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.”
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