Um, people coming to the US, working hard for 20 some-odd years and raising a kid (or two) who goes on to become a productive member of society and then wants to sponsor his parents for full citizenship in the country that they've lived in most of their adult lives and for his entire life...this is a problem?

Funny, when I grew up, it was called the American Dream.

"Does anyone know how often this actually happens?"

Why bother playing into this by asking? The radical Republicans don't care how often it happens. Two examples are enough to fuel thousands of speeches and TV bobblehead appearances.

Gotta love those traditional "pro-family" values!

I say, bring on the bill! First, it is clearly unconstitutional -- as you note. So, I'm not worried about any harm actually being done. Second, if the Republicans give this issue any serious play -- and by that I mean debating it at length in public, sticking it in their platform, anything up to and including passing it, whether Bush vetos it or not -- Hispanics will never vote Republican again. They'll become a 90% lock for the Democrats. Look what happened in California with Prop 187.

That the Republicans are getting serious about this, and that it's starting to get widespread attention is great news for the Democratic Party.

Uh, Constitution? Isn't that a rather dated document? I think Dubya signed an Executive Order proclaiming it inoperable until he declared the GWOT complete. If he can render the 4th Amendment moot he can do the same for the 14th.

If this is such a big problem, why aren't we just making it easier for people to become citizens in the first place? That way they don't have to have a baby to ease their citizenship 20 years later.

I'm with theorajones - I thought we were the free nation that welcomed the world's oppressed masses with open arms.

We need to be making it easy for immigrants to become full citizens, with all the benefits - and responsibilities - that entails.

We need to be punishing employers who seek illegal immigrants to get around wage and tax laws.

End of story.

In a practical sense, this fight over what some on the right call "anchor babies" seems like a lost cause. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that those "born…in the United States" are "citizens of the United States." For that matter, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that a baby born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants was legally a U.S. citizen, even though federal law at the time denied citizenship to people from China. The court said birth in the United States constituted "a sufficient and complete right to citizenship." House Republicans may think a provision in an immigration bill can get around all of this, but I'm not sure what they're basing their confidence on.

Well, the obvious answer -- as they can't be completely ignorant -- is that they are lying. They know they can't institute the policy through such a vehicle, and the support for the issue is pure symbolic red meat thrown to the immigrant-hating base. They know that the courts are almost certain to strike it down, and know that that also is a political opportunity for them no matter how predictable and legally correct such an action would be.

This is about politics, not policy. If you meaningfully address problems, you run the risk of losing them as a source of political support, so there is no desire to meaningfully address any of the problems which have served so well to whip up support for the Republican Party in the past.

Oh, it also might help if we put some effort into helping other nations create incentives to keep their citizens inside their borders (and inside their economies).

Um, people coming to the US, working hard for 20 some-odd years and raising a kid (or two) who goes on to become a productive member of society and then wants to sponsor his parents for full citizenship in the country that they've lived in most of their adult lives and for his entire life...this is a problem?

If they stay in the country continuously after having the child, they won't ever be eligible for residency even if the child grows up and tries to sponsor them; there is a prohibition on eligibility for any legal immigration for several years after having been illegally present in the country.

They aren't worried about the 20-year costs - it's the 5-10 year costs that kill them. Those babies are now US citizens and can't be denied social services like already-born illegal immigrant children. The kids get education, health care, free school lunches, and all the rest. It also makes deporting illegal immigrant parents a lot tougher if they have two US citizens for children.

Steve Benen wrote:

I can appreciate long-term thinking, but realistically, how many families are sneaking into the country to give birth in 2005 as part of a residency plan for 2023?

I think that the last part of your post misses the obvious...How likely is it that the illegal immigrant parents of a newborn baby would get deported?

It's not a two-decade plan for permanent residency; more like a 9 month plan...

The constitution clearly states that if one is born in the US, one is automatically a citizen. There are no caveats to this.

A law that conflicts with this would eventually be ruled as unconstitutional. I would not want my congressmen and congresswomen to pass such a wasteful law. God knows there is enough waste going on outside of the constitutional boundaries.

Or...perhaps this is a test to see how ferverently the constitution will be defended against those for whom parts of it are inconvenient. How much outrage will the public display against attempts to bend or circumvent the Supreme Law of the Land?
How many are willing to allow this band in Washington to alter this nearly sacred document?

