Donald Trump and Scott Walker are wrong with their declarations about
citizenship for "anchor babies," GOP presidential candidate Jim Gilmore argued Wednesday, claiming that any move to target such people for deportation would be unconstitutional.
"The guarantees of the 14th amendment to the Constitution were put into the Constitution to make sure African-Americans were not denied their civil rights," the former Virginia governor, who entered the race last month, told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program.
"[When you] begin to talk about a government beginning to pick and choose who gets to have citizenship and who doesn't, what disfavored group of people may not be granted citizenship is wrong."
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Gilmore told the program that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly "was right" Tuesday night when he argued with Trump over the legality of denying citizenship to people whose parents are in the country illegally.
O'Reilly challenged Trump on his program Tuesday, telling the front-runner that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that anyone born on American soil is automatically granted U.S. citizenship.
Trump argued back, telling O'Reilly that he thinks he's wrong about the amendment and that "many lawyers" disagree that the amendment allows citizenship for "anchor babies."
Trump said it would take too long to amend the Constitution, so he'd rather take the process through the federal courts to "find out whether or not anchor babies are actually citizens."
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Gilmore said Wednesday he has his own immigration plan, which says there is "no path to citizenship for people who are illegal aliens," as he rejects amnesty for such people. But still, he said, the Constitution "is a guarantee people born inside the United States of America are granted citizenship and it's protected."
Further, Gilmore questioned whether "any lawyer with a law license would tell Donald Trump anything like that" when it comes to automatic citizenship.
Gilmore said his own plan would allow immigrants who are already in the United States the opportunity to work, rather than deporting people who are already in the country.
"If their children are born in this country, they are protected by the guarantees of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution," said Gilmore. "People who are here right now might get a work permit but they cannot get amnesty."
Gilmore did agree that it is "abusing the system" when women enter the country specifically to have babies, but still, "it's dangerous to go into a situation where you take people who are not favored and begin to remove their citizenship. Trump and Walker are wrong about this. Wrong."
The former governor pointed out that he does not support the abuse of the system by encouraging "anchor babies," but he does not believe that Trump's plan "will end up being the law; that's absolutely not possible."
Gilmore also addressed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's use of a private server, telling the program he called on Wednesday for a special prosecutor to be appointed in the case.
"What you have now is the Justice Department investigating Hillary Clinton, so the Obama administration is investigating the Obama administration," he said. "Even if they were to say at some point Hillary Clinton is OK, nobody would believe it."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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