Several key GOP senators are calling for congressional hearings into the 14th Amendment’s supposed grant of citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are illegal aliens.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that his boss supports the idea of a congressional inquiry into the matter. McConnell himself said in an interview with The Hill: “I think we ought to take a look at it — hold hearings, listen to the experts on it. I haven’t made a final decision about it, but that’s something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don’t think anybody thinks that’s something they’re comfortable with.”
McConnell, while the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker to advocate investigation into what is and is not granted by the 14th Amendment, is not the first. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has spoken out against the notion that the 14th Amendment casts a blanket of citizenship over all babies born in the United States to parents illegally present in the country.
“The question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for that?” Kyle asked during an interview on CBS’s Sunday morning Face the Nation program.
Kyl claims to have broached the subject of hearings on the citizenship of children of illegal immigrants with fellow Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a proponent of “comprehensive immigration reform.”
