Mattis Orders Troops To Border

In a move that should calm nerves north of the border, Defense Secretary James Mattis is planning to order as many as 800 soldiers to the Mexican border in advance of a large migrant caravan moving up from Honduras. The announcement of the deployment was in anticipation of a Request For Assistance (RFA) from the Department of Homeland Security.

CNN reports that the troops are not expected to come into contact with the migrants but are being deployed to assist civil authorities. The active-duty soldiers are expected to provide fencing, wall materials, and technical support to the Border Patrol and Customs and will join about 2,100 National Guard troops deployed to the border last spring.

President Trump has said on Twitter that the migrant caravan constitutes a “national emergy” [sic] and has called on the military to stop the caravan. A previous caravan last spring stopped short of the US border [DT1] in Tijuana where the few migrants who completed the journey waited to apply for asylum in accordance with US law.

Federal law prohibits the routine use of the national military for domestic law enforcement purposes under the Posse Comitatus Act. The 1878 law specifically applies to the army, but the National Guard is under state control. Civil Disturbance Statutes do permit the president to use the military to suppress rebellions, insurrections, domestic violence or unlawful conspiracies.

At present, the caravan is still near the extreme southern tip of Mexico, more than a thousand miles away from the US border. CNN reports the group averages about 20-30 miles per day, traveling mostly on foot, but sometimes hitching rides on passing vehicles.  At the current rate, the group is still more than a month away from the US border.

Originally published on The Resurgent

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 [DT1]

The Migrant Caravan Is Not An Invasion

 As you may have heard, there is a caravan of several thousand migrant workers en route from Honduras to the United States. Judging from the hysteria, you might be forgiven for thinking that this caravan is a group of Mongol warriors headed by Genghis Khan or a horde of zombies rather than a collection of people looking for asylum and employment in America. Nevertheless, the panic quickly reached heights of fear not seen since the Great Jade Helm Scare of 2015.

Some Americans are so upset about the migrant march that they are ready to take drastic measures. On Twitter, President Trump called the caravan “a National Emergy” [sic]. Some, such as Michael Moates, have said that the response should be to “shoot on site” [sic]. On social media, many armchair pundits agreed that lethal force was warranted.

Stop it, America. Take a deep breath and relax.

If you’re concerned about the caravan, here are a few facts to make you feel better. At noon on October 21, a USA Today story placed the caravan in the city of Ciudad Hidalgo in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. This is a border city. That is, it is a city on the border between Mexico and Guatemala. That’s a whole country away from the US.

In fact, Ciudad Hidalgo is 1,250 miles from Laredo, Texas. Per Google Maps, the distance between the two cities is a 27-hour drive. But wait, as they say, there’s more!

The majority of the migrants are not driving or riding public transportation. They are on foot. The estimated walking time to the US border is 409 hours. That works out to just over 17 days. Of course, no one is going to walk 24 hours per day. Assuming that the migrants walk 12 hours each day, it would take more than a month, 34 days, to make the journey. Based on these calculations, we can expect the caravan to reach the US border sometime around Thanksgiving. The majority of the group probably won’t even make the full journey as people drop out and are detained along the way. There is ample time to prepare to receive the ones that do.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because the same thing happened six months ago and there was a similar hysteria. A smaller caravan was stopped in Mexico City last April. About 50 members of the spring caravan made it to the US border at Tijuana where Reuters reported that most were turned away by customs authorities, saying that the border station was too overwhelmed to process asylum-seekers. Eleven people were arrested for crossing the border illegally.

If the caravan does happen to reach the US border, there is still no reason to panic. Border Patrol agents are there to stop them and it isn’t as if thousands of people who are being featured on the news are going to sneak up on anyone. There is plenty of time to shift manpower and resources toward where the caravan is heading. The simplest solution is just to keep the group on the Mexican side of the border as Border Patrol and Customs agents did last spring.

This is not an invading army, as some right-wing sources, would have you believe. This is a group of refugees fleeing San Pedro Sula, Honduras, one of the most violent cities in the world. Drug violence, gang wars, and political repression make leaving Honduras to pursue the American dream attractive for many honest people.

There is no evidence that the group plans to rush the border en masse to start carrying out terrorist attacks or looting American cities. Their intention seems to be to come to the US to apply for political asylum. But, even if they did sneak across the border into the US, it would probably be to pick crops or do yard work. The evidence shows that Illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans.

The irony is that the US is facing a shortage of labor. The US is currently considered to be at full employment and jobs are going unfilled because there aren’t enough workers. This applies to both skilled and unskilled labor. In a perfect world, the American need for labor would be matched with the immigrants’ need to work and a solution would be found to satisfy everyone.

This is the real world, however, and the migrants are just political pawns to be used by both sides. On the one hand, the organizers of the caravan are goading desperate people into marching thousands of miles, against the advice of their national leaders, when they know that they will be turned back at the US border. On the other hand, President Trump and right-wing organizations are using news of the caravan to stoke fears of an immigrant invasion and rally the base to vote in November.

The migrant caravan is real, but the threat that it represents is greatly overstated. There is little reason to fear and no reason to at all to start shooting innocent people, many of them women and children, who only want a better life in America.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Mollie TIbbetts' Family Rejects "Racist" Exploitation of Her Murder

Since the arrest of an illegal alien for the murder of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, the immigration status of her killer has become a hot political topic. Immigration hardliners have used the murder to call for strict enforcement of immigration laws and the deportation of all illegal immigrants. You might expect Mollie’s family to join in the calls for retribution against other illegal aliens. You’d be wrong.

The Tibbetts family has largely remained publicly silent about the immigration debate surrounding their daughter’s death. On Wednesday, the family released a statement through the Iowa Department of Public Safety that thanked the public for their prayers and support and asked that the family be allowed to grieve in private.

The family members who have spoken out on the politics surrounding her murder have been quick to distance themselves from the anti-immigration rhetoric and say that Mollie would not have agreed with what they call “racist fear-mongering,” reports KCCI in Des Moines. Members of the family call it unethical to “use this tragedy to demonize an entire population for the acts of one man.” As The Resurgent discussed last week, statistics show that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.

