"One-Thousand Baby Chain" to Support 14th Amendment at Arizona Capitol

UPDATE, 2/7/2011, 7 PM MST: The AZ Senate Judiciary Committee did NOT pass SB1308 or SB1309. Because the committee did not vote on these two bills, the bills must remain in Committee until they are either amended or ultimately shelved.

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A "One-Thousand Baby Chain" will witness the proceedings when Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce's anti-14th Amendment legislation goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. The pro-immigrant advocacy group Border Action Network is rallying real children and babies (and illustrated representations for solidarity supporters) to the Capitol to emphasize that a coming generation of babies will be affected by the legislation.

The two Arizona Senate Bills up for consideration--1308 and 1309 --were reputedly authored by the Washington, DC-based group FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform), an organization that pro-immigrant forces consider a "hate group." Opponents say they undermine the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Children and their advocates will gather from around Arizona at the Senate Building at 1 PM in response to the problems they see with the two bills.

Arizona Senate Bill 1308: Distorts birthright citizenship

SB 1308 would set up a "compact" between Arizona and other states to create a two-tiered system for birth certificates. Critics say that distorts the meaning of the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship provision. Steven Lemons outlines in the Phoenix New Times that they cite as an example one passage of the bill that reads:

As used in this compact, "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" has the meaning that it bears in section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, namely that the person is a child of at least one parent who owes no allegiance to any foreign sovereignty, or a child without citizenship or nationality in any foreign country.

However, the Fourteenth Amendment does not make that reference. It 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.

Pro-immigrant activists say the measure's proponents are twisting the 14th Amendment's phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to suit their own purposes. The 1866 Senate debate made it clear that the children of foreign nationals -- except those of diplomats -- would become citizens as a result of the amendment.

One hundred years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent has further clarified, since the 14th Amendment's enactment, that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" refers to children of foreign diplomats who have immunity from U.S. laws and not, for instance, to children born of Chinese nationals, as was the case in the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, United States vs. Wong Kim Ark.

Worse than proposing legal distortions, SB 1308 is itself unconstitutional and illegal, critics charge. According to the 14th Amendment:

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.

But this is exactly what both the Arizona bills attempt to do: to abridge the privileges of citizens of the United States and deny them equal protection.

Even the language of Arizona's SB 1308 indicates that the proposed compact is essentially meaningless unless the U.S. Congress agrees to it:

This compact shall not take effect until the United States congress has given its consent pursuant to article I, section 10, clause 3 of the United States Constitution.

Arizona Senate Bill 1309: Establishes empty "Arizona citizenship"

Similarly, Arizona's SB 1309 sets up a non-existent "Arizona citizenship" in an attempt to prevent children of undocumented immigrants, commonly termed "anchor babies," from becoming Arizona citizens. But 1309's last sentence admits that the "Arizona citizenship" designation is essentially empty:

Citizenship of the state of Arizona shall not confer upon the holder thereof any right, privilege, immunity or benefit under law.

With time and resources limited in any legislative session, opponents of Arizona's SB 1308 and 1309 question the legislature's wisdom in pursuing such questionable legal efforts. Meanwhile, they say, a generation of babies hangs in the balance. So opponents will bus babies from Tucson to Phoenix for the deliberations tomorrow to remind lawmakers of just that.