Editorial: The Right to Citizenship
Human trafficking is too serious a problem to be exploited for partisan and ideological ends
A family fills out an application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), at a workshop on February 18, 2015 in New York City. Crédito: Getty Images
The cause for justice for human trafficking victims is universally accepted. However, a Senate bill with that purpose is blocked because of an attempt to use it against undocumented immigrants, while proposing a Constitutional change.
Senator David Vitter’s (R-LA) amendment to the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 seeks to limit U.S. citizenship only to the children of citizens, legal residents and immigrants serving in the military. This is a significant change to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to those born in U.S. territory.
Vitter’s action is one of the reasons why Democrats have withdrawn their support to the bill. Another reason is the law’s contradiction in trying to help rape victims while limiting the possibility to access abortion. Here, the interests of the abused woman become secondary.
In the case of citizenship, Vitter has made the same kind of proposal previously. This year, he presented the project in the first day of the session. The reasoning this time is that it seeks to end the “birthright tourism” of Chinese families who come to the U.S. to give birth, allowing their children the possibility of coming back as citizens. In reality, the plan aims for a much broader scope, as the amendment’s language suggests.
This proposal does not distinguish between “birthright tourism” and those births occurring in a family that, although without papers, has established a life in this country. The only thing the amendment would accomplish is to create more undocumented people and to develop a new underclass from birth.
This is a poisonous amendment about immigration that has nothing to do with the law in question. It is an attempt to change the Constitution so citizenship becomes a privilege for only a few, and not a right protected by the Constitution.
Human trafficking is too serious a problem to be exploited for partisan and ideological ends. Senators swore to defend the Constitution, not to change it through the back door with ill-intentioned amendments.