Among the family members who have made public statements are Mollie’s aunt, Billie Jo Calderwood, who wrote on Facebook that “evil comes in EVERY color,” and cousin, Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, who blamed the murder on “the toxic masculinity that exists in our society.’

As with Seth Rich, the politicization of the murder of Mollie Tibbetts only serves to add to the tragedy by hurting her family as they deal with their grief and loss. If the activists truly care about Mollie and her family, they will leave the Tibbetts family out of the political arena.

For those who sincerely care about the family and want to honor Mollie’s life and legacy, the family has requested that donations to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital in lieu of flowers. Donations can be sent in care of the Smith Funeral Home, P.O. Box 368, Grinnell, Iowa 50112.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Illegal Immigrant Crime Wave Is A Myth

The murder of Mollie Tibbetts was a tragedy. That her killer was an illegal immigrant makes the crime seem even worse and more senseless. Yet, as conservative news outlets focus attention on 24-year-old Christhian Rivera, a Mexican national living and working illegally in the US, it is important to distinguish between fact and fiction in the discussion about the so-called illegal immigrant crime wave.

Despite claims from immigration hawks, the data does not support claims of a crisis level of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants. In any large group, there will be both good and bad people. The question is not whether illegal immigrants commit violent crimes, it is whether they do so at a rate that is higher than native-born Americans.

Due to the nature of the group being studied, reliable data is hard to come by. Official government statistics about “criminal aliens” from the GAO do not distinguish between legal and illegal aliens. Therefore, some studies, such as John Lott’s 2018 study of Arizona inmates, are flawed because they make assumptions about who is a legal immigrant and who is not. It’s tough to determine how many crimes are committed by illegals if you can’t determine who is an illegal alien.

There are other ways to skin the cat though. A 2018 article in Criminology cited several studies that looked at community-wide crime rates. One compared “gateway” cities with high immigrant populations to “traditional” American cities. Another looked at different neighborhoods in Austin, Texas. Both found no evidence that neighborhoods with high numbers of immigrants had higher crime rates A third study examined federal Uniform Crime Report data from 2000 through 2010. The study found that even though immigration increased during the period, the crime rate decreased.

When the researchers looked at violent crime, the pattern was the same. Far from being the most dangerous places in the country, cities with many recent immigrants had the lowest homicide rates. Murder rates were more closely associated with age and socially disorganized neighborhoods than immigration status. Immigrants, possibly due to their strong family structures, often helped to lower the homicide and crime rates in their neighborhoods.

Earlier this year, Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute also published a study of illegal immigrant crime rates in Texas where crime data distinguishes between illegal and legal immigrants. The Texas data showed that the overall crime rate and the violent crime rate for both legal and illegal immigrants were far below that of native-born Americans.

Cities on the southern border do not rank among the most dangerous cities in the US even though they are in close proximity to the source of much illegal immigration. The most dangerous city in America is Detroit, located near the Canadian border. We might do more to lower the crime by deploying the national guard to Michigan than the Mexican border.

The killing of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant, another high profile case, seems fresh because her killer was acquitted less than a year ago. In reality, Steinle died in 2015. If three years pass between such highly publicized murder cases involving illegal immigrants, it is de facto evidence that such cases are hard to find. If the immigration hardliners could find more cases to sensationalize for their cause, there is little doubt that they would do so.

Despite the headlines about crimes committed by immigrants, it makes logical sense that immigrants commit fewer crimes. The vast majority of immigrants, both legal and illegal, come to the US to work. They have a powerful incentive to stay out of trouble and steer clear of law enforcement. If they get into legal trouble, they not only lose their income, they can be deported. Their entire way of life is at risk if they commit even a small crime and attract the attention of police.

There are violent immigrants, such as members of MS-13, the infamous criminal gang, but even this is exaggerated. There are an estimated 10,000 members of MS-13 in the US, but most are American citizens and not immigrants. Even if the gang was made up entirely of illegal immigrants, it would represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 12 million illegals living in the US.

If the family of Mollie Tibbetts does not take comfort from data that shows that immigrants are more law-abiding that US citizens, that is understandable. However, good policy decisions are not made in the heat of the moment based on an emotional reaction to a tragedy. That is as true with crimes committed by illegals as it is after mass shootings when victims and their relatives often clamor for a quick solution. As H.L. Mencken said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” As citizens of a republic, we pay our elected officials to dispassionately consider the facts and enact policies based on the right solution rather than impractical, feel-good policies.

In fact, the anti-immigrant chorus in the wake of Mollie Tibbetts’s murder sounds a lot like the anti-gun crowd after a mass shooting. In a great many cases, the phrase “illegal immigrant” in Republican rhetoric can be interchanged with the word “gun” in Democratic rhetoric after a mass shooting. Granted, Mollie Tibbetts would still be alive if there were no illegal immigrants, but there would also be no mass shootings if there were no guns. Neither argument contains a practical solution. Deporting all illegals is no more workable than banning all guns.

For conservatives, a practical solution to the problem of illegal immigrant crime should fit the problem. The conservative solution should keep government growth to a minimum, it should keep costs to a minimum (including both direct expenditures and costs to the economy from removing people from the workforce) and it should minimize disruptions to families. Conservatives should keep in mind that many illegal immigrants have family members, often dependents, who are American citizens with the same constitutional rights as any other American.

Considering the fact that most illegal immigrants are peaceful contributors to the US economy and their local communities, the best solution seems to be to focus on illegals with a propensity for violence rather than wasting limited law enforcement resources on people who are here to earn a living. Border security is needed to control who enters the country, but so is reform for the legal immigration system. Fewer migrant workers will cross the border illegally if the wall has a big door with a welcome sign.

The murder of Mollie Tibbetts was a horrible crime, but it should not be used to unfairly demonize all illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is a crime, but there is a huge difference between crossing the border to work without authorization and committing a brutal murder. Any conservative solution must recognize the difference.