Well, the 14th Amendment doesn't say that everyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. It says that everyone born in the U.S.--"and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"--is a citizen. Thus, children born in the United States to accredited foreign diplomats are not U.S. citizens, because they are by treaty and convention not subject to U.S. jurisidiction. It is through this keyhole that the Tancredo types say they can bypass the amendment through legislation. I say this as an immigration lawyer who truly hates those guys and thinks they're really wrong here. The Republicans have been calling for abolition of birthright citizenship in their national party platform at least since 1994, by the way.--Arminius

You can't have a temporary guest worker plan and have birthright citizenship because the guest workers in effect stop being temporary when they have U.S. citizen anchor babies.

So, which one do you want?

"Well, the 14th Amendment doesn't say that everyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. It says that everyone born in the U.S.--"and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"--is a citizen."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Illegal immigrants are subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Is someone going to argue once they cross the border they aren't subject to our laws? If they murder, rape, steal, drive drunk or commit any other crimes they're arrested and prosecuted. Isn't being made answerable to the judicial branch of government "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"?

Arminius, so they're claiming that children of illegal immigrants aren't subject to the jurisdiction of the US? That they have something equivalent to diplomatic immunity? Might make things difficult when a child of illegal immigrants grows up and commits a crime.

You can't have a temporary guest worker plan and have birthright citizenship because the guest workers in effect stop being temporary when they have U.S. citizen anchor babies.

Sure you can: make all guest workers check their reproductive organs at the border, to be returned when they leave the country.

Storage might be an issue, though.

Illegal immigrant parents of an American citizen baby are most unlikely to be deported. There are provisions that disallow deporting when american citizens will be seriouly impacted and this falls under the category.

So I doubt that many people are likely to wait for this 20 year citizenship thing, but many do see a baby as making them much harder to deport and even more importantly, granting a good life to the baby.

The most disturbing possibility is that these legislators actually think, based on some originalism run amok, that the bill would be constitutional. Their purported justification is that the authors of the 14th couldn't possibly have envisioned a scenario where people immigrate just to have anchor babies.

It's totally insane to base a law on an intention that flatly contradicts the text of the amendment in which the intent is codified.

Thanks, arminius. I stand corrected on that detail. Got no problem acknowledging facts.

And thanks, Steve Duncan -- your addendum is what a reasoned viewpoint of that is - and would be if this became watercooler chat material, IMO anyway.

Still, raising this issue to me is just an exercise in testing the wind to see how far the loonies can go before the general public with check them. Moving the goalposts is part of the extreme right wing strategy. Stopping that from happening is part of mine.

cmdicely has pointed out why these phony platforms are constructed. It is an essential element of culture war to give Americans who are prone to traditionalist sentiments the feeling that they are besieged. No matter how outrageous, the Republicans must constantly construct these mirages to motivate the base. Remember liberals banning the Bible?

Discussing this stuff in terms of policy is useless. I wish some public relations types would set up a blog to dissect these initiatives. They clearly follow a message trajectory and timeline and are often tailor cut for a particular demographic.

Well, it works either way for them.

Either pass the legislation -- or use the failed legislation as another club to bash an "activist court."

Bob

before the general public with check them.

Sorry. Was meant to read: will check them.

(And I even previewed it. Argh!)

bellumregio:

Oh completely. It's of a piece with Intelligent Design, the War on Christmas and flag-burning and marriage Amendments. All following a strategy of using essentially non-issues -- probably a lot more coordinated than any of us would care to think -- to keep people on that side of the culture war feeling besieged.

Bob

Why are you so surprised that these jerks have no respect fot the Constitution or far law, in general? Banning flag burning, prayer in schools, ten commandments in courts, torture, domestic spying... why stop now?

Is this "born in the US, then a US citizen" thing mandatory? What happens if your baby is born in the US, but the last thing you want is having an American child?

Hispanics will never vote Republican again

Not true... about a third of Hispanics eligible to vote, especially in CA, don't like the illigal immigrants. It's not that they want the immigration to stop, but they want it legal. They are under the delusion that if the illegals stopped coming, somehow legal channels would be created.

You have wait until you are 21 before a US Citizen can sponsor a relative for Citizenship.

I grew up in Canada and had a childhood friend who was born in the US to Indian parents. The parents had immigration troubles in the US and eventually settled in Canada and built a life for themselves. Eventually, both parents lost their jobs and had few opportunities available to them in Canada. So when my friend turned 21, he sponsored his family for green cards (though at the time he was still in Canada in university ironically enough).

You can't have a temporary guest worker plan and have birthright citizenship because the guest workers in effect stop being temporary when they have U.S. citizen anchor babies.

