Harry Reid: "No sane country would provide birthright citizenship"
Published 36 mins ago
Harry Reid's 1993 claim that 'no sane country' would provide birthright citizenship fuels GOP immigration push
By Gregg Re | Fox News
Michael Anton on the controversy over birthright citizenship
Former Trump national security official Michael Anton examines the history and misreading of the 14th Amendment.
Top Republicans are pointing to an impassioned 1993 speech by then-Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in which the future Senate majority leader argued that "no sane country" would award citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born on its soil and promoted his own legislation to end the practice here.
President Trump ignited a national debate on the topic this week when, speaking to "Axios on HBO," he announced his intention to use an executive order to end birthright citizenship, which he called "ridiculous."
In his speech, Reid concurred, although he advocated passing a law to enact the change -- one that would grant citizenship only to the children of mothers in the U.S. legally.
"If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right?" Reid said. "Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides. And that's a lot of services.""No sane country would do that, right?"
— Fmr. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., on birthright citizenship
Reid reversed his position in 1999 and apologized for his stance, shortly after the AFL-CIO, which holds significant political sway nationally in Nevada, changed its position to support birthright citizenship. Reid claimed he was inspired to revise his view based on a conversation with his wife.
FORMER US ATTORNEY: TRUMP 'RIGHT ON THE SUBSTANCE' ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, BUT EXECUTIVE ORDER IS WRONG APPROACH
Within hours of the clip surfacing, Republican leaders were quick to highlight Democrats' changing tune on immigration.
"Stopping the flow of illegal immigration used to be a bipartisan issue," GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote on Twitter. "But the Democrat leaders of today want to abolish ICE and open our borders."
Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin reposted an article about Reid's speech.
In terms of giving unwitting political fodder for Republicans on immigration, Reid has some high-profile company. Earlier this month, President Trump gleefully quoted then-Sen. Barack Obama's comments in 2005, when he declared that "we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants into this country.” (Obama, in those comments, went on to advocate for providing some legal status for illegal immigrants.)
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But not all Republicans are speaking with one voice after Trump's proposal. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said Trump has no authority to use an executive order to unilaterally resolve the issue, which many legal experts say is controlled not only by the 14th Amendment, but also by the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) of 1952.
It might be possible, some conservatives argue, for a new law passed by Congress to revise the INA and still comport with the Constitution, which states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
Republicans are advancing the theory that illegal immigrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. within the meaning of that provision.
While the new 5-4 conservative majority on the Supreme Court might seem sympathetic to the president's interpretation, the change would mark an abrupt departure from tradition -- and tradition is what then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh cited as a guiding principle when interpreting the Constitution.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/har...migration-push