Originally published on The Resurgent

BREAKING: President Trump Signs Order To End Family Separations

Less than 24 hours after saying that only Congress could change the immigration law that requires authorities to separate the children of illegal immigrants from their parents, President Trump has reversed himself. The president announced today that he will sign an Executive Order “to keep families together.”

“We are going to sign an Executive Order in a little while to keep families together, but we have to maintain toughness,” President Trump said.

Trump signed the order in the Oval Office on Wednesday, telling reporters, “We're signing an executive order. I consider it to be a very important executive order. It's about keeping families together, while at the same time being sure we have a very powerful, very strong border.”

The Executive Order declares that the policy of the Trump Administration is “to maintain family unity, including by detaining alien families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.” Trump instructs the Department of Homeland Security “to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, maintain custody of alien families during the pendency of any criminal improper entry or immigration proceedings involving their members,” rather than transferring the children to the Department of Health and Human Services, unless keeping the family together would “pose a risk to the child’s welfare.” The order does not end the zero-tolerance policy of prosecuting all illegal immigrants.

It is not clear how the Executive Order will withstand the Flores Agreement. The 1997 court settlement requires the government to place illegal immigrant children with family members “without unnecessary delay” or hold the children in the “least restrictive setting appropriate to the minor’s age and special needs” otherwise.

As recently as yesterday, the president claimed that there was no legal way to avoid the separations. “Under current law, we have only two policy options to respond to this massive crisis,” Trump told the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “We can either release all illegal immigrant families [of] minors who show up at the border from Central America or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry. Those are the only two options, totally open borders for criminal prosecution for lawbreaking.”

“So, what I’m asking Congress to do is to give us a third option, which we have been requesting since last year — the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit,” Trump continued. “This is the only solution to the border crisis.”

President Trump had claimed that the law mandated that children be separated from their parents, who were being arrested on immigration charges. Current law and the Flores Agreement also applied to previous administrations, but neither the Obama nor Bush Administration chose to systematically break up families. The Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy of prosecuting all illegal border crossers led to the systematic separation of families where previous administrations referred illegal immigrants to civil deportation hearings where the families could remain together. The Dallas News reports that approximately 2,000 children were separated from their parents between late April and the end of May under the new policy.

President Trump’s reversal is similar President Obama’s reversal on the so-called “Dreamers.” In 2010, when asked about the DREAM Act, Obama said, “I am not king. I can't do these things just by myself.” In 2011, he said, “[With] respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case.” The same year, he reiterated that he could not “just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. ... That's not how a democracy works.” In spite of all that, in 2012, Obama unilaterally implement the DACA program that suspended deportations and provided work authorizations for people who entered the country illegally as children.

The president’s reversal may be related to a new CNN poll that showed that Americans opposed the zero-tolerance policy by more than two-to-one. Prominent Republicans criticized the Administration on the issue and Republican congressmen were preparing plans to overturn the policy.

Even with the end to the separation policy, immigration will not disappear as a hot-button issue. There has still been no resolution to the DACA problem, many industries are experiencing a shortage of immigrant workers and there is still no funding for the “big, beautiful wall.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Federal Government Lost 1,500 Immigrant Children

Sometimes the truth is stranger and more appalling than satirists could possibly imagine. That was the case recently when the news emerged that the federal government had misplaced 1,500 immigrant children.

For the past year, the Trump Administration has implemented a policy of separating children from immigrants who were being held in immigration detention centers. As John Stonestreet noted in Breakpoint, it was not only illegal immigrant families that were being torn apart, but also families who had come to the United States legally to seek asylum.

Earlier this month, CNN reported on the Senate testimony of Steven Wagner, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Wagner revealed that in the last three months of 2017 the government had lost track of an astounding 20 percent of undocumented minors in its custody. In all, Mr. Wagner testified that the Office of Refugee Resettlement “was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 children.” Another 28 children were known to have run away.

Mr. Wagner was not overly concerned with the 1,500 missing children. “I understand that it has been HHS's long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care,” he told senators.

Stonestreet noted that Obama Administration policy was to detain families of asylum seekers while their applications were being reviewed. The Trump Administration initiated the policy of separating families to discourage immigrants from coming to the US.

Earlier in May, the Trump Administration announced the new policy of referring every person caught crossing the border illegally for federal prosecution. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time, “If you're smuggling a child, we're going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally.”

On May 11, Chief of Staff John Kelly told ABC News, “The children will be taken care of -- put into foster care or whatever.”

The policy is apparently being used against legal immigrants seeking asylum as well. In Breakpoint, Stonestreet cited the case of “Mrs. L.,” a Catholic refugee who was detained in San Diego and separated from her daughter without due process. The daughter was sent to a facility in Chicago where their only contact has been a half-dozen phone calls.

When the policy of family separations became news this week, President Trump responded by blaming Democrats. The president tweeted that Democrats needed to be pressured “to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.” The problem is that the separations are Trump Administration policy, not a legal requirement.

While needlessly separating young children from their parents is bad enough, losing 20 percent of the children in federal care is appalling. If the Trump Administration hopes to persuade Americans that the federal government is not competent at even the smallest task, losing more than a thousand children in its care is an excellent way to start.

The hardline policy may backfire on the Trump Administration politically. Americans have consistently been more accepting of immigrants than Republicans have been. Last year, Fox News found that 83 percent of registered voters supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Ripping small children from the arms of their parents is unlikely to boost support for strict immigration enforcement.

The policy is likely to make the Republican brand look even worse. An AP poll from March found that most Americans already think President Trump is racist. A policy separating immigrant parents from their children is unlikely to convince people otherwise.

Trump’s policy is also inconsistent with the image of a party that claims to be pro-family and Christian. Republicans have scored recent victories against abortion and Planned Parenthood, but the poorly-implemented child separation policy lends credence to liberal claims that the party only cares about children until they are born.

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” But Christ also gave a warning, saying, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” Jesus said. “For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

Ripping families apart to make a political point is hard to square with Christian and conservative ideals. It is even more difficult to justify taking so little care that 1,500 little children – 20 percent of the total – could be placed into federal care and simply disappear.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Federal Charges For Illegal Immigrant In Steinle Killing

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the illegal immigrant who was acquitted in California of killing Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier, has been indicted by a federal grand jury. Zarate will now face federal charges for possessing a gun as convicted felon and an illegal alien.

