Some Republican state legislators brazenly announced a radical new goal today: eviscerating the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guarantee. Their declared strategy is to enact patently unconstitutional state laws in the hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually reverse more than a century of deeply settled 14th Amendment jurisprudence. There is no danger that the Court would actually do so. Rather, the danger lies in the fact that these legislators would shamelessly advance such a divisive and fundamentally un-American agenda without fear of repercussions.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund proudly joins an alliance of leading civil rights organizations and scholars dedicated to exposing and halting this deeply offensive broadside against the Constitution and against core American values. The newly formed coalition, Americans for Constitutional Citizenship, will vigorously defend against efforts to upend the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that all persons born in the United States are citizens. America is no country club and the Constitution does not allow state or federal legislators to decide who should gain citizenship. The genius of the 14th Amendment was in ratifying a new and enduring principle, one that goes to the heart of the American identity: Descent does not mean destiny.
Additional Resources:
Birthright Lunacy: Separating Fact from Fiction in the 14th Amendment Debate (CAP)
August 11, 2010
Repealing the 14th Amendment Would Not Fix Our Immigration System (US NEWS)
August 30, 2010
Race and Beyond: Effort to Repeal 14th Amendment Canny like a Fox (CAP)
August 10, 2010
Immigration Nation: Reversing Birthright Citizenship Would Reverse a Unique American Achievement (CAP)
April 8, 2010
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