the nativist coalition State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) earlier this month, the measure is, unabashedly, part of a larger effort on the part of SLLI to challenge existing citizenship law in the United States.
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The Tucson shooting that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) critically wounded and 6 others dead last Saturday wasn't explicitly motivated by Arizona's polemical stance on immigration. Nevertheless, the tragedy bears a number of weighty implications for immigration issues both in Arizona and across the nation.
Contextualizing political violence
Pima county sheriff Clarence Dupnik was among the first to discuss the shooting within the context of Arizona's heated immigration battles. In several television appearances, he characterized the tragedy as a product of hatred and intolerance, telling reporters during one press conference that Arizona has "become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Many on the right, including Senator Jon Kyl, were quick to admonish Dupkin for needlessly politicizing a national tragedy.
But, as Care2's Jessica Pieklo argues, the sheriff's contentiously moderate stance on immigration makes him uniquely positioned "to shine a critical light on the fevered political rhetoric that has enveloped his state and this country." While Dupnik has spoken out against Arizona's SB 1070, engendering the goodwill of immigrant rights advcoates, he has also argued that schools should check the immigration statuses of students, a position endorsed by the anti-immigrant right. Given his varied stance on the issues, it's difficult to dismiss his characterization of the tragedy as some kind of party-line pandering. Rather, his statement seems an objective assessment of Arizona's volatile political culture-made all the worse by increasingly fierce immigration debates.
And as Dupnik probably well knows, that volatile political culture has repeatedly coalesced into political violence over the past 20 years. Following the shooting, the immigrant rights group Alto Arizona produced an interactive timeline of Arizona's long history of violence. As ColorLines' Jamilah King notes, this troubling history has frequently centered on explosive immigration issues, from Sheriff Joe Arpaio's lawlessness to murders committed by Arizona Minutemen.
(The first thing the House did was take away voting rights--from DC, Guam and other non-state representatives in Congress. But that's merely a symbolic sideshow compared to the real main attaction in disenfranchisement that conservatives have in mind for this year.... - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, a coalition of anti-immigrant lawmakers from 14 states unveiled their much-anticipated birthright citizenship bill. The measure would thwart the 14th Amendment by denying citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. As Julianna Hing notes at ColorLines, sponsors unabashedly admit that, after passing the legislation at the state level, they aim to push it through Congress. If passed, it would effectively become federal law while at the same time force a court case challenging the traditional application of the 14th Amendment.
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After commanding the world's attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening-once again-to dominate national immigration discourse and policy.
A couple of items from Think Progress on Friday give an indication of just how far off into space the GOP is likely to go the next two years. Both go to the subject of their incredibly non-existent grasp of the Constitution and related matters of basic legal reality. First was the matter of Iowa Congressman Steve King, who's the incoming chairman of the immigration subcommittee, with a novel approach to getting rid of birthright citizenship: simply declare that undocumented immigrants aren't subject to the jurisdiction of US laws--the same as foreign diplomats. You see, the children of foreign diplomats born here aren't US citizens, so if we pass a law giving undocumented workers the same legal status, their children won't be citizens, either! Neat, huh? Of course that also means they can't be arrested for murder, but worth the trade-off, right?
In an apparent attempt to top King's lunacy, Mike Huckabee has declared that Lawmakers can Ignore Court Rulings The Think Are "Fundamentally Wrong":
if the ruling of a court is wrong, and it's fundamentally wrong, and you have two branches of the government that determine that it's wrong, then those other two branches supersede the one
"Two against one! Two against one!" This is a five-year old's "grasp" of separation of powers, which is to say, no grasp at all. It would be insulting to idiots to call Huckabee one.
The two crazy ideas actually fit together in a way. From an interview King did with Fox News' Bill Hemmer (courtesy of Think Progress):
HEMMER: The critics are going to say "why deny citizenship to a child?" Your argument is what?
KING: Well it's really pretty simple. There is an industry that has grown up out of this that pregnant woman come into the United States illegally so that they can have a family that's anchored to their citizenship and anchored to American benefits.
HEMMER: You can find countless examples of that I'm certain. [...] But you would need a Constitutional amendment to do away with this. That is a huge mountain to climb.
KING: I don't agree Bill. Let me say that when you look at the scholarship on this - and I don't present myself as a lead scholar - but I listen to some of them however and I read the text of it: all persons born within the United States and subject to jurisdiction thereof shall be American citizens. [...]