Zarate was acquitted of murder by a California jury last week in a case that provoked widespread outrage. Zarate admitted to accidentally killing Steinle with a single shot from a stolen pistol. The shot ricocheted off the ground before striking Steinle in the back. The same jury convicted Zarate of being a felon in possession of firearm, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in California.

The federal charges include possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a firearm by an illegally present alien. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits double jeopardy, trying a person for the same offense twice, but there are exceptions to the rule. The Supreme Court ruled in Blockburger v. United States (1932) that offenders could be tried separately for offenses stemming from the same act if each offense required a different element of proof.

In the past, the federal government has prosecuted cases in which defendants were acquitted in state courts. The most famous such cases stem from the Civil Rights Era in which racists who were acquitted of crimes against blacks by local juries were then tried on federal civil rights charges.

After the Zarate’s acquittal, President Trump called the verdict “disgraceful” in a series of tweets.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Our broken immigration system requires complete reform

As President Trump rolls out his new immigration initiatives, it will likely be a mixed bag. Some of Trump’s proposals, like border security and ending the Syrian refugee program, make a modicum of sense. Others, when viewed in the context of the current immigration mess, sound good but aren’t practical in the real world. It’s easy to say “enforce the law” on the campaign trail, but more difficult to put that philosophy into practice when the law doesn’t take economics and public opinion into account.

The law should be enforced. The problem is current immigration system is a mess because the law hasn’t been enforced for decades. Now the law doesn’t reflect the current reality on the ground. Additionally, immigration law probably doesn’t actually say what many people think it does.

For instance, illegally crossing the border into the United States is not a felony. It isn’t even a misdemeanor. It’s a civil infraction akin to a traffic fine. The US Code sets the penalty for “improper entry by an alien” at “$50 and not more than $250 for each such entry” with no mention of jail time or deportation. Marriage fraud by an alien is punished more severely (imprisonment up to five years, a fine up to $250,000 or both) than illegally crossing the border.

Today the immigration problem is really two problems. One is the national security aspect of having thousands of unknown, unvetted people cross the border or overstay visas. The other is related to jobs and the economy.

National security is the constitutional responsibility of the federal government. In 2001, I would have thought it inconceivable that 15 years later the border would still be relatively porous. My chief concern with the border issue is keeping terrorists out. A secondary concern is the humanitarian need to prevent immigrants from secretly crossing into the arid regions of the Southwest where many ultimately die in the desert.

Mr. Trump’s signature promise of The Wall purports to address border security, but it really isn’t that simple. Congress passed a bill authorizing a border fence in 2006, but the project ran into many problems. A large issue is that the Rio Grande defines the border between the US and Mexico, but ranchers need access to the river’s water for their cattle. Further, The Wall would do nothing to stop the problem of people who come into the country legally and overstay visas. This represents about 40 percent of illegal immigrants.

The second issue, that of jobs, is related to the first. Currently, many industries use migrant workers who come across the border illegally. If the border is secured, companies and farms will still need access to these workers. Without the pool of migrant labor, prices for many items will increase, hurting American consumers.

It may sound trite to say that there are some jobs that Americans won’t do, but it is true. Harvesting crops is backbreaking work. Past shortages of migrants have illustrated that there are some jobs that native-born Americans won’t do at any price.

When my native Georgia passed a strict immigration law in 2011, the result was a shortage of labor on farms and in hotels. As the Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in, crops rotted in the fields because there weren’t enough workers to harvest them. Agricultural losses were estimated at $140 million for the year. Other states have had similar problems. In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that California farms couldn’t find enough harvesters even though they offered $17 per hour.

This creates a political problem for immigration hardliners. If the Republicans pass a law that cuts off the source of labor for farms and businesses, then those businesses will quickly flock to the Democratic Party, which advocates for a full amnesty of illegals and, in some cases, open borders. Businesses are a chief ally of the Republican Party, but if the GOP adopts anti-business policies that will change.

A Pew survey of illegal immigrants estimated that five percent of the US workforce was made up of illegals. The economic effect of deporting all of these workers could be catastrophic for the economy. There would be an immediate shortage of labor causing a dramatic increase in both wages and prices of goods, possibly triggering inflation or a recession. This doesn’t include the cost of mass deportation itself, which the Wall Street Journal estimated at $400 billion in new federal spending and which would reduce the US GDP by about $1 trillion. The cash-strapped federal government would be spending billions to destroy the economy.

The final problem with the current immigration system is that it is fundamentally unjust and inequitable. The barriers to immigrating legally are so high that they actually encourage people to immigrate illegally. If an immigrant chooses to follow the current law, they might wait as long as 24 years – about a third of the average lifespan - due to backlogs of applicants. Bureaucratic problems mean that not all legal visas available are actually issued. Illegal immigration would be less of a problem if the legal process was easier and less time consuming.

The DREAMers, children who came to the US illegally as minors, present a particular legal and moral problem. These children had no intent to break the law, they simply stayed with their parents. Now, years or decades later, they have no real connection to their birth countries and no practical way to stay in their adopted country. Many don’t even speak the language of their native country. President Obama’s deferred deportation program for DREAMers overstepped his constitutional authority, but it was overwhelmingly supported by voters as a fair solution.

The fact is that most voters don’t want to deport all illegals. Numerous polls over the years show strong support for the idea of a pathway to citizenship. Even exit polls among 2016 Republican voters show that most supported a pathway to citizenship and very few were in favor of Trump-style mass deportations.

The pathway idea is not amnesty, but a plan for illegals to pay back taxes, pay fines, endure waiting periods and undergo background checks before being given legal status. They will pay their debt to society, but their current status as workers in the American economy would be acknowledged. Why should wanting to make a better life in America be the only crime that is unforgivable? If I was a Mexican peasant, I would probably try to come here - legally or illegally – as well.