This is exactly what happend in Europe with Turkish, Kurd and Arab guest workers brought in in the Sixties and Seventies.

When does O'Reilly declare "The War on Babies"?

BOR: "Why look, these kids just show up here, and expect someone to take care of them! Why they don't even speak English! What do you say to that?!"

Baby: "Goo-goo gah blee pfft WAAAAHHHH!"

(spits up all over O'Reilly's $500 suit)

BOR: "That's it then, let's send them back where they came from!"

buck, in principle you are correct. In practice, however, sponsoring anti-illegal-immigrant legislation by Republicans causes the "racist faction" of the party to gain the upper hand, alienating the latinos who would have otherwise had no problem with cracking down on illegal immigration and driving them towards the Democrats. This is what happened with proposition 187 in California, which attracted Latino support but ultimately caused the downfall of the GOP in that state.

One thing that really bothers me is how little the Dems try to organize the Hispanic vote. I live in Alabama and I know there are a lot of illegals, but so are there many legal aliens and I see little effort to get them out to vote. The Hispanic vote should be a huge voice in local and national elections.

Adam Piontek, cmdicely and Pat have collectively captured the essential points on this issue. The solution is to have a realistic (liveable) minimum wage and then enforce existing laws prohibiting employers from hiring undocumented workers.

The current non-enforcement policy allows businesses to hold down (labor) costs by exploiting desperate people. They will continue to do this unless and until the feds stop them.

New Orleans reconstruction is good example. FEMA-approved contractors fired union construction crews and hired crews made up of undocumented laborers. This saved them tons of money, although it displaced Americans who needed work (the quality of work and the product taxpayers get for their money is another issue, considering the difference in quality between experienced, highly trained journeymen carpenters vs the unknown qualifications of and quality produced by undocumented laborers).

Fortunately, in this one case, the union was able to publicly embarrass FEMA into making the contractor rehire the union crew and let the undocumented workers go.

A liveable minimum wage would eliminate the incentive for hiring workers on the basis of their cost instead of qualifications (see also the 8-1b visa program which has displaced American high-tech workers and software engineers by exploiting low-cost alternatives from India and elsewhere). And by the way, the lower cost of products made by exploiting foreign labor does not create a savings for Americans that justifies the loss of quality jobs.

Adam: "We need to be making it easy for immigrants to become full citizens, with all the benefits - and responsibilities - that entails."

I agree with much of what you say, but I'm not sure about the above statement. Welcoming oppressed masses from all parts of the globe had a lot to do with what makes our country great. It's given us a degree of cultural & ethnic diversity that I think is important, and it also made a lot of economic sense in preindustrial & industrial America. Morally, it's still the right thing; but economically, I'm just not sure that we can sustain it. Add to this wrinkles like trends in housing costs & diminishing opportunities for unskilled labor, and my concern is that prospects for immigrants in America aren't what they used to be. This is certainly isn't to say that now is the time to shut the doors or do something stupid like denying citizenship to children born here of immigrant parents. But we need to acknowledge that important elements of our economy have changed, and that should, I think, shape the ways in which we think about immigration.

The anchor-baby phenomenon is real, and it is a problem. Automatic birthright citizenship for any and all encourages illegals to plant a baby, which the U.S. taxpayer will have to support through public services. It's hard to pin down numbers because the babies are registered as native U.S. citizens, and not immigrants of any kind. But I have seen numbers showing that up to 2/3s of some border hospitals' deliveriers are to illegal aliens.

This feature in the law has even created a niche market in Asia. Korean women fly in to deliver their babies here, and pick up a passport in the process.

I don't see how it's radical or racist to not want to water down the value of American citizenship. I certainly think that some arrangement can be had where the children of legal, long-term residing immigrants can be given citizenship while denying it to those acting in bad faith.

Article 2 of the Consitution also refers to "natural born citizens" which makes one think that being born here might be important.
The assumption was that if someone was born here and lived until they were voting age they would have been indoctrinated enough that they would be able to help make decisions for the rest of the population. They would think of themselves as Americans rather than as whatever it was their parents were.
I was taught in civics this was put in there because the framers feared loyalists to the crown might move in lots of people of voting age to try and influence things in the early days of the Republic.
The 14th amendment was put there to make sure that people who were born of slaves on U.S. soil were citizens.

This was obviously pre-enlightenment (and in the Texas public schools for heaven's sake) so I could have been misinformed.

