The Washington Times is reporting that Mike Huckabee wants to "amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens."
I think this is a great idea, and I join Huckabee in advocating this. The article isn't specific on the parameters of such an amendment, but I think something like this would be about right: require that the parents must be in the country legally before a child born here can have automatic citizenship. Some might argue that this is too generous, but hey, I'm just a magnanimous kinda guy.
However, since Huckabee has a clear record of opposing immigration reform, I have to suspect that he's simply trying to put some distance between that record and his presidential candidacy with this announcement. After all, does this sound like a man who wanted in-state tuition rates and scholarship opportunities for illegal aliens, opposed efforts to deny drivers licenses to illegal aliens, opposed immigration raids to identify and deport illegal aliens, and called efforts to deny benefits to illegal aliens "racist" and "bigoted"?
The Times article provides this reminder:
Mr. Huckabee has defended his policies on illegal aliens while he was Arkansas governor. He pressed for illegal aliens to gain college tuition benefits, complained about federal immigration raids in his state and declined to have state police enforce immigration laws, although the state legislature gave him the authority to do so.
If I have a choice of what I believe (and I do), I'll choose what he's done in the past as a determiner of what he'll do in the future, as opposed to just what he says when he needs my vote. It's not like a politician has never advocated one thing on the campaign trail, only to never see any serious effort in that direction once he's in office.
Still, the idea is something we should pursue.
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