In my view, the conservative position on immigrants is that people who want to come here to work should be allowed to do so if they are needed. My tendency toward small government leads me to reject the creation of an expensive new federal police bureaucracy to track down and deport illegals who are quietly going about their lives and jobs.

The border needs to be secured, but immigration reform is needed to adapt to the workforce changes that will result. As the border is secured, the law should be changed to allow people to legally immigrate more easily. A guest worker program should be created for migrant workers. Logic dictates that fewer people will sneak across the border if they can come here legally. Everify should be fully implemented to allow businesses to check immigration status of workers.

In return for the easing of immigration policies, enforcement should be stepped up. It should be a felony to cross the border illegally, punishable by jail time and deportation. “Catch and release” of illegals should end. Businesses should be punished for hiring illegal workers. Those who come here on legal visas should be tracked and deported if they overstay.

This sort of comprehensive solution makes economic as well as political sense. Democrats still have enough votes to filibuster a hardline immigration bill. A pathway to citizenship paired with strong enforcement could earn bipartisan support. Trump, as the immigration hardliner, could have a Nixon-goes-to-China triumph.

Donald Trump wasn’t elected because of his hardline immigration ideas. He was elected in spite of them. Americans don’t want mass roundups and deportations of illegals any more than they wanted Obamacare. If President Trump and the Republicans try to use their majority to force an unpopular policy on American voters, they may repeat the Democrat experience of the past few years and quickly find themselves to be a minority once again.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Mike Huckabee wants infrastructure jobs 'you cannot outsource'

(Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

It seems that Gov. Mike Huckabee is the latest conservative on Team Trump to fall victim to the Keynesian delusion that infrastructure spending is the way to revitalize the economy. A tweet by Fox News yesterday quoted Huckabee as saying, “The most effective way to put people on a job is to do infrastructure jobs b/c it’s the one thing you cannot outsource.”

The tweet does not offer a link to a clip of the segment, so Huckabee’s comment cannot be viewed in full context, but the statement comes after other members of the Trump transition team, including the president-elect himself, have signaled that infrastructure spending, most likely financed by debt, will be a top priority in the new administration.

While Huckabee is technically correct that construction jobs cannot be exported to foreign countries, the construction industry is a major employer of illegal immigrants. In 2012, four years into the unemployment crisis brought on by the Great Recession, Pew Research found that about 15 percent of construction and extraction jobs were held by illegal aliens.

During the campaign, it was pointed that Donald Trump had even used illegal aliens in the construction of the Trump Tower in the 1980s.  The Washington Post reported that Trump was also using illegal workers in the construction of his new hotel in Washington, DC, a charge that he denied.

Even without possibility of government infrastructure money going to illegal workers, Huckabee’s infrastructure comment shows a lack of deep thinking on the issue of jobs. Government spending on infrastructure can create jobs in the short term, but what happens when those projects are finished? Government projects often run behind schedule and over budget, but eventually they come to an end. If the underlying problems with the economy are not fixed the result will be a country with a lot of nice, new roads and bridges, a lot more debt and a chronic high unemployment rate.

The key to revitalizing the economy is to create a climate in which American companies can create things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. Tax and regulatory reform would allow American businesses to build things at prices that are competitive with the rest of the world.

When the federal government takes on more debt, it needs more tax money to pay back what is borrowed. Higher taxes and more government spending make the US less competitive. Neither families nor countries can borrow their way to prosperity.

The infrastructure stimulus has been tried and has failed numerous times. Most famously, President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” created the Works Progress Administration, an entire government agency whose purpose was to create infrastructure jobs for unskilled laborers. The WPA was responsible for many roads, bridges, parks, and post offices, but what it did not do was end the unemployment crisis.

More recently, President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 spent $787 billion on “shovel-ready” infrastructure jobs. The success of Obama’s program can be judged by the fact that unemployment is still a problem eight years later.

One conservative critic of Obama’s stimulus said at the time, Republicans in Congress “were elected to represent their constituents, but they can’t hardly do that and vote to pile on unimaginable debt on their grandchildren.” He continued, “If you think future generations of Americans can afford a congressional version of ‘shop-til-you-drop,’ then just remain silent, but I don’t plan to.”

Who was that outspoken critic of Obama’s stimulus boondoggle? It was Mike Huckabee.

When did borrowing money to create jobs paid for by the government become a conservative policy, governor?

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump will 'work something out' with DREAMers

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In the interview with Time Magazine that accompanies his selection as the Person of the Year, Donald Trump raised eyebrows with a comment that he will “work something out” for illegal aliens who came to the US as minors. Trump had previously said that the illegal immigrants, known as “DREAMers” for the DREAM Act that would have given them a path to legal status, would have to be deported.

Trump told Time in the Nov. 23 interview, “I want Dreamers for our children also. We’re going to work something out. On a humanitarian basis it’s a very tough situation. We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud. But that’s a very tough situation.”

The DREAM Act was a bipartisan bill first introduced in 2001, but never passed into law. The law would allow illegal immigrants who entered the country before they turned 16 to apply for conditional resident status if they have five years of residency, earn a high school diploma or GED, show good moral character and pass background checks. Permanent residency could be granted if they serve in the US military or attend a higher education institution for two years. The DREAM acronym stands for “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors.”

Although the DREAM Act never became law, President Obama used Executive Orders to defer deportation for young illegals who have clean records. Obama’s Executive Order was the basis for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that gives some DREAMers exemption from deportation and two-year work permits. Trump said in the campaign that he would terminate the program.

The Texas Tribune profiled several DREAMers in a post-election article. Many came as young teenagers to be with parents who were already in the US. Jessica Azua was 14 when she came to the US illegally. Now, at 25, she is graduate of Texas A&M. Edgar Navarrete, now 22 and a student at the University of Texas at Austin, came to the US with his parents as a toddler and has no memory of his hometown in Mexico. Illegal immigrants who came to the US at a young age under the direction of their parents have no lives in their native countries to return to.

