Illegal Immigration Debate Continues at RNC Meetings |
by Shushannah Walshe
FoxNews.com Embedded Producers Blog (August 27th, 2008)
MINNEAPOLIS-Heated debate on
illegal immigration continued at the RNC's platform drafting committee meetings today. An amendment was
proposed to deny citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants in the
United States.
Kendal Unruh, a delegate from
Colorado proposed the amendment and she introduced herself by saying she was
from staunch illegal immigrant foe and former presidential candidate, Tom
Tancredo's district. She said that illegal immigration is the "number one issue"
to the people in Colorado she represents and that the problem "breaks the back"
of the health care system in her state.
Fierce debate broke out among the
delegates when many saw this as unconstitutional and would mean changing the
14th amendment of the constitution, which states, "All persons born or
naturalized in the United States. . .are citizens of the United States."
Charles Mifsud, a delegate from Ohio said he was in favor of a crackdown of
illegal immigration, but opposed the amendment because "anchor babies" represent
the "symptom not the problem," which he sees as securing the border. The term
anchor baby is a controversial expression that refers to illegal immigrants who
give birth to babies in the United States and are then "anchored" to this
country.
In a more colorful moment of the
proceedings, Mississippi Governor and committee member Haley Barbour pointed out
that John McCain does not support denying children born in this country
citizenship and that he came here to elect John McCain president, "I want to
give him a platform he can run on. I don't want to stick my finger in his
eye."
In response, Sandra McDade from
Louisiana said she was not trying to stick her finger in John McCain's eye, but
was "aiming for a little higher" and then tapped her head insisting that by
adopting this amendment they would be sending a strong message to their
candidate. She called on her fellow delegates to approve the amendment, "We
don't have to be politically correct. We are Republicans!"
Other delegates expressed concern
they would have to bring their passport or dig up their birth certificates
before going to the hospital to give birth.
David Chung, a delegate from Iowa
adamantly supported the amendment saying that the very act of crossing the
border illegally makes illegal immigrants "invaders" and their children should
not be afforded the rights of citizenship.
After the heated debate, the
amendment failed, but the topic came up later when the question of counting
illegal immigrants in the census came up.
Kris Kobach, a delegate from
Kansas proposed an amendment that would eliminate the counting of illegal
immigrants in the 2010 census. The delegates were split almost entirely in half
with many delegates supporting only counting legal residents in the census, but
the other half were concerned that by only counting legal immigrants that local
governments and health care and education services in the country would be
totally overwhelmed. Many of these services rely on census data to function and
the amendment ended up failing.
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