At a House hearing yesterday on his proposal to challenge the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship requirement, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, alleged that the provision’s defenders simply want to “expand [their] political base by any means necessary” and worried about what preserving birthright citizenship will do to the country’s “demographics.”

King’s bill, which he has introduced a number of times in the House, seeks to end birthright citizenship by statute, since he and his allies claim — despite overwhelming historical evidence — that the 14th Amendment was not meant to apply to the children of immigrants. He calls it part of his strategy to fight the “anchor baby agenda.”

In the hearing, King approvingly cited the Dominican Republic’s repeal of its birthright citizenship law, which has left thousands of Haitian migrants stateless. Saying that the Constitution’s birthright citizenship provision “hands over the immigration policy to everyone except Americans,” King alleged that there’s no argument for it “unless you want to expand your political base by any means necessary.”

Later in the hearing, King asked John Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies “if this practice goes on…can we confer citizenship on people who don’t even want it? And what happens to the demographics of America if this policy is not reversed?”