After I read the CNN story on this - I googled and found some Washington Times story on this. Wash. Times claimed there were studies that proved that Congress could pass this law and somehow get around the 14th Amendment. Odd - Wash. Times failed to mention the authors or the names of these studies.

which the U.S. taxpayer will have to support through public services.

Umm, how does this happen? Illegal immigrants pay taxes too. They can't tell the gas station or the convenience store or the county that they are exempt from paying gas taxes, sales taxes, or property taxes. Many illegal immigrants with jobs pay income taxes too. So I fail to see how "U.S. taxpayers" are paying to support these children, any more than taxpayers are paying to support the children of native citizens who may be below the povery line, for example.

Derek Copold:

Then how would you change the law and on what basis? Where would you draw the cutoff point? Would you revoke the citizenship of already-born babies, and if so, starting at what age?

Bob

Kevin, the case is U.S. v. WONG KIM ARK, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

I'd also recommend reading the dissent written by Chief Justice Fuller, which highlights the objections that are pretty much those still held by people who object to birthright citizenship.

It is very easy to just make a caricature of people who agree with Tancredo (vice Tancredo, who is the best caricture possible of himself), but there are some issues that we as a country need to think about.

In other words, the fourteenth amendment does not exclude from citizenship by birth children born in the United States of parents permanently located therein, and who might themselves become citizens; nor, on the other hand, does it arbitrarily make citizens of children born in the United States of parents who, according to the will of their native government and of this government, are and must remain aliens.

Even after that ruling, being born on US soil did not automatically make one a citizen if, say, one was a member of an Indian tribe, since those tribes were considered "not subject to the juridstiction thereof." (This changed in 1924, when all tribal members were given citizenship by act of Congress. An earlier Supreme Court decision, Elk v. Wilkins, denied citizenship to tribe members.)

This whole dispute boils down to what, exactly, the phrase "subject to the juridstiction thereof" means.

Adam Piontek, cmdicely and Pat have collectively captured the essential points on this issue. The solution is to have a realistic (liveable) minimum wage and then enforce existing laws prohibiting employers from hiring undocumented workers.

I certainly don't agree that this is "the solution". The current immigration structure is bad, and guarantees a lasting problem. The worst component is that the system is designed to prevent immigration slots from being alotted in a way that follows immigration demand -- specifically, the limit of 5% of the alotment going to any one country -- which guarantees that a particular large neighbor of the US from which it is easiest to enter the country illegally and in which desire to enter the country is particularly high will be the country from which it is most difficult for a qualified applicant to be legally admitted to the United States.

This, of course, encourages illegal immigration and all the bad things (smuggling, de facto slavery, etc.) that come along with it. If the supply of legal immigrant "slots" within the overall quota were aligned with demand, you'd see an instant and massive decrease in illegal immigration with no additional enforcement activity.

The second major problem is that hard limits are imposed to avoid pure economic harms of high levels of immigration. If you had a per-immigrant fee imposed on otherwise-qualified supernumerary immigrants to bypass the quotas, and used the proceeds from the fees to address the costs of immigration, you'd further cut down on illegal immigration and the unique harms associated with illegality (replacing it with legal immigration and additional public revenue).

Both of these measures would also make it much easier to enforce existing laws, both at the border and in the workplace, by reducing the incentives for evasion.

The book "Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America" claims that for each Korean bride 15 family members immigrated to the US.

(Her sample was only a dozen women or so; not trustworthy.)

Of course, this would be a ready-made issue for conservatives. Restrictions on marriage: check! Prevent immigration: check!

Without violating the constitution they could much more easily prevent Americans from marrying foreigners; thus closing a gaping 'immigration loophole'.

The book "Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America" claims that for each Korean bride 15 family members immigrated to the US.

(Her sample was only a dozen women or so; not trustworthy.)

Of course, this would be a ready-made issue for conservatives. Restrictions on marriage: check! Prevent immigration: check!

Without violating the constitution they could much more easily prevent Americans from marrying foreigners; thus closing a gaping 'immigration loophole'.

The book "Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America" claims that for each Korean bride 15 family members immigrated to the US.

(Her sample was only a dozen women or so; not trustworthy.)

Of course, this would be a ready-made issue for conservatives. Restrictions on marriage: check! Prevent immigration: check!

Without violating the constitution they could much more easily prevent Americans from marrying foreigners; thus closing a gaping 'immigration loophole'.

It's hard to pin down numbers because the babies are registered as native U.S. citizens, and not immigrants of any kind. But I have seen numbers showing that up to 2/3s of some border hospitals' deliveriers are to illegal aliens.

