Earlier this year, Senators David Vitter and Rand Paul introduced a constitutional amendment to eliminate one of the key advancements in liberty in American history: the citizenship provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, a necessary reform that was made possible only at the horrendous cost of four years of bloody war. Correcting the mistakes of the past, Americans guaranteed the promises of liberty and equality available for all who were born here. The senators’ proposed constitutional amendment was a shameful statement that those who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment had made a mistake.

Even though both senators had also (falsely) claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on people born here to undocumented immigrants, their introduction of a constitutional amendment suggested a recognition that writing millions of Americans out of the Constitution would effect a fundamental change in our nation’s character.

However, as Andrea Nill reports in Think Progress, Vitter and Paul have managed to take their hostility toward millions of Latinos to the next level:

This week, the two senators addressed the legislative dissonance by introducing a bill that’s essentially a carbon copy of Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) birthright citizenship proposal in the House. Vitter and Paul, along with Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS), say their legislation "requires the federal government to limit automatic citizenship to children born to at least one parent who is a citizen, legal resident, or member of the military."

Yet, rather than seeking two thirds of Congress and three-fourths of all the states to amend the Constitution, they now simply seek to redefine it by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act. …

Since it’s highly unlikely their proposal will get very far, it raises the question of what Vitter and Paul’s goals really are. It’s one thing to argue in favor of a constitutional amendment. The arguments behind it are still beyond questionable, but at least they are based on a general agreement that the 14th amendment has been rightly interpreted throughout the past century. When people start arguing that the Constitution has been misread for over 150 years, it undercuts the legitimacy of the millions of Latino and Asian citizens who at some point in their family tree had citizenship conferred to them through an immigrant family member who came to the U.S. during periods when most foreign residents lacked formal “legal” status. Given the fact that Vitter and Paul waged two of the most blatantly racist campaigns last year, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what they’re trying to accomplish.

As we have reported, legislative efforts to exclude millions of people who were born here from the rights of citizenship are flatly inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s plain text and its history, buttressed by over a century of case law.