Lindsey Graham: “14th Amendment Outdated”

Politico:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday night argued that the 14th Amendment no longer serves the purpose it was designed to address and that Congress should reexamine granting citizenship to any child born in the United States.

The 14th Amendment was passed following the Civil War out of fear that southern states would try to find a way to deny citizenship to freed slaves.

Pointing to that history, Graham said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren that birthright citizenship should not be applied to babies born in the United States to parents who are illegal immigrants.

“I’m looking at the laws that exist and see if it makes sense today,” Graham said. “Birthright citizenship doesn’t make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

“You’ve got the other problem, where thousands of people are coming across the Arizona/Texas border for the express purpose of having a child in an American hospital so that child will become an American citizen, and they broke the law to get there,” he said. “We ought to have a logical discussion. Is this the way to award American citizenship, sell it to somebody who’s rich, reward somebody who breaks the law? I think we need to look at it really closely.”

To further justify having that “discussion,” Graham also pointed to tourists who, he says, come to the United States on 90-day visa during the later stage of pregnancy in order to give birth to a child with U.S. citizenship.

“You come to a resort, you have your child at a hospital within the resort [and] that child is an American citizen,” Graham said. “That, to me, cheapens American citizenship. That’s not the way I would like it to be awarded.”

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has called for “taking a look” at changing the 14th Amendment as well.

The line in question in the amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States …”