The Neo-Know Nothings

[Donnachaidh]

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/


In the heat of the fiery debate over Arizona's anti-immigrant law SB-1070, a new attack on immigrant rights is burgeoning within the Republican Party. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined a growing number of GOP policymakers seeking to review or revoke the citizenship clause of 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." While the call to revoke this birthright citizenship was traditionally confined to fringe political parties and right-wing demagogues, the rising call to repeal the amendment is becoming a mantra of the Republican mainstream. But in championing reform of birthright citizenship, Republican lawmakers are directly undermining "revered U.S. constitutional traditions" and reversing "one of our nation's unique achievements, embodied in the current president and many others: that descent does not mean destiny."

FRINGE POLITICS: The effort to revoke birthright citizenship has traditionally been a tenet of fringe, right-wing political groups. Indeed, the anti-immigrant bigotry expressed by contemporary right-wing radicals like former congressman Tom Tancredo reflects the xenophobia present around the time that the 14th Amendment was adopted. In the 1840s and 1850s, the nativist, anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party "rose to prominence" at the "zenith of Boston's anti-Irish feeling" by opposing "foreign immigration" of Irish Catholics and believing that "Americans must rule America." As Mother Jones' Jen Phillips points out, "when you substitute the tea party for the Know Nothings, and Mexicans and Latinos for the Irish, and Phoenix for Boston," the Know Nothing stance provides a "pretty accurate" reflection of today's right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment. Another long-standing radical group, the John Birch Society, has been "speaking out" against immigration since 1963 and has called for "congressional action to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants." While the Society insists it represents a mainstream members "from all walks of life," conservative leader William Buckley "famously denounced" the Society in the early 1960s as "'idiotic' and 'paranoid.'" Now, the Tea Party has picked up the banner, with Kentucky Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul (R) insisting that the constitutional right to citizenship "should be stopped." A tell-tale sign of the radical nature of today's right-wing demagoguery is the increasingly virulent rhetoric, characterizing undocumented workers as an "invading army," using children to secure public benefits and demonizing them as "anchor babies," a "politically charged term" used to "make these children sound non-human" and "to spark resentment against immigrants." A "widely circulated" and blatantly sexist email by Minutemen member and Patriots Coalition founder Al Garza said "we need to target the mother" to address "the anchor baby racket" because "men don't drop anchor babies, illegal alien mothers do." Last year, Fox News host Glenn Beck sought to legitimize this sentiment, saying "the anchor baby thing has hacked me off...that baby is a child. It's an anchor. It's an anchor to stay here. ... Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth?"

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