In a recent interview on MSNBC Senator Mark Sanford has said that Haitians should not be given the right to citizenship from birth since they are not “former slaves.” He made this statement on an interview with Craig Melvin on MSNBC.
The outgoing Senator stated his bias on the issue of citizenship of the United States. He said that he did not support the idea of “birthright citizenship” for people coming into the United States. He said people from Haiti or anywhere else should not necessarily have access to “birthright citizenship.”
Sanford made this comments referring back to President Trump’s statement last week on ending the practice of giving citizenship status to anyone born in the US automatically. Sanford had agreed that it will not be an easy task to change the policy of giving automatic citizenship, in his admittance he however expressed his reservations about the idea.
Craig Melvin asked Sanford following this, “Why are you not a fan of it? You do recognize that it’s in enshrined in the Constitution, the 14th Amendment?”
In his answer Sanford said, “I happen to be on a bill that would say otherwise.” He as well as a couple of other people believe that extending birthright citizenship to so many people is not what the founding fathers intended.
Sanford explained further saying, “The idea that you just happen to come in from Haiti or anywhere else, and just because you get your boat to shore, all of a sudden you’re open to the same rights and privileges as anybody else is—I think that’s at odds with the intent. I think it was ultimately about slavery at the time, and rights that should come to former slaves.”
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