Bill Berkowitz
January 15, 2007

Christian Conservatives call for end of 14th Amendment citizenship birthright

"Consistent with Christian teachings" deal would allow amnesty of illegals here who are relatives of citizens

After months of being missing in action from the debate on the issue, a group of Christian conservatives are now staking out a position on immigration. Families First on Immigration, a coalition led by former Republican Party presidential hopeful Gary Bauer, who heads up a group called American Values, former Bush advisor to Catholic voters, Deal Hudson of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture, and David Keene of the American Conservative Union, are advancing what they call religiously grounded positions on immigration.

In early January, Families First on Immigration sent letters to President George W. Bush and to leaders of the new Democratic controlled Congress urging them "to adopt a grand compromise on the divisive issue that includes strong border security, an amnesty for illegals already here who are relatives of citizens and an end to birthright citizenship," the Washington Times reported.

"Our position really is consistent with Christian teachings and with the rule of law," said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference (as of January 9, the group's website "is currently under construction") a coalition of over 150 grasstop leaders, who has brought together more than 30 top shelf conservatives on this issue.

"Out of concern for keeping families together, the religious leaders propose granting citizenship to any illegal aliens in the country who are related to U.S. citizens. This would include anyone who has had a child born here, often referred to as an 'anchor baby,'" the Washington Times reported.

"In return, the federal government would end birthright citizenship, which automatically grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born here, regardless of his parents' legal status. The 14th Amendment says 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States.'"

"This is a real compromise," Miranda claimed. "On the one hand, there is legalization of a large number of people, but conservatives get the settlement of the thorniest issue for them in the immigration debate."

Earlier Miranda, the former judicial nominations counsel to then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a man who has known his fair share of controversy, told CBN: "Until now, religious leaders have been criticized for staying uninvolved in the immigration debate ... This coalition gets them involved, they offer to come to the table and offer ideas they can eventually support. Previously, the White House did not invite their participation, and they did not offer their help. With certain results, a wider participation may get the President wider support to allow Republicans and Democrats to obtain a coherent reform. This new coalition is bigger and broader than the Secure Border Coalition that dominated the debate on the right in the last go round."

Miranda, who appears to be a spokesperson for the coalition, "had one foot in the political graveyard" in 2004, according to a November 2005 report in The Hill.

"In the wake of a Washington scandal, he had resigned his congressional post as lawmakers questioned his ethics and federal authorities investigated him. Most political observers believed that Miranda's days as a player in the Republican Party were over," The Hill noted.

By 2005, Miranda was once again "a widely respected leader among conservative activists" due to the "leading role" he played "in thwarting the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination." In early January of this year, Miers resigned as White House Counsel, effective January 31.

According to The Hill, "Miranda's successful behind-the-scenes and public opposition to Miers is the culmination of a remarkable journey since he resigned his job with Frist because of involvement in a controversy over the publication of sensitive Democratic documents known as 'Memogate.'"

In 2004, Democrats "accused Miranda of stealing internal Democratic memos off a Judiciary Committee computer server," an act that several Republican senators called "improper after [Miranda] admitted to reading the memos, which a junior Republican Judiciary aide downloaded from the unsecured server."

Miranda claimed "that he had neither broken the law nor Senate rules by reading the memos, but key Republican Senators did not back him," The Hill reported.

Although it was reported that Miranda felt he had been "betrayed by Republicans," there were conservatives who stood by him, and "the American Conservative Union dubbed him 'an American hero' for bringing the memos to light."

Miranda formed the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters, a group that actively worked to have the Republican Senate leadership invoke the so-called "nuclear option," a parliamentary tactic aimed at stripping Senate Democrats of the right to filibuster judicial nominees. Miranda's coalition eventually grew to encompass some 200 conservative groups; later changing its name to the Third Branch Conference.

Miranda's work derailing the Miers nomination and advocating the "nuclear option" in the Senate won him near universal approval from conservative lobbying groups. It is curious that such a controversial ideologue would be the spokesperson for a group that claims to represent conciliation and compromise.

"Illegal immigration is a human tragedy that disrupts lives and separates families," Families First on Immigration wrote in the letter to Bush, a letter that also places blame for the problem on officials in Mexico. "It is a failure of two governments: the one that fails its people and the one that invites their departure for cheap labor's sake."

In its letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California, the group said that it "believe [s] that there is a need for such oversight [on immigration]as soon as possible. Our hope is that such oversight will lead to a better considered reform and a cohesive immigration policy that goes well beyond Band-Aid politics."

Others who have joined the coalition include longtime conservative direct-mail guru Richard A. Viguerie, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of American Family Association, the Rev. Louis Sheldon of Traditional Values Coalition and Rabbi Aryeh Spero of Caucus for America, and Paul Weyrich, widely considered one of the founding fathers of the modern conservative movement and the head of the Free Congress Foundation.

"It's a disingenuous attempt to appear to be not anti-Latino while at the same time pandering to their right wing base," Mark Potok, the Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, told Media Transparency in a telephone interview. "These leaders are desperately trying to hold their coalition together that very likely cannot stay together. It is essentially a cynical ploy and would appear to have no chance in a Democratic controlled congress."

Reader Comments

Unbelievable. What do they expect us to do: show up in labor and delivery with a stamp of U.S. Approval (er..Citizenship)? Why even keep the U.S. Constitution at all? Of course, the clause "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" no longer applies either in this governement so undeniably fraught with racist, economic, and heterosexist inequalities.

--- leah | 1-19-2007 | 1:11 pm