Finally! Some common sense has somehow found its way into Washington, DC:

House Republicans are looking closely at ending birthright citizenship and building a barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border as they search for solutions to illegal immigration.

A task force of party leaders and members active on immigration has met since the summer to try to figure out where consensus exists, and several participants said those two ideas have floated to the top of the list of possibilities to be included either in an immigration-enforcement bill later this year or in a later comprehensive immigration overhaul.

As you may know, I have been advocating the elimination of birthright citizenship for some time. There is absolutely no reason to bestow citizenship, along with all of it’s privileges, to anyone simply because their non-citizen parents were able to sneak across the border and birth their kid on U.S. soil.

“There’s been recent scholarship that says we can do it by statute, and we ought to try,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, who usually finds himself on the opposite side of immigration issues from Mr. Tancredo.

“How in the world can you explain that’s a good policy to have? It simply doesn’t promote respect for the rule of law,” Mr. Flake said.

Several lawmakers said the U.S. and Mexico are the only major Western countries to have birthright citizenship. Most European countries have moved away from birthright citizenship in recent decades.

“I am as surprised as anyone that this thing has got legs,” Mr. Tancredo said, adding that he views it as a major step forward for the immigration debate. “This is the issue that motivated me to deal with immigration.”

While some members said it could be part of an immigration bill later this year, Rep. Dan Lungren, California Republican, said it will take longer to drum up public support for such a major change, though he backs ending the policy.

I’ve got news for Rep. Lungren: it will not take very much time to get support for this change in the immigration laws. I would imagine that most legal immigrants would back this measure, along with anyone who is tired of working 50 or 60 hours a week just to pay for health care and education for illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, the idea of a fence or other barrier also is gaining support.

At this week’s “unity dinner,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, said he supports a barrier system of fences in some places and electronic surveillance or vehicle barriers in others, one participant said.

Mr. Hastert’s spokesman said the speaker would not talk about the private meetings.

I’ve also advocated the building of a barrier on the U.S. – Mexico border. This was my idea:

I would also like to see a wall built along the US – Mexico border. I envision something with a lot of razor wire, gun turrets and a 100-yard kill-zone between two separate walls. We’d hire a ton of new border agents to patrol this fence and keep the illegals on the other side.

All of this is good news for those of us who are tired of footing the bill for people who have no respect for our laws. However, not everyone thinks these are good ideas:

But Mr. Flake and fellow Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe, who both support legalizing illegal aliens and raising legal immigration levels by 400,000 per year, said a fence would not work.

Mr. Flake said it would not affect those illegal aliens — about half of the total immigrant population — who came to the United States on legal temporary visas and have overstayed. He also said he does not want it to sap energy from a comprehensive solution.

“My fear is people will say let’s build a fence and put off any guest-worker, border enforcement, interior enforcement for years,” he said.

All legalizing illegal aliens would do is reward a lot of people for breaking the law. It would also encourage more people to cross the border illegally since they know that eventually they’ll be legalized without having to bother to follow the law. As for those people who overstay their visa, the way I see it is if we get rid of half of the illegal aliens that are here, we can do a better job of getting rid of the other half.

Call you Congress critters and tell them you support this effort. It’s important.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 4th, 2005 at 5:22 pm by Nick, and is filed under Immigration, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.