Mike Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens, according to his top immigration surrogate — a radical step no other major presidential candidate has embraced.
Mr. Huckabee, who won last week's Republican Iowa caucuses, promised Minuteman Project founder James Gilchrist that he would force a test case to the Supreme Court to challenge birthright citizenship, and would push Congress to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to remove any doubt.
The former Arkansas governor thinks the case against U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean was railroaded, Mr. Gilchrist said. Ramos and Compean are serving lengthy prison sentences for shooting a fleeing drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks.
"I would make it my first act as president to pardon agents Ramos and Compean," Mr. Gilchrist said Mr. Huckabee told him. "I regret that they have spent yet another Christmas locked up in a windowless cell like animals and unable to be free and with their families."
Mr. Gilchrist, who campaigned with Mr. Huckabee in Iowa last week, said Mr. Huckabee explained his positions in a half-hour conversation on the campaign trail.
"I read back my notes to him twice and I told him I did not want to put words in his mouth," said Mr. Gilchrist, who also issued a press release from the Minuteman Project detailing Mr. Huckabee's positions. "The guy looked me right in the eye."
Campaign spokeswoman Kirsten Fedewa said Mr. Huckabee intends to review the case against Ramos and Compean as one of his first acts as president, but she didn't otherwise dispute Mr. Gilchrist's quotes as provided by The Washington Times.
Miss Fedewa said Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Gilchrest are "united by a mutual desire to end illegal immigration and are political allies toward that end."
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.
Mr. Huckabee now has adopted one of the strictest immigration platforms of any campaign. He has proposed a policy requiring all illegal aliens to return home and apply for immigration through legal channels.
His new position on birthright citizenship also puts him alone among the candidates. Many legal scholars say the 14th Amendment, which says "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," grants automatic citizenship to any baby born in the U.S., except in diplomatic cases.
Members of Congress have never tried to change birthright citizenship by law.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080108/NATION/311698216/1001Emboldened by Iowa, he's taking the rhetoric up a notch I see. Given his track record in Arkansas, I'm wary of his stance. I like it and endorse it. But I don't see him pulling it off or even being sincere.
