Bills Denying Birthright Citizenship to be Introduced in Arizona

By Elizabeth Llorente
Published January 26, 2011

Arizona state legislators are planning to introduce bills on Thursday that deny automatic citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants.

Arizona is expected to set off another seismic immigration wave on Thursday, when both chambers of its legislature expect to hear the introduction of bills denying citizenship to U.S.-born babies of undocumented immigrants.

Republican State Sen. Ron Gould said he and Republican State Rep. John Kavanagh agreed on a day for each to introduce the legislation, but Gould said that timetables for consideration of the bills by the separate chambers will diverge at that point.

Arizona's legislation would define a U.S. citizen as someone who has been naturalized, or someone born in this country who has at least one parent who has no allegiance to a foreign country.

Gould is the Senate Judiciary Committee's chairman and he said he expects the committee will consider his bill in early February. Meanwhile, Kavanagh indicated that House action on his bill might wait for approval of a new state budget.

Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona’s well-known, controversial immigration measure, SB 1070 -- which, among other things, allows police to enforce immigration laws -- is a sponsor of the citizenship legislation.

Last fall, Pearce said that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which addresses citizenship, was not meant to apply to the children of people who live in the United States illegally.

“This is a battle of epic proportions,â€