Trump has reversed position on immigration before. Before running as a hardliner on immigration, Trump told DREAM activists in 2013, “You’ve convinced me” according to NBC Latino. In August, Trump considered a new immigration position in the midst of the campaign before reversing his reversal. Even as he seems to consider a compromise on the DREAMers, Trump has appointed immigration hardliners to his cabinet.

Trump has said since the election that he still intends to build his wall, but other aspects of his immigration policy may be subject to change. During the campaign, he insisted on deportation of all illegal aliens, but has since said on “60 Minutes” that deporting violent criminals will be a priority, then “after the border is secured and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that you're talking about who are terrific people.”

In the Time interview, Trump continues to call for a wall. “We’re going to build the wall. I’m going to build the wall. We’re going to have strong borders. But we’re also going to have people coming across the borders because we need workers.”

He also hints at other aspects of an immigration reform plan, which may see a change from the current family-based system to one that seeks to match immigrants to the needs of the US workforce. “We have to be able to have people come in to our country, because that’s good for all of us. It’s good for them, but it’s good for all of us. But we’re going to have very strong borders. We’re not going to have illegals coming in. But we’re going to have people coming in, but we’re also going to have them coming in based to a certain extent on merit.”

Deviation from his hardline deportation policy could cause a rift in Trump’s base, but might help more moderates to get behind Trump. Polling over the past few years has consistently shown that most Americans support a path to legalization for illegal aliens. Even exit polls of Republican primary voters, including many Trump voters, showed that the party was roughly split down the middle on the issue of legalization and that most opposed deportation of all illegals.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Texas governor wants ban on sanctuary cities

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has announced his intention to ban sanctuary cities in the Lone Star State. In a tweet on Sunday, Gov. Abbott said, “Yes. I'm going to sign a law that bans sanctuary cities. Also I've already issued an order cutting funding to sanctuary cities.”

A measure similar to the one supported by Abbott was proposed in 2014 but failed to pass. The bill would have provided that “government entities” in Texas “may not adopt a rule, order, ordinance, or policy under which the entity prohibits the enforcement of the laws of this state or federal law relating to immigrants or immigration.” The bill died without gaining enough support for a vote.

The term “sanctuary city” does not have a precise meaning, but generally refers to cities that have policies that prohibit their police departments from enforcing immigration laws or cooperating with federal immigration officials. In reality, it is questionable whether Texas has any cities that fit this definition.

Last February, Texas Monthly examined the question of whether any Texas cities could be considered sanctuary cities. Even though SanctuaryCities.info lists 15 Texas towns and the Center for Immigration Studies lists two, the criteria they used to determine which cities were sanctuaries was unclear. Texas Monthly found that no city in Texas had a policy that would fit the typical definition of a sanctuary city.

In August, the Texas Tribune reported that Austin, already believed to be a sanctuary city by many, was “likely to become the first true ‘sanctuary city’ in GOP-ruled Texas.” The move hinged on whether the Sally Hernandez, the Democratic candidate for sheriff in Travis County, won the election. Hernandez had promised to end cooperation with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement by not detaining county jail inmates that ICE wants to deport. The Republican candidate, Joe Martinez, had said he would end the blanket policy of cooperation with ICE, but would continue to turn dangerous inmates over for deportation. Hernandez won the election after softening her stance on immigration enforcement, but has yet to take office.

Hernandez’ election may bring new urgency to the effort to pass a sanctuary city ban. The Austin Statesman says that the bill has been refiled for the new legislative session and that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is making it a priority. The bill would cut off state money to cities that do not cooperate with enforcement of federal immigration law.

Local cooperation with federal immigration law is typically relating to honoring “detainer” requests from ICE at local jails. ICE requests local law enforcement to hold certain inmates who are illegal aliens until ICE can take custody and arrange for their deportation. Current federal policy prioritizes the deportation of illegals who are deemed to be “threats to national security, border security, and public safety.”

The Texas Tribune notes that “Texas law states that police officers generally cannot arrest people without probable cause of a crime, and immigration violations often are civil matters, not criminal cases.” Texas law states that police may arrest offenders without a warrant “when the offense is committed in his presence or within his view, if the offense is one classed as a felony or as an offense against the public peace.” This would exclude immigration violations that are civil matters or criminal offenses that do not rise to the level of a felony.

Gov. Abbott’s proposed ban on sanctuary cities would act as a deterrent to any city that decides not to cooperate with immigration laws, but since there are no cities in Texas that fit that description, the bill’s effect would be minimal. As a role of the federal government, the problem of illegal immigration can ultimately only be resolved in Washington.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump flips on immigration

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Rumors are swirling that Donald Trump is prepared to reverse his stance on illegal immigration, the cornerstone of his campaign. The Trump campaign began last summer with rhetoric that focused heavily on Mexico and illegal immigration. Trump made his promise of a wall on the Mexican border the centerpiece of his campaign.

The rumors that Trump is flip-flopping on immigration began Saturday night with a Buzzfeed article. Buzzfeed cited three sources who confirmed that Trump signaled his willingness to soften his immigration stance in a secret meeting in the Trump Tower with the newly formed National Hispanic Advisory Council For Trump. The article stated that Trump did not use the term “legalization,” but had indicated that he was open to a solution to the problem of illegal immigrants “that respects border security but deals with this in a humane and efficient manner.”

Univision also cited three sources, some of which were also named by Buzzfeed. One source cited by both outlets was Jacob Monty, a Texas immigration lawyer. Monty said, “I really liked that Trump acknowledged that there is a big problem with the 11 million [undocumented] people who are here, and that deporting them is neither possible nor humane.” Monty claimed that the new Trump plan “wouldn't be citizenship but would allow them to be here without fear of deportation.”

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus confirmed to Univision that the meeting took place and that it was part of “our expansive effort to engage the Hispanic community.”

The reports sparked a quick denial from Mr. Trump. I'm not flip flopping," he told Fox News on the issue Monday. "We want to come up with a fair but firm process. Fair but firm.”

Trump and new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway were noncommittal on the specifics of the current version of the Trump immigration plan. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Conway replied “to be determined” when asked if Trump still advocated for “a deportation force removing the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants” in the US. Throughout the campaign Trump has been an immigration hardliner who called for the deportation of all illegal immigrants.

