Arizona's Next Target: "Anchor Babies"

Something new cooking in Arizona? From TIME magazine:

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals

By Adam Klawonn / Phoenix

"Anchor babies" isn't a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation's toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots — the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. — for their next move.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB 1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential "anchor baby" bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the "anchor" and leave.

The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that "all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government's control over citizenship.

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And, just 'cause few people seemed to pay any attention to it (mostly because there's far worse crap coming out of this state), AZ recently passed SB1040, a bill requiring the use of data (ie test scores, or test score growth) to evaluate teachers and principals. You know what else is in this bill?:

26. Require pupils to recite the following passage from the declaration of independence for pupils in grades four through six at the commencement of the first class of the day in the schools, except that a pupil shall not be required to participate if the pupil or the pupil's parent or guardian objects:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .

So the creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights (as stated in the Declaration of Independence), including life and liberty, and the 14th Amendment ensures those rights to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States..." Maybe AZ should just petition to change the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to read specify only white Americans are entitled to those rights. Arizona...land of the free (if you're not a minority), home of the brave (racists, bigots, and white supremacists).

The same bill includes a section on teacher/principal evaluations, which may be similar to Colorado's recent bill:

38. ON OR BEFORE DECEMBER 15, 2011, ADOPT AND MAINTAIN A MODEL FRAMEWORK FOR A TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL EVALUATION INSTRUMENT THAT INCLUDES QUANTITATIVE DATA ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PROGRESS THAT ACCOUNTS FOR BETWEEN THIRTY-THREE PER CENT AND FIFTY PER CENT OF THE EVALUATION OUTCOMES AND BEST PRACTICES FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATOR TRAINING.

This kind of data-driven insanity looks relatively sane compared to the rest of the legislation emanating from this state.