this is probably one of the most awesome stupid ideas ever floated by the right! oh, alright, maybe that's setting too high of a bar. they've had some pretty stupid stuff and a lot of it was pretty awesome. but still. i can't get enough of the terror babies idea.
the basic plan is this: terrorist organization sneaks a pregnant woman illegally into the u.s. the pregnant woman gives birth in the u.s., and the baby gets u.s. citizenship thanks to the fourteenth amendment. then the kid grows up into a terrorist and when he grows up perpetrates a horrible terrorist attack.
i think all this is is an attempt to tie the current rightwing jihad against birthright citizenship, with their usual post-9/11 hysteria about terrorism. they seem to think that if they can come up with some tenuous story linking their pet issue to terrorism, everyone will freak out and do what they want. and they won't notice just how stupid that tenuous story is.
how stupid is it?
first, if the terrorist can sneak a pregnant non-citizen woman illegally into the u.s., why do they need a u.s. citizen? the whole benefit of having a terrorist with a u.s. passport is that they can get into the u.s. much easier than one with a different passport. but if the plot presumes the ability to get one of their agents over the border illegally, the citizenship no longer confers any special advantages.
put another way, if they can get someone into the country illegally, why not just sneak the terrorist in to commit an attack right now? isn't that easier than sneaking a pregnant woman in so she can give birth to a kid who decades later could grow up into someone who commits a terrorist act? if terrorists plots were that unnecessarily convoluted, we have less to worry about, not more.
also, have they noticed this plan takes a really really long time? it seems like it would be much easier to just recruit someone who already has a u.s. passport than to smuggle a pregnant woman into the u.s. so she can give birth before smuggling the baby back out again so the kid grows up in a proper environment for training.
how can anyone even float this theory without at least cracking a smile?
