According to the Associated Press (May 25, 2009), Rep. Deal (R-GA) decided to go against the constitution's 14th amendment which grants automatic citizenship to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", passed in 1868. Deal's proposal will allow automatic birth citizenship only if one parent is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident or active member of the U.S. forces. The intention behind it is that automatic citizenship will no longer be granted to children of undocumented workers (although many of them have U.S. citizen spouses, in which case the child will be a citizen anyway even after this bill). It is also depriving all the children of legal immigrants, such as people here on valid work and study visas, asylees, refugees, etc., and require a birth record clerk in each state to know how to and verify the parents' immigration status.
This bill has no chance to pass, as it will take a constitutional amendment by a Democratic Congress, so I guess he really wants to rally the Republicans for his gubernatorial campaign. All in all, a really bad deal. Pun intended.
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