Deal Wants Change To Citizenship Rules

ATLANTA -- There's a big push on to changing American immigration policy, and it's starting in Georgia.

A Georgia congressman is behind a plan to change a long standing federal law that gives citizenship to any baby born on US soil.

It's a long-standing policy stemming from the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

The current language states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherin they reside."

Under his proposal, Georgia congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal says that babies born in the United States would be granted citizenship if at least one of their parents is already an American citizen or national.

So the notion of one literally being born in the US automatically making them a citizen would be tossed out.

Deal says the country for years has loosely interpreted the 14th Amendment, adding, the US has seen hundreds of thousands of births to parents who are illegally in our country.

"It's hard to get statistics to determine how many children have been born that fit into this category," Deal said. "But it also immediately makes the family unit available for social services and social programs that the taxpayers pay for, for which many cases they have not contributed if certainly not for a very long period of time."

In opposition, Jerry Gonzalez of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials said, "Well I think this nation is moving forward, and Representative Deal wants to move backwards. He's proposed this many times before, it hasn't gone anywhere. It's not going to go anywhere this congressional session so clearly, it's a political ploy -- he's trying to generate attention to his campaign."

The bill hasn't gained steam in the past. This is deal's fourth time introducing such legislation before Congress.

Deal says that he is not sure if the bill will even be heard by Congress.