14th Amendment Fight Could Get Ugly

So what would King Solomon, the wise, do with an anchor baby? Order it to be hacked in half to see if the birthers flinch? It may just come to that, kinda’. At the very least the issue of babies born to undocumented parents will go before the highest, and presumably the wisest group of judges in the land. That’s what both sides of the fight are hoping for.

Elected representatives in State Houses across the country are planning to introduce bills that will challenge the 14th amendment. The defenders of birthright citizenship say they plan to sue the states that do so.  The birthers, folks that would deny citizenship to the babies of the undocumented, say “bring it on.”

They’re gonna go there and we know it, like everyone in middle school knew about the fight at the last bell (I went to an all-boys Marianist School and the good brothers used to let the fights go on for a couple of rounds, to quell the riled testosterone…a sort of reverse psychology, preemptive riot control. I don’t think that’s what these guys want.)

Let’s get a clear idea of what this fight is about. The part of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution that everyone’s bickering about reads:

“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.”

Got that?

In the plainest terms possible, one side claims the sentence does not apply to the children of the undocumented and the other side says the sentence holds no caveats; if you’re born here you’re a citizen.

The arguments on both sides take the fight to the intent of the men who wrote the constitution: what would the founding fathers do (WWFFD)?

Cesar Perales, President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF-that fights to defend the birthright citizenship of the babies of the undocumented-told Fox News Latino

“The very purpose of the 14th amendment was to insure that we would not have a caste system in which the children born in our country would have no chance of ever becoming citizens equal to all others.”

Specifically, the 14th Amendment was purposed for the children of slaves. But the intent, according to PRLDEF, is farther reaching. “It seems unbelievable that there would be politicians today that would try to in fact create this caste system,” Perales told Fox, “all the while claiming states’ rights like the racists of yesteryear.”

There’s a more practical side to this argument. States don’t have the jurisdiction to grant citizenship. That’s an honest jab. I doubt the wise Justices would see it another way. That fight may end badly for the birthers.

That means, though, that a similar bill in the US Congress is more legitimate, in the jurisdictional sense. Enter here Smith, Gallegly and King (who, with names like that, if they’re not an ambulance-chasing law firm, should be). They are the birther triumvirate: Lamar Smith is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Elton Gallegly is chairman of the Immigration sub-committee and Steve King is the disgruntled vice-chair. They’re all immigration hawks and their challenge to the 14 Amendment was once considered extreme. The problem is that their point of view is no longer fringe. They plan to move a bill that excludes the babies of the undocumented from the 14 Amendment, and if it survives the House it will be put to the test in the Senate. The Senate is sure to stomp it out, and if it doesn’t President Obama will have the final say with his veto pen.

So what’s with Dewey, Cheetum and Howe (Smith, Gallegly and King)? Why waste their time on a dead end? They made promises to the electorate. It’s school yard stuff, tauting long enough for a teacher to come and stop the nonsense.  Before it’s over, though, (as the cliche goes) this thing could get ugly.