For the past few months, this blog has covered stories about former George W. Bush administration official and current GOP candidate for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. While his name is not widely recognized, he is the legal mind behind almost all anti-immigration legislation that is being adopted at the state and local level as he advises state legislatures around the country.
From SB 1070 in Arizona to the Fremont, Nebraska city ordinance barring landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants, Korbach has been quoted as saying he welcomes a legal challenge all the way to the Supreme Court believing he will prevail.
Now, the Kansas City Star reports that he will help the author of Arizona’s latest anti-immigrant legislation to end birthright citizenship in that state.
“Most countries — almost every country on earth — do not confer birthright citizenship,” Kobach, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said.
Kobach has said the U.S. should stop granting automatic citizenship to so-called “anchor babies” and he supports a bill in Congress that would grant citizenship to children only if at least one parent already was a citizen or legal resident.
He does acknowledge, however, that this latest crusade, delving into the birthright citizenship, is a “tricky issue,” for a state since citizenship is a federal matter.
In his bid for Secretary of State in Kansas, Kobach has promised, if elected, to speak to high school students around the state about the Constitution, add online history and government tutorials to the Secretary of State’s website, and encourage other efforts to enhance civic literary.
Kobach is affiliated with the hate group, FAIR.