"supports mandatory prison sentences for selling illegal drugs." In June 2017, Kobach advocated for the ending of state tuition funding for illegal immigrants, and called for mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Kobach has also been criticized for saying that he would do nothing, if elected, to ensure protections for LGBTQ workers in Kansas. Barack Obama's citizenship Kobach repeatedly called on President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate and defended those who persisted in claiming that Obama may have been born outside the United States, specifically in Kenya. As Kansas Secretary of State, he requested additional evidence of Obama's birth before he would allow Obama to appear on Kansas ballots for the 2012 presidential election, even after the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate. In 2009, Kobach "joked at a GOP barbecue that Obama and God had something in common because neither has a birth certificate." Kobach responded to criticism of the joke with "Lighten up. It's just a joke... Are they really suggesting it is forbidden to tell jokes about Barack Obama?" In 2010, during his candidacy for the Kansas secretary of state, Kobach said Obama could end the controversy over his citizenship by producing a "long-form" birth certificate. In the preceding two years, judges had termed such suits "frivolous." These included U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick of Philadelphia, who had thrown out a lawsuit on the issue, saying it was a waste of the court's time. Kobach said that the certificate released by Obama "doesn't have a doctor's signature on it. ... Look, until a court says otherwise, I'm willing to accept that he's a natural U.S. citizen. But I think it is a fair question: Why just not produce the long-form birth certificate?" In September 2012, while leading the three-person State Objections Board, and joined by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Kansas Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer, Kobach requested additional evidence, including the product of investigations from Mississippi and Arizona, that Obama was born in the United States. Kobach said he did not have enough evidence to determine if Obama could appear on the Kansas ballot for the 2012 presidential election. The New York Times editorialized that the actions of the Kansas authorities "reignited long-running conspiracy theories that the president was not born in the United States." CNN reported that "the Kansas ballot measure is one of several examples of the birther movement's still-persistent presence." At