Univision also cited Helen Aguirre, an RNC spokeswoman who was present at the meeting. Aguirre confirmed that the Trump campaign was working on a new plan. “Trump was very categorical in saying that he's seeking a fair immigration reform," she said. "He wants to listen to everyone and announce his conclusions in the coming days."

By Sunday, Aguirre was reversing herself in a Breitbart piece. “Some folks talked about legalization, not citizenship, for the undocumented,” she said. “Mr. Trump did not say he was in favor of legalization. Some folks may have felt that he was open to it–and he gave zero indication of that.”

Aguirre told the Washington Post, “He listened to the comments and suggestions made by the various board members, but he never indicated what his immigration policy would be.”

Nevertheless, the comments by Aguirre and Conway confirmed that Trump’s immigration policy is changing. Conway said that “as the weeks unfold” Trump will reveal his new immigration plan. He is expected to address the topic this Thursday in Colorado.

Read it on Conservative Firing Line

Why a hard line on immigration will lose the election

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Amid the Republican battle on illegal immigration and deportation of illegal immigrants, the effect of immigration policy on the general election is lost. The general election will likely hinge on the outcome of a handful of swing states, most of which were won by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In order to win the White House, the Republican candidate must flip the states of Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Colorado as well as win North Carolina, which was won by Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

The hardline stance of several Republican candidates in the primary is almost certain to make it difficult or impossible for them to win these swing states in the general election. Losing even one of these states would put Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the White House. To understand why immigration may kill the chance of electing a Republican president, let’s take a closer look at the State of Florida.

The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, recently published estimates of the racial and ethnic composition of swing state electorates. The group estimates that the largest minority voter group in Florida will be Hispanics with an estimated 20.2 percent of the electorate. Blacks are projected to increase to 15.5 percent of voters and Asians to 2.2 percent.

Pew Research puts the share of Hispanic voters for 2016 slightly lower at 18.1 percent. In either case, the Hispanic share of the electorate is steadily increasing. Exit polling also reported by Pew found that Hispanics made up 17 percent of Florida voters in 2012 and 14 percent in 2008 so a 2016 share of 18-20 percent is realistic.

While all minority groups are growing in the state, Hispanics make up the fastest growing group. In this year’s election, minority voters are likely to make up between 35 and 38 percent of the electorate. This would be a substantial increase over the 33 percent they represented in 2008.

Who do these groups vote for? Washington Post exit polls show information specifically for Florida for the past two election cycles. As is well established, Obama won virtual unanimity among black voters with 95 percent in 2012 and 96 percent in 2008.  

Among Hispanic voters, Obama won a less commanding majority. In 2008, Obama won the Hispanic vote by 57 percent to John McCain’s 42 percent. In 2012, the total was practically the same with Obama at 60 percent and Mitt Romney at 39 percent. In Florida, Romney lost by 74,309 votes out of 8.4 million votes cast. That is a margin of 0.8 percent.

Many observers believe that Romney lost the race with a comment in a primary debate in January 2012. In that debate, Romney stated that his plan for dealing with illegal immigrants was “self-deportation.” The election could have easily turned on the feeling of many Hispanics that Romney and the Republicans didn’t like them and didn’t want them in the country.

If Hispanics respond to an innocuous remark in a debate with a landslide for Democrats, the question that needs to be addressed is how they would respond to a policy of mass deportations and the elimination of birthright citizenship. Many conservatives believe that Hispanics and other legal immigrants will back conservative candidates with a hard line on illegal immigration because they resent the illegals who don’t wait their turn. Is this belief supportable by fact?

In August 2015, a Gallup poll found that two-thirds of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Among Hispanics, support for what some Republicans call “amnesty,” runs even higher. Seventy-seven percent of Hispanics favor a pathway to citizenship for illegals.

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On the issue of birthright citizenship, most Americans favor keeping the Constitution and birthright citizenship as is by a margin of 57-39 percent according to an August 2015 Pew poll. Among Hispanics, 73 percent oppose trying to end birthright citizenship.

The same poll found that 72 percent of Americans believe that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States. Only 17 percent favor a national effort to deport all illegals. The survey did not give statistics on the question for Hispanics, but did note that 60 percent of Hispanics saw an increase in deportations as a bad thing and that 46 percent were concerned that a close friend or family member could be deported.

For most Americans, immigration reform is not an important issue. Last week, Gallup found that the economy was the most important issue for most voters at 17 percent. Ten percent of voters name immigration as the most important problem, placing it in a tie for third place with jobs and unemployment.

Hispanic voters agree that the economy and jobs are the most important issues according to a Univision poll from last July. Unlike most voters, Hispanics rank immigration as another “hot button” issue.

“A lot of individuals and a lot of people in the Hispanic community feel that the extreme right-wing, anti-immigration rhetoric tends to be code for anti-Hispanic rhetoric, and that’s why it has such traction,” said pollster Fernand Amandi. He added, “On the question of a pathway to citizenship, Hispanic voters that we asked say that the majority are more likely to support a candidate for president that advocates for a position that includes a pathway to citizenship, when it comes to a comprehensive immigration reform plan.”

Using the “Swing the Vote” tool from Five Thirty Eight, we can see that a shift of the Hispanic vote by three points nationally would move Florida to the Republican column. Specifically, in 2012, Obama won Florida by 74,309 votes. That means that flipping only 2.6 percent of Florida’s Hispanic vote would have flipped the state to Romney.

Winning 43 percent of Hispanics should not be an unattainable goal for Republicans. George W. Bush won 44 percent of Hispanics nationally as recently as 2004. Chris Christie won the Hispanic vote outright in New Jersey, a solidly blue state, in 2013.

The immigration vote will be important in other swing states as well. Colorado has a Hispanic electorate that, at 15 percent in 2012, is almost as large as Florida’s. Virginia and Ohio have fewer Hispanics, but have large immigrant populations, many of whom are naturalized and can vote. These voters can be reasonably expected to oppose candidates with policies that they perceive as anti-immigration and unfriendly.

