Step aside, John Kerry. When it comes to immigration policy, Republicans in Congress can flip-flop with the best of them.
In the last decade, Republicans have sponsored bills that curtail the rights of legal immigrants to apply for public assistance and health care, including Medicaid.
Now they suddenly want to give legal immigrants the most valuable right of all: the right to seek the nation’s highest office. Republicans in both houses are proposing bills that would allow the foreign-born to run for president. That would require amending the Constitution. And that’s fine with Republicans.
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has proposed a Senate bill to do just that, and now Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) is leading the effort in the House. Under both proposals, someone who is foreign-born could run for president if he or she has been a U.S. citizen for at least 20 years.
Hatch thinks it’s only fair. “Ours is a nation of immigrants. The history of the United States is replete with scores of great and patriotic Americans whose dedication to this country is beyond reproach, but who happen to have been born outside of her borders,” he said last year on the Senate floor.
What the senator says is true. I’m just surprised to hear it coming from a Republican in Washington, even someone such as Hatch who has a reputation for being somewhat moderate on immigration issues. I’m even more shocked to find Rohrabacher pushing this. Ten years ago, in the heated debate over California’s anti-illegal immigration initiative Proposition 187, the congressman from Southern California resorted to race-baiting in his stump speeches with references to immigrants named “Jose.”
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What happened here? One minute Republicans are backing a moratorium by supporting the Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2003, introduced by anti-immigration zealot Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.). The next they’re arguing that anyone who squeaks through the bureaucratic death grip of such a moratorium should be able to raise money, print yard signs and seek the presidency.
The contradiction is obvious. If immigrants are so wonderful, so patriotic and so valuable to the country, why not try to bring in more of them, not fewer? If they have contributed enough to our society to earn the right to run for president–and I’d argue they have–then why haven’t they earned the right to apply for welfare or Medicaid? U.S. citizens can apply for those programs, so why do legal immigrants have to wait five years before doing so and then prove that they are still disadvantaged?
If a constitutional amendment is approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and ratified by 38 of the 50 state legislatures, a major obstacle will be removed for tens of millions of foreign-born citizens. And a major opportunity created for one of them in particular. Here’s a hint: He lives in Cal-ee-fornia.
Much of this is about clearing a path for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Born in Austria, he became a permanent resident in 1974 and was naturalized a U.S. citizen in 1983. In all, Schwarzenegger has resided in the United States for 36 years.
Good enough for government work, insist Republican lawmakers who have now decided that the idea of barring the foreign-born from the presidency is silly. Their hope is that once the obstacle is removed, Schwarzenegger–who is also a Republican–will run for president and win.
I’ll give the Republicans this much. The constitutional prohibition is silly–and outdated. It should be removed. The whole reason for it is because the founding fathers worried that a foreign power such as Britain would try to infiltrate the government through the electoral system. What they didn’t realize is it’s a safe bet that the foreign-born, after being U.S. citizens for 20 years, have been influenced by America at least as much as the country has been influenced by them.
Besides, native-born Americans could use the competition. They should have to compete with immigrants for the presidency just as they would for anything else–from the distinction of being named class valedictorian, to scholarships from medical schools, to jobs on construction sites.
Rohrabacher and Hatch are on the right track. They must realize that legal immigrants are a vital part of the country and deserve a chance to lead it. Now if only they and their Republican colleagues would apply the same common sense to issues that impact the lives of millions of legal immigrants who might never be in a position to seek the nation’s highest office.
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