HEMMER: So you would argue that it's the language and the interpretation of the amendment?
KING: I would say so. That clause is there. If it weren't there, then I think they would have a case. But the proper way to go about this is: pass the law banning birthright citizenship and then certainly the people on the other side will litigate...and we'll fight out on the other side of this what the will in the Supreme Court is.
But of course, using Huckabee's logic, who cares what the Supreme Court says? Two against one, remember? Of course there is the little matter of the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the Democratic President. But hey, that's what impeachments are for, right? And there's enough conservadems in the Senate.... You can see where this is going, right? Just pick whatever crazy ass result you want to achieve, and bend or break every single law or principle that stands in the way. This is, quite literally, the direction that GOP as a whole is headed: Government by pure (or impure) id.
The thuggish acts of violence and intimidation Mike just wrote about are not only part of a pattern, rather than just isolated acts, they are part of a pattern of patterns. That pattern of patterns is the use of force to suppress unwanted ideas or expressions. It can be clearly seen in at least two other widespread phenomena among Republicans of late.
First is the voter suppression efforts promoted under the guise of fighting non-existent voter fraud, a topic I've written about repeatedly in the past. These efforts are, as Rachel Maddow described them last week, "downside insurance" that enables Republicans to be as racist as they wanna be in going after the white vote, relying on voter suppression to minimize the costs of turning minorities against them, by suppressing minority turnout. But this is a strategy of limited effectiveness, given the long-term demographic trends in our country. What Republicans really need is some really big form of push-back against that demographic reality. Which leads us to...
Second is the movement to overturn birthright citizenship. And Think Progress has just reported that it's a far more well-established GOP goal than almost anyone realizes:
REPORT: 130 Republicans In Congress Want To Consider Ending Birthright Citizenship This is the first installment in a three-part series on legislation that may emerge from a GOP-controlled Congress.
In late July, Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) call to end the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship for everyone born in the United States set off a firestorm in the press. Last week, a coalition of Republican state lawmakers announced a nationwide effort to "develop model state legislation" that will eliminate what they see as a "misapplication" of the 14th Amendment in granting birth citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants. More and more right-wing conservatives have taken this radical position, despite the fact birthright citizenship has long been settled law.
After conducting a thorough review of the voting records of Republicans in Congress over the past 15 years, ThinkProgress has identified a large majority of them have at one point called for hearings and legislation to alter the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for everyone born in the United States. An analysis of past records found that 63 percent of House Republicans, 44 percent of Senate Republicans, and 59 percent of all GOPers in Congress support reconsidering birthright citizenship.
Republicans in Congress have long operated by the "majority of the majority" principle, whereby the GOP Speaker of the House advances legislation only if it is supported by a majority of Republicans. With many prominent GOP Senate candidates favoring an end to birthright citizenship, including Rand Paul, Ken Buck, Mike Lee, Kelly Ayotte, Joe Miller, and Sharron Angle, it's likely that a GOP-controlled Senate would indeed have a majority who support revisiting the issue.
Ending birthright citizenship is no idle belief in the GOP caucus. Rather, Republicans have been pushing this idea for nearly two decades, introducing 28 separate bills to eliminate birthright citizenship since 1995.
It's axiomatic that such thuggishness be premised in a false claim of fundamental rights, and victimology on the part of its conservative advocates. "It all started when he hit me back" is their unspoken battle cry. This is the common thread behind all the different forms it takes. Liberals are Nazis and must be stopped by any means necessary! They're trying to steal elections, so don't let them vote! They're invading us! Terror babies! Help! Help! Help!
Democrats should call the Republicans' bluff and hold hearings to let GOP senators air their reasons for repealing the birthright to citizenship that is part of the 14th Amendment.
It is especially ironic that the leaders of the repeal effort include Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, Republicans from South Carolina, the original laboratory for bad government ideas. You may recall that South Carolina was the principal instigator of the Civil War. The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 largely to prevent the unreconstructed Confederates who controlled Southern states from denying the rights of citizenship to newly freed slaves. Of course, the thugs won anyway and the Supreme Court in 1883 decided - in an aside - that the 14th Amendment gave civil rights to corporations even as the courts declined to uphold the civil rights of black citizens in the South.
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