Today's Date: March 28, 2024
Jamieson Wellness Publishes Inaugural Sustainability Impact Report   •   Carnegie Learning Named 2024 SIIA CODiE Award Finalist for Best Educational Game and Best AI Implementation in Ed Tech   •   Coachella Concerned That People Have Sex, Says AHF   •   John Legend to Perform at City Year Los Angeles’ 13th Annual Spring Break Event   •   Parkland Corporation Announces the Results of the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders   •   YMCA of the USA Partners With Old Spice To Increase High School Graduation Among Boys And Young Men Of Color Through Mentorship   •   Visit Visalia Recognizes Autism Awareness Month in April   •   Make-A-Wish and celebrity wish granters announce goal to recruit 1 million people to become "WishMakers"   •   Re:wild and Colossal Biosciences team up to leverage revolutionary technology to save critically endangered species on the brink   •   Empire State Realty Trust Receives WELL Health-Safety Leadership Award; Becomes Among the First Commercial Office and Multifamil   •   VIRGIN HOTELS CHAMPIONS INCLUSIVE TRAVEL FOR NEURODIVERSE TRAVELERS   •   Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. Expands OTC Portfolio for Children with the Introduction of bébé Bottoms™   •   Fastenal Releases 2024 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report   •   Amerex Group Unveils Red Carter Swimwear's Revitalized Collection   •   Fosun Management on 2023 Annual Results: Focusing on Core Industries with Established Advantages   •   Suffolk Kicks off 2024 “Build With Us @ Suffolk” Program in Boston for Trade Partners, Opening Doors for Minority-,   •   Sypher Secures Strategic Partnership with FAIA to Fuel Growth   •   Equalpride Partners with TransLash Media for Trans Day of Visibility, Amplifying Voices of Black Trans Femmes in the Arts   •   PMI Foods Gives Easter Donation of 15,000 Pounds of Prime Rib to New Life Church in Arkansas   •   Torrid Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2023 Results and Initiates Fiscal 2024 Guidance
Bookmark and Share

SPLC Report Examines Lawmakers "Attacking" 14th Amendment

MONTGOMERY, AL -  The coalition of state lawmakers seeking to undermine the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship protection includes a dozen legislators who embrace a raft of radical beliefs, including conspiracy theories about supposed government concentration camps and claims that President Obama is a foreigner.

 

Attacking the Constitution: State Legislators for Legal Immigration & the Anti-Immigrant Movement profiles 12 leading members of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), which has announced a national campaign to end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for all children born in the United States. The group is also pushing a number of other harsh, anti-immigrant proposals in states across the country.

"The radical beliefs of SLLI members parallel their radical agenda – rewriting the 14th Amendment," said Heidi Beirich, research director for the SPLC and author of the report. "The fact that we're talking about people who wield real political power should scare everyone who cares about our constitutional ideals."

SLLI, which has about 65 members in 40 states, was founded by Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe in 2007. The group works closely with the Federation for American Immigration Reform(FAIR), which the SPLC has designated as an anti-immigrant hate group because of its white nationalist agenda and ties to racist groups.

Metcalfe has said that immigrant parents "live the life of a criminal" and should have their children taken away. He has routinely demonized undocumented immigrants as criminals, despite studies that clearly show immigrants are on average much less criminal than native-born Americans.

Metcalfe once denounced Pennsylvania's Domestic Violence Awareness Month as part of the "homosexual agenda" because it included men as possible victims of domestic violence. He characterized military veterans concerned about climate change and foreign energy dependence as traitors promoting a "leftist agenda." And, like others in the so-called "birther movement," Metcalfe has cast doubt on Obama's U.S. citizenship.

Along with Metcalfe, the report profiles Rep. Tim Bearden, Georgia; Rep. Leo Berman,  Texas; Rep. Judy Burges, Arizona; Rep. Sally Kern, Oklahoma; Rep. Charles Key, Oklahoma; Sen. Brian Nieves, Missouri; Sen. Russell Pearce, Arizona; Rep. Michael Pitts, South Carolina; Rep. Matt Shea, Washington; Rep. Randy Terrill, Oklahoma; and Sen. Danny Verdin, South Carolina. It includes these details:

  • Charles Key, an Oklahoma legislator, has claimed the federal government had advance knowledge of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and engaged in a "cover-up." He managed to get a grand jury convened in 1999 to investigate the allegation, only to denounce the grand jury when it found nothing to support his theory.
  • Matt Shea, a Washington legislator, appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' radio show and expressed concerns about supposed concentration camps operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
  • Sally Kern, an Oklahoma legislator, told a newspaper that she opposed high-resolution driver's license photos because she believed they were a sign of the end times. She apparently feared a coming one-world government could use the photos.
  • Danny Verdin, a South Carolina state senator, has compared the fight against undocumented immigrants to the Confederacy's struggle against the Union. In 2000, he was one of the main speakers at the "Heritage Celebration" held in Columbia, S.C., to defend the Confederate battle flag. He reportedly helped to organize the rally, and he shared the podium with several neo-Confederate and white supremacist leaders.

"Not all members of this coalition have voiced such radical opinions, but by virtue of pursuing this attack on the 14th Amendment, they all have signed on to an attempt to radically reinterpret the Constitution – an attempt that one conservative commentator accurately described as a fool's errand," Beirich said.

SLLI contends that the 14th Amendment has been misapplied to grant automatic U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. But it is clear from the record of debate in Congress leading up to the amendment's adoption in 1868 that its sponsors did intend for the amendment to cover the children of non-citizens, including Gypsies, perhaps the group most analogous to today's undocumented immigrants, as well as Chinese immigrants, who retained citizenship in their home countries, were present in large numbers and were barred from naturalization.


STORY TAGS: Hispanic News, Latino News, Mexican News, Minority News, Civil Rights, Discrimination, Racism, Diversity, Latina, Racial Equality, Bias, Equality



Back to top
| Back to home page
Video

White House Live Stream
LIVE VIDEO EVERY SATURDAY
alsharpton Rev. Al Sharpton
9 to 11 am EST
jjackson Rev. Jesse Jackson
10 to noon CST


Video

LIVE BROADCASTS
Sounds Make the News ®
WAOK-Urban
Atlanta - WAOK-Urban
KPFA-Progressive
Berkley / San Francisco - KPFA-Progressive
WVON-Urban
Chicago - WVON-Urban
KJLH - Urban
Los Angeles - KJLH - Urban
WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
New York - WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
WADO-Spanish
New York - WADO-Spanish
WBAI - Progressive
New York - WBAI - Progressive
WOL-Urban
Washington - WOL-Urban

Listen to United Natiosns News