SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that he’s leaning toward supporting an end to birthright citizenship.
The Republican governor made the comments regarding a potential repeal of the 14th Amendment during a taping of his monthly KUED news conference. The constitutional amendment, adopted in 1868, granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including recently freed slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Herbert’s comments come as leading Senate Republicans say it is time to revisit the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said he supports holding hearings on the issue.
Citizenship as a birthright is rare in other countries, with many requiring at least one parent to be a citizen or legal resident.
Herbert said he believes the intent of the amendment had to do with granting citizenship to children born to slaves, and he’s worried the 14th Amendment encourages illegal behavior.
“I think there is an issue of whether that is a carrot — whether there’s an incentive — for people to cross the borders and have children here and then have them as a way to become citizens quicker than those who have to queue up and get in line,” Herbert said.
He said if the amendment was encouraging “illegal behavior, in other words I’m going to break law for the reward of a child born in America, that is probably the wrong incentive.”
But Herbert also said he wasn’t ready to fully commit to supporting a repeal of the amendment, though he is leaning in that direction.
Legal experts say repealing the citizenship right can be done only through constitutional amendment, which would require approval by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress and by three-fourths of the states. Legislation to amend the right, introduced previously in the House, has stalled.
Herbert has frequently criticized Congress’ lack of movement on addressing illegal immigration. He has said he will sign an immigration bill into law next year if he’s re-elected in November, but he hasn’t said what that bill will entail.
Ideas that Utah lawmakers are considering include a guest-worker program, penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants and making it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
Herbert’s Democratic rival, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, said through his spokeswoman, Stella Thurkill, that “he supports the Constitution and all of its amendments.”
An estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. as of January 2009, according to the Homeland Security Department.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that as of 2008, there were 3.8 million illegal immigrants in this country whose children are U.S. citizens.
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