Pennsylvania lawmaker takes aim at "illegal alien invaders"

As a young soldier stationed in Germany in the 1980s, Daryl Metcalfe was an air defenseman, using radar to sort friends from foes.

As a seven-term Pennsylvania legislator with a national profile for targeting what he calls "illegal alien invaders," Metcalfe, 48, remains on guard.

In his crosshairs now: "birthright citizenship," the constitutional doctrine that anyone born in America is a U.S. citizen, even if the mother is here illegally.

"When you have children born in this country to people living in the shadows, it doesn't promote the rule of law," he says. "It is not going to instill patriotism in their hearts."

Born near Syracuse, N.Y., Metcalfe joined the Army right after high school. He married his German wife, Elke, in 1983.

"My wife immigrated here legally," he said in an interview, wielding the statement like a shield against accusations that he is anti-immigrant. "She was a resident alien, and eventually naturalized. You've got to look at all those people waiting in lines, hoping to bring their work ethic here. I think true compassion has to go to the people who want to do it the right way."

Metcalfe calls his ancestry a "Heinz 57" blend of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, and other nationalities.

"I am an example of the melting pot," he said. "My daughter, Lisa [in her 20s], is certainly an example of the new melting pot."

In 1986, after completing military service, Metcalfe moved to Western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, to work as a DuPont Co. field engineer repairing machines used for chemical analysis. He was elected to the legislature in 1998 as a Republican from Butler County.

In Harrisburg, he is the majority chairman of the House State Government Committee, which handles issues involving federal-state relations. But he is best known as the crew-cut point man in an increasingly rough crusade against "stolen jobs . . . stolen benefits . . . criminal aliens, and anchor babies."

Fellow legislator Scott Perry (R., York) praised Metcalfe "for his . . . diligence and knowledge" of immigration issues and for his leadership in forming State Legislators for Legal Immigration, composed of lawmakers from 40 states.

The group proposes legislation that would crack down on illegal immigration.

One of its proposals calls for distinctive birth certificates for the undocumented immigrants' offspring, to distinguish them from the children of U.S. citizens.

Zac Steele, director of Juntos, the Latino advocacy center in South Philadelphia, said such laws would make America less hospitable to illegal immigrants so that they "just go home. But the reality is that things are so bad at home they are just going to be driven underground" here. "That's an abuse of their basic human rights."

Despite Pennsylvania's relatively small number of illegal immigrants - an estimated 140,000 compared with 2,500,000 in California - Metcalfe said he feels obligated to be involved because the federal government "has been AWOL" for so long.

"This used to be a southern-border-state issue. The northern states didn't pay much attention," he said. "But the only way to resolve" the problems "is for the states to join together."