The ratio of deliveries in "border hospitals" is irrelevant to whether there is a substantial immigration problem produced by "anchor babies". What would be relevant is stats -- which if it occurs substantially, should be easy to pin down, at least for Congress or the Executive Branch -- on how much of an impact it has in immigration proceedings, particularly, in residence applications and/or removal proceedings. If the presence of a US citizen infant is rarely on significant factor in decisions in removal proceedings targetting the parents, and if "anchor babies" grown into adult sponsors are not a substantial source of immigration applications that eventually result in granting permanent residency, then their really is no significant issue here.

"Does anyone know how often this actually happens?"

Why bother playing into this by asking? The radical Republicans don't care how often it happens. Two examples are enough to fuel thousands of speeches and TV bobblehead appearances.
Posted by: Jim Lund

It does happen because I have a Japanese acquaintance who moved to Honolulu when she was pregnant just so her offspring could claim American citizenship someday. If you have economically un-disadvantaged people doing this . . .

While many of the people entering America illegally from Mexico are poorly educated, they are aware of this stupid loophole in our immigration and naturalization laws.

In the mid 1970s, America was nearly at ZPG. The overwhelming increase in the U.S. population in the last 30 years of the last century (nearly 100 million) was through illegal immigration, immigration, and the offspring of these new "Americans." The birth rates of families that have been in the U.S. for less than three generations is something like five times as high as people whose families have been here for three or more generations.

A bit off topic, but when you see a mosque being built in your otherwise whitebread suburban neighborhood the thoughtful person doesn't assume that these muslims have emigrated because they all want to be Americans and that they have a great love of American "culture," etc. These people are economic opportunists who believe they can build a more economically secure life in the U.S. End of story.

The big difference between the immigration surge at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century is that "chosen ghetto-ization" insulated the new arrivals for only a short time, and only in the larger cities where numbers of their countrymen were at that critical mass that facilitated the maintenance of cultural institutions like those left behind in the "old country." After that, people became Americans or, in some cases, chose to return to the mother country once they earned enough money to establish a better life "back home." Most stayed, of course. It is a fact that immigrants from Europe in particular, were keen to make sure their children "fit in."

Today, thanks to globalization and, yes, the Internet(s), and even more liberal immigration laws (allowing much larger numbers) it is much easier to live in a diaspora as much apart from the day-to-day world of America (or wherever) as the new arrival chooses. As I've posted here before, this is not unique to the U.S. The same thing is happening in Canada, and we can see what foolishly liberal immigration laws have led to in the E.U.

Lest anyone jump to the conclusion that I'm some sort of closeted racist, my wife is not an American citizen.

This feature in the law has even created a niche market in Asia. Korean women fly in to deliver their babies here, and pick up a passport in the process.

That's nonsense. If a non-citizen gives birth in the US her baby automatically becomes a citizen but she doesn't "pick up a passport in the process." Her immigration status changes not at all -- unless, as pointed out above, that baby sponsors its mother for citizenship eighteen years later.

I hope this will not produce knee-jerk responses......

I should begin by saying I was an immigrant - legal.

The good and clear statements and arguments above appear to me to be as unambiguous as anyone who actually can read and comprehend English needs them to be. Our difficulty is that we have an Administration populated by illiterates who not knowing that words have meanings, believe groups of words, such as "extreme rendition", can be said mean something they choose, and not something like Cream playing extra loudly.

This in turn means, being structural morons, whatever their half-understood comprehension, the 14th Amendment can mean whatever their ill-taught minds choose for it to mean.

Now for the other piece. Is the US a developed Country or not? If it is, then surely it no longer needs to build up its population by whatever means. (If it is still a developing country we should not perhaps be running about telling other countries who to run their affairs.)

I wonder if it is time to repeal or alter the 14th Amendment. It does not seem to me to be a right or left argument or discussion, but then I come from somewhere which thinks there should be universal healthcare, too, silly me!

The western developed world has by and large the same laws as the US, someone born in a country is automatically a citizen. Western Europe is beginning to think again, however, because of the pressure from the veey large number of economic immigrants it has received, many of them illegal. Under their present laws they tend to grant automatic rights to stay to the illegal parents.

A philosophical question to have been answered first...... Does the United States wish to go on effectively offering "Come One, Come All! --- and if you can hide out for a bit we shall let you stay?"

