GOP resolution on citizenship riles immigrant-rights and labor groups

PORTLAND — Labor and pro-immigrant groups on Friday denounced a resolution by the Oregon Republican Party to deny citizenship to American-born children of noncitizen immigrants, calling it a symptom of ignorance and racism, and representative of a broader pattern of anti-immigrant sentiment.

While some speakers said they doubt it will become law, they said it could be used as a wedge to divide the state and could lead to other problems.

"This resolution exposes the Oregon Republican Party as a hateful, misinformed party that is too extreme for Oregon," said Chris Ferlazzo of Jobs for Justice, a coalition of more than 80 labor and immigrant rights groups that supports immigrant causes.

Amy Langdon, the party's executive director, called the resolution "more of a statement to let people know where we stand."

Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton has proposed a tough line on immigration but has not publicly embraced the resolution.

Ferlazzo said the party's stance was part of a wider trend that has seen moves to prohibit renting homes or selling merchandise to undocumented foreigners.

"It opens the door to what we would like to believe is impossible," he said at a gathering at Reed College in Portland.

Eunice Cho of the National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights said that while the resolution may be merely symbolic, it demonstrates "the level to which immigrants are unwelcome in this country."

If children of all noncitizen immigrants are barred from citizenship, as the resolution proposes, she said, "we would create a class of people in this country who have no state [to call home]."

The groups announced a Portland march Sept. 3, Labor Day weekend. Such events drew several thousand in Eugene and Salem before Oregon's May primary when Saxton and GOP challenger Kevin Mannix emphasized strict immigration measures.

The resolution was written by Jim Lehman, chairman of the Wasco County Republican Party, who acknowledged it wasn't likely to become law any time soon.

"I wanted to light the fire, and the resolution was the first step," he said recently. "There's enough people that want to see something done and they don't want to see the abuses."

Legal experts say making the resolution a law would require the improbable combination of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures agreeing to alter or erase the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which confers citizenship on everyone born in the United States.