WA GOP: No Automatic Citizenship for Kids Born to Illegals
By Andrew Garber
Seattle Times staff reporter
"The state Republican Party adopted a platform Saturday that includes a
provision aimed at opposing automatic citizenship for babies born in the
U.S. to illegal immigrants.
"Immigration is an issue that a lot of our party activists feel strongly
about," state Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser said. "And it's
certainly a very defensible position. It's not at all something that's
based on race concerns. It's a matter of what is citizenship going to be
based on."
State Attorney General Rob McKenna, one of the state's most prominent
Republicans, said he doesn't support banning automatic citizenship for
children born to illegal immigrants.
"We have more than 200 years of history in which children born in the U.S.
are deemed U.S. citizens," said McKenna, before reading the platform
language. "What matters is where the children are born."
Not all delegates attending the convention support the position, either.
"The Constitution says that if you're born in the United States you're a
U.S. citizen," said Scott Workman, of Sequim. "I'm not willing to change
the Constitution. If we're going to let them in and they're going to have
babies here, then they're U.S. citizens."
The plank containing the provision was adopted without discussion. It's
part of a much broader party platform approved at the state GOP convention
Saturday stating positions on issues ranging from national defense to
health care and education.
The plank covering immigration and homeland security says, "We welcome
those who wish to build a new and better life in America and Washington
state and to recognize that the only price of such opportunity is their
willingness to embrace our language, culture and legal system, beginning
at our national borders."
The provision goes on to say that legal immigration "can best be
facilitated by a transparent, traceable and enforceable guest-worker
program that does not include amnesty or birthright citizenship and
sanctuary cities."
Mathew Manweller, chairman of the platform committee, said the language in
the provision is intended to oppose automatic citizenship for children born
to illegal immigrants.
"We have no problem with them becoming citizens if they go through [the
legal process] but not simply by virtue of birth," Manweller said.
Esser said the issue of birthright citizenship is broader than just
illegal immigration. For example, he said, "I think if you ask the average
person, 'Should a couple vacationing in the United States who are citizens
of another country have a child on U.S. soil, should that child be a U.S.
citizen?', that doesn't sound reasonable."
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4870
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...65_gop01m.html
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