Advocates Fear Obama Proposal's Impact on LGBT Immigrants
Demonstrators wave flags and banners in front of the White House in Washington on October 11, 2009 as tens of thousands of gay activists marched to demand civil rights, a day after President Barack Obama vowed to repeal a ban on gays serving openly in the US military.
Maria Belen Perez Gabilondo/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, guarantees American citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” This means that people who are in the U.S. illegally give birth to children who are American citizens. On Thursday night, President Barack Obama announced an executive order on immigration, the centerpiece of which is a program aimed at these people: parents of U.S. citizens who are at risk of deportation.
The president’s action came as a relief to a huge number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as well as their supporters. Who’d want to separate parents from their kids?