The American Immigration Council estimates that almost five percent of Ohio’s population are immigrants. About half of these Ohioans are naturalized and eligible to vote. About two percent of Ohioans were Hispanic. This is 60 percent of Obama’s margin of victory in 2012.

In Virginia, the AIC statistics show that immigrants make up 11 percent of the population. About nine percent of these are Hispanic. Again, half of these Virginians are US citizens who are eligible to vote. Again, this is more than half of Barack Obama’s margin of victory.

Almost all swing states have Hispanic and immigrant populations that could easily be decisive in the 2016 general election. By focusing on the divisive issue of immigration rather than topics that unite voters against the Democrats, Republican candidates may be making it impossible to win the election in November.

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The scoop on birthright citizenship

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When Donald Trump revealed his immigration policy this week, the aspect of the plan that got the most attention was his desire to deport the American-born children of illegal immigrants. Under current US law, children born in the United States automatically become US citizens. In his plan, Trump says that this policy, “birthright citizenship,” is the “biggest magnet for illegal immigration.”

Birthright citizenship is also called “jus soli,” which means “the law of the soil.” Like many aspects of American law, it has its roots in English common law. In Calvin’s Case, a 1608 ruling, the court determined that a Scotsman born under the reign of King James of Bible fame, whose rule united the kingdoms of Scotland and England, was also an English subject. The court found that “a person's status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth—a person born within the king's dominion owed allegiance to the sovereign, and in turn, was entitled to the king's protection.”

The Naturalization Act of 1790, the first US law addressing immigration and naturalization, did not specifically address the citizenship of aliens living within the United States, but the fact that English common law subsequently became US common law was referenced in an 1866 federal circuit court decision in the case of United States v. Rhodes. Justice Noah Swayne wrote, “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.” The only two exceptions, Swayne wrote, were the children of ambassadors and the children of slaves.

The slave question had been raised nine years earlier by the Dred Scott decision, generally considered one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history. In that case, the Court ruled that slaves were not US citizens and struck down the ability of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories.

Earlier, in 1830, the Supreme Court had specifically endorsed jus soli in the Sailor’s Snug Harbor case. The Court held that the infant son of a loyalist, born in American-occupied New York City, was a US citizen by birth, even though children born after the British occupied the city were not.

After the Civil War, the 13^th and 14^th amendments were passed to effectively overturn the Dred Scott decision. The 13^th amendment made slavery illegal while the 14^th amendment extended citizenship rights to former slaves and banned former Confederate officials from holding public office.

Section one of the 14^th amendment 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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The first clause of the amendment specifically codified the traditional birthright citizenship of common law. The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” hearkens back to Calvin’s Case and Justice Swayne’s decision in US v. Rhodes. Under this view, being born in a country automatically makes one subject to the laws and jurisdiction of that country.

Even before Donald Trump burst onto the political scene, some Republicans were challenging birthright citizenship for illegal aliens on the grounds that immigrants who were in the country illegally were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States government.

The Heritage Foundation makes this case by claiming that Senator Jacob Howard (R- Maine), author and proponent of the citizenship clause, specifically pointed out that Indians were excluded from citizenship because they owed their allegiance to their tribe and not to the nation even though they were born within the geographical limits of the United States.

Other historians point out that Howard also said that the 14^th amendment was intended to mirror the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Sen. Howard was also a strong supporter of this law and indicated that it was the basis for the 14^th amendment. The Act stated, “… all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States….”

Birthright citizenship has been established since 1898 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wong Kim Ark. Ark was born in California to Chinese citizen parents. Ark moved to China with his parents after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, but returned to the United States, the only home he had ever known. Four years later, he visited his parents in China and, upon his return, was not allowed to enter the US on the grounds that he was not a citizen. 

The Supreme Court ruled that a child whose parents “have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.” Ark’s parents, who were citizens of China, were not excluded from being under the jurisdiction of the United States.

While the Supreme Court has never ruled on the question of whether illegal aliens are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but the Wong Kim Ark case would seem to settle the question of whether having parents who are citizens of a foreign country would prevent birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court rejected this theory more than a century ago.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced a bill this year, H.R. 140, which would define a person born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as a US citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident alien residing in the US or an alien performing active service with the US military. By redefining the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction,” King and the bill’s proponents hope to legislatively end the ability of illegal aliens to anchor themselves in the United States with a native born child.

A possible problem with this strategy is that the second clause of the 14^th amendment reads “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States….” King’s bill, which would effectively abridge the birthright citizenship rights of the children of illegal immigrants, might well be considered unconstitutional under the 14^th amendment.

With the present balance of power in Congress, King’s bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic filibuster. If it were approved by Congress, it would face a certain veto by President Obama. If it became law, it would almost certainly be challenged in court.

If King’s bill were ruled unconstitutional, the next step would be to amend the Constitution to change the 14^th amendment. A constitutional amendment must be approved by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and then ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. An amendment repealing birthright citizenship would have no chance of passing the current Congress where Democrats control enough seats to prevent the amendment from even being considered.

An alternative method of amending the Constitution is by a convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. At last count, 27 states had passed a call for a convention of states, seven short of the necessary number. An amendment proposed by a convention of states, also called an Article V convention, would still have to be approved by three-fourths of the state legislatures. Only 13 states are needed to block an amendment and Democrats control more than enough state governments to prevent the redefinition of birthright citizenship.

Nevertheless, a number of Republicans have signed on to oppose birthright citizenship. Among the major presidential candidates, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal have expressed support for redefining birthright citizenship according to CNN. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who had supported a bill to eliminate birthright citizenship as a congressman, now opposes the change.

As noted by NPR, birthright citizenship is practiced almost exclusively in the New World where populations are made up largely of immigrants. Only 30 of the world’s 194 countries provide automatic citizenship for babies born within their borders.

Any attempt to change the traditional US policy of birthright citizenship faces an uphill struggle. If the change somehow makes it through Congress, it is almost certain to be challenged and struck down by the courts. For the near future at least, birthright citizenship is here to stay.