Does the US consider it does not need to increase the popoulation so much and does it wish to let that happen via the birth rate, or does it think of itself as a devloping country wishing to attract immigrants, especially ones at the bottom of the socio-economic scale to work in our enormous labor-intensive factories?

Old Russia, the policy not changed by the Communist regime did not, I believe, grant full Russian citizenship until one had been born there for several generations.

My own opinion is that we have advanced sufficiently far that we no longer need so many people pouring in, and that the amendment should be repealed, so that an iilegal immigrant's child would also be illegal.

I am also of the opinion that granting only conditional citizenship might be a good idea, and if the conditional citizen committed one or more of a list of serious felonies then that citizenship and those of the whole extended family could be cancelled.

I'm just baffled by the notion that the advocates of a law against granting citizenship to these children born in the US think they can get around the very explicit statement in the Constitution to the contrary.

I mean, there certainly IS language in the Constitution that's subject to differing interpretations. But how do you "reinterpret" the criterion "born ... in the US" as a sufficient condition of citizenship? Could the language POSSIBLY be more plain and unequivocal? Where's the ambiguity? In the "born"? In the phrase "in the US"?

I just don't get it. What's their plan here? It makes no sense to me at all. If they proposed an amendment to the Constitution, that at least makes some kind of sense.

But this? It's just bizarre.

Lest anyone jump to the conclusion that I'm some sort of closeted racist, my wife is not an American citizen.

"Not an American citizen" is not a racial category distinct from "American citizen", so it does nothing to undermine the idea that you might be a closeted racist, though certainly your overt bigotry seems to be cultural and religious rather than racial per se.

Today, thanks to globalization and, yes, the Internet(s), and even more liberal immigration laws (allowing much larger numbers) it is much easier to live in a diaspora as much apart from the day-to-day world of America (or wherever) as the new arrival chooses.

I'm tired of hearing this meme. Today's immigrants are no different than yesterdays. They don't stay apart from the rest of the U.S. any more than immigrants used to. It still generally works out this way: First generation does not assimilate well if at all. Second generation is in the middle. Third generation and on is fully assimilated. Same as immigrants 100 years ago. There is no different.

Also, I would disagree that Europe is dealing with problems caused by too much immigration. Europe is dealing with much more severe problems caused by population stagnation or decline, chief among them how to pay for their social safety nets as more people retire.

Jeff II wrote:
"In the mid 1970s, America was nearly at ZPG. The overwhelming increase in the U.S. population in the last 30 years of the last century (nearly 100 million) was through illegal immigration, immigration, and the offspring of these new "Americans.""

You might want to ponder what the US economy would be like if our population had been level since 1975. Korea is starting to realize their anti-immigrant policies are going to cut their economic boom off at the knees...not to mention eliminating care givers for an aging population. I suspect the government of Korea's going to be more upset if one of their citizens shifts her kid to the US than we should be.

Actually I do think the people who wrote that amendment were not thinking about 'anchor babies' because at the time it was written, international travel was so very much less common - and took so much longer - than today.

A bit off topic, but when you see a mosque being built in your otherwise whitebread suburban neighborhood the thoughtful person doesn't assume that these muslims have emigrated because they all want to be Americans and that they have a great love of American "culture," etc. These people are economic opportunists who believe they can build a more economically secure life in the U.S. End of story.

But that's true of all previous immigrants as well. Two centuries ago the same sentence could have been written by a nativist American, substituting only the words "Catholic church" for mosque and "Irish" for Muslim. Every immigrant group has come here, largely, because they wanted the economic opportunity.

A philosophical question to have been answered first...... Does the United States wish to go on effectively offering "Come One, Come All! --- and if you can hide out for a bit we shall let you stay?"

This presumes that this is what the US currently does. Since the US currently prohibits anyone from being legally admitted to the US -- with or without an "anchor baby" or other sponsor -- for several years after the most recent time they have been illegally present, aside from special exceptions made at the sole and unreviewable whim of the executive branch, the reality is quite different.

Welcoming oppressed masses from all parts of the globe had a lot to do with what makes our country great. It's given us a degree of cultural & ethnic diversity that I think is important, and it also made a lot of economic sense in preindustrial & industrial America. Morally, it's still the right thing; but economically, I'm just not sure that we can sustain it. Posted by: chaunceyatrest

I agree with this. However, we also need to consider that in many cases, U.S. foreign policy has helped to enlarge the number of "oppressed masses" the world over.

Regarding our most pressing immigration issue, I would love to see a U.S. policy with Mexico and Central America that dramatically improves human rights and boosts economic opportunities rather than one that looks for a "logical" solution to illegal immigration. Address these problems and the latter becomes a hell of a lot more manageable if not a non-issue all together over time.

Oh. And you'll have to be successful in completely discrediting the Catholic Church in Latin America as well, but I digress.

I am also of the opinion that granting only conditional citizenship might be a good idea, and if the conditional citizen committed one or more of a list of serious felonies then that citizenship and those of the whole extended family could be cancelled.

Um, other than the clearly immoral and unjust proposal to punish persons with no responsibility for the crimes of others, how does this differ from our current set-up which grants "permanent residency" before citizenship, and features mandatory revocation of that residency and removal for the commission of "aggravated felonies".

Still, raising this issue to me is just an exercise in testing the wind to see how far the loonies can go before the general public with check them.

You might want to check out the polling history on this subject.

People who have made a career out of parsing the Second Amendment shouldn't be so skeptical about being able to make a law legitimately compatible with the language of the Constitution. Of course, eventually the courts will decide.

My own opinion is that we have advanced sufficiently far that we no longer need so many people pouring in, and that the amendment should be repealed

Wait, are you seriously arguing that the 14th Amendment should be repealed?

There's background on the law here and here.

And, even the LAT reported on these scams in 2002: "Korean moms want 'born in USA' babies"

Here's more on the "Hispanic Vote" myth.

"The big difference between the immigration surge at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century is that "chosen ghetto-ization" insulated the new arrivals for only a short time, and only in the larger cities where numbers of their countrymen were at that critical mass that facilitated the maintenance of cultural institutions like those left behind in the "old country."

How short actual historical memory is versus the romanticized version; the spirit of the "Know-Nothings" lives on.

There was an article in the American Prospect by Geoff Nunberg, ohh, about 1996 or so, pointing out that up to 1914 6% of elementary schools in the US were German-speaking, and that, in fact, Hispanic immigrants are dumping English in favor of Spanish more rapidly than previous waves of immigration (Hispanic immigrants are losing Spanish fluency within 2 generations, rather than the 3 generations that has been typical for other immigrant groups).

"The same thing is happening in Canada, and we can see what foolishly liberal immigration laws have led to in the E.U."

It's interesting to contrast the experience of the UK (where, after the Brixton and Toxteth riots in the early 1980s, they adopted multiculturalism) versus the French monoculturalism, or the German "bloodline" citizenship laws. The UK, and the US, have had a lot easier time with recent immigrant populations because of multiculturalism than those which have sought to cling to a monolithic idea of national identity.

It should also be pointed out that Europe paid a very high price in the 20th century for the pursuit of homogeneous national identities within state borders.

Denying citizenship to the children of illegal aliens would serve to create a permanent underclass. Is this really a wise policy? I think not.

But that's true of all previous immigrants as well. Two centuries ago the same sentence could have been written by a nativist American, substituting only the words "Catholic church" for mosque and "Irish" for Muslim. Every immigrant group has come here, largely, because they wanted the economic opportunity. Posted by: Stefan

No it's not true, Stefan, because probably 90% of America's legal immigrants during the previous immigration boom were Europeans. In general, there was a common cultural thread. Nothing could be further from the truth with Muslims. Again, remaining "ghetto-ized" is a much more viable option than it was a century ago.

I haven't looked at the LA Times link posted concerning S. Koreans, but it is certainly true that their attitudes are not much different than Muslim immigrants, even though the overwhelming majority of them are Christians - they are establishing communities effectively insulating themselves from the larger community with Korean churches (in other words, the liturgy is in Korean) with Korean parochial (in more than one sense) schools, and Korean businesses. If this isn't the case, why are is the signage always bi-lingual, and why do the businesses cluster in strip malls?

It's interesting that no one is discussing the effects of birthright citizenship in an ever more globalized world, where travel is cheaper, faster and safer than ever. Something like 100 million non-citizens visit the US every single year. In addition there are 4-5 million people living here on H1-B or student visas at any given time. All of this is a good thing. But if only a fraction of 100 million come here while pregnant and have a baby, you could easily produce 5-10 million new "citizens" each year, with claims on the US government. What, then, is the value of US citizenship?

This is not a theoretical discussion. Many Mexican women already come here while pregnant to give birth in the US, and there are actually businesses that bring late-term pregnant Korean women to this country specifically so their children will be born US citizens. How much longer before this catches on worldwide?

