Democrats Scrambling to Hide Harry Reid’s Comments on Birthright Citizenship

Harry Reid birthright citizenship

As I’ve noted many times before, illegal immigration used to be a bipartisan issue. While Republicans have always been stricter on immigration enforcement than their Democrat counterparts, there at least was little disagreement on the immorality of illegal immigration. (RELATED: Polls Show America Supports Trump’s Illegal Immigration Policies).

President Donald Trump acknowledged as much when he trolled Congressional Democrats by tweeting out a video compilation of liberal leaders echoing Trumpian sentiments on illegal immigration. Indeed, many of those featured in the video even voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which resulted in 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Even as recently as 2014, Hillary Clinton expressed rhetoric that 2018 Hillary Clinton would condemn. “We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay,” Hillary said. “So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.” In other words: deterrence works.

I never thought I’d agree with Hillary Clinton – but she is right here. If we send the message that children crossing the border get to stay, we’ll get more children illegally crossing the border. On the flipside, another loophole is for illegal immigrants to have children in the U.S., which are then granted birthright citizenship. Donald Trump got in trouble for referring to these children as “anchor babies,” which liberals apparently found more offensive than illegals abusing our immigration system. Trump has spoken out against and pledged to end birthright citizenship on numerous occasions.

And he wasn’t the only one. Newly surfaced comments from Harry Reid show that he advocated for the exact same position in 1993. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation to clarify the scope of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and to end the practice of granting U.S. citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants.”

In a section titled “Basis of Citizenship Clarified,” Reid’s bill explained:

…the Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, and which person is a national or citizen of another country of which either of his or her natural parents is a national or citizen, or is entitled upon application to become a national or citizen of such country, shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States within the meaning of [Section 1 of the 14th Amendment] and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth.[S.1351, Sec. 1001]

Speaking before the Senate, Reid said that “no sane country” would allow for birthday citizenship.

The cost of birthright citizenship to the American taxpayer is very real. CIS estimates that there are between 350,000-400,000 anchor babies born in the U.S. each year. The average cost to taxpayers of sending a child through K-12 education comes out to over $12,000 a year, and that doesn’t include other taxpayer expenses that stem from the fact that these children tend to be born into poor families.

What explains the Left’s shift all of a sudden on the immigration issue? Is Trump Derangement Syndrome really this powerful? Apparently so.

By Matt

Matt is the co-founder of Unbiased America and a freelance writer specializing in economics and politics. He’s been published... More about Matt

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