Phil Ammann
Donald Trump has once again dropped an ideological firebomb – “anchor babies,” this time – right in the middle of the GOP presidential race.
Despite it being a term clearly offensive to a large number of American immigrants, each of the GOP candidates has begun “parroting the leader” in a shameless bid to out-Trump The Donald on the campaign trail.
Bill Day’s latest comments on how Republicans are not only defending the use of “anchor babies,” but are actually entertaining the idea of deporting 11 million immigrants as well as overturning the 14th Amendment – which enshrines birthright citizenship.
A legal right to citizenship for all children born on American soil, regardless of parentage, is a concept that arose from British common law. That means the idea predates not only the U.S. Constitution, but also the United States itself.
Coincidentally, without birthright citizenship, several in the GOP field – including Marco Rubio (whose parents are from Cuba), Jeb Bush (whose wife Columba was born in Mexico) and even Trump himself (his grandparents were German immigrants) – could have struggled with status as naturalized Americans.
By dropping an “anchor,” Trump’s bombast forced a few hairline cracks to emerge in other campaigns.
One of those stress cracks came from Bush, who decided to answer the issue by flexing his own immigration muscles, namely by suggesting Asians (and not Mexicans) are more responsible for the imaginary “epidemic” of anchor babies.
When a reporter asked Bush why he insists on using such an offensive term, he angrily shot back: “Do you have a better term? You give me a better term, and I’ll use it.”
Obviously, all is not calm in Bushworld.
This latest episode of “political correctness” proves that Trump’s front-runner status is causing quite the ripple effect throughout the Republican establishment.
And as long as the brash, crude and outspoken Trump remains firmly in the lead, the squawking will only get louder.