The 14th Amendment was passed for a particular reason - to make citizens out of slaves. The exception in the 14th Amendment - "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" - is not a "loophole." It was put there for a particular reason. It kept the children of diplomats from being citizens, and it kept Indians from being citizens. It most emphatically did not grant immunity to Indians who committed crimes on US soil. Over half-a-million Americans died in the war - America's bloodiest ever - that preceded the passage of that amendment. To bastardize that sacrifice for crass political gain would be appalling.

No it's not true, Stefan, because probably 90% of America's legal immigrants during the previous immigration boom were Europeans. In general, there was a common cultural thread. Nothing could be further from the truth with Muslims.

"Muslims" are not a class opposed to "Europeans", both "Muslims" and "Europeans" can have common cultural threads with Americans, and both "Muslims" and "Europeans", nonetheless, predominantly immigrate to America, if they do at all, for largely economic reasons, though presumably in both cases cultural considerations play a part as well in the decision of whether and where to emigrate.

When whether one is in the country legally or not depends upon the whims of some middle-manager...

...Do we want to place someone's citizenship atop that muddy bar?

Uninformed people thing there's a solid difference in our country between someone who's here illegally and not.

But there is NOT.

People who have made a career out of parsing the Second Amendment shouldn't be so skeptical about being able to make a law legitimately compatible with the language of the Constitution.

Look, the Second Amendment has OBVIOUS points where differing interpretations are possible -- why, for example, mention the whole thing with militias if the "right to bear arms" was intended to be fully general and wholly unqualified?

Where are the similar points of qualification in the plain statement that people born in the US are, by that fact itself, citizens?

Here is the entirety of Section 1 of the 14th amendment:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I defy you to find ambiguity or qualification in the statement regarding whether someone born in the US is a citizen.

Today, thanks to globalization and, yes, the Internet(s), and even more liberal immigration laws (allowing much larger numbers) it is much easier to live in a diaspora as much apart from the day-to-day world of America (or wherever) as the new arrival chooses.

Actually, it's probably harder. A Sicilian immigrant to New York a hundred years ago could live in a tenement building on Rivington Street, say, populated exclusively by fellow immigrants from her same village. The rest of the street would be made up of fellow Sicilians, with each building representing one village back home. She could shop, work and socialize within a few blocks of her apartment and do all of it entirely in Sicilian dialect, with little or no need to learn English or adapt to American customs. The same was true of the German, Chinese, Jewish, etc. communities. And for those who think that the Internet(s) have made a big difference, remember that in the past many American cities with large immigrant populations supported lots of foreign-language newspapers, so the immigrants could keep up to date without ever learning English. In Minneapolis, for example, there were more German-language than English-language newspapers in the early 20th century.

Jeff II: "Regarding our most pressing immigration issue, I would love to see a U.S. policy with Mexico and Central America that dramatically improves human rights and boosts economic opportunities rather than one that looks for a "logical" solution to illegal immigration. Address these problems and the latter becomes a hell of a lot more manageable if not a non-issue all together over time."

I give up. What U.S. policy dramatically improves another country's civil rights & economy? And how does addressing those issues all over the globe make more sense than addressing the issue of immigration within our own borders?

How short actual historical memory is versus the romanticized version; the spirit of the "Know-Nothings" lives on.

There was an article in the American Prospect by Geoff Nunberg, ohh, about 1996 or so, pointing out that up to 1914 6% of elementary schools in the US were German-speaking, and that, in fact, Hispanic immigrants are dumping English in favor of Spanish more rapidly than previous waves of immigration (Hispanic immigrants are losing Spanish fluency within 2 generations, rather than the 3 generations that has been typical for other immigrant groups). Posted by: Urinated State of America

Sorry, Urinated, but your facts are numerically insignificant as you are referring to small and isolated rural communities founded mostly at the middle of the 19th Century. This isolated monolingualism was not the case for the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the U.S. during the first great wave of immigration, which came a couple decades later, and whose numbers were considerably smaller than those of the last 20-30 years.

Furthermore, were not talking strictly about Spanish speaking (or as Lee Travino used to say, "Mexican speaking") immigrants. Go and check the numbers of tranlators employed by the Los Angeles Consolidated School District. It's not just people from Mexico, though they are far and away the dominant group. Go to Hancock Park in LA and see how many people aren't Vietnamese. Go to Richmond B.C. and see how many people aren't Chinese.

It is much easier to live "separate but equal" lives in the major metropolitan area of North America today than it was a century ago.

Then how would you change the law and on what basis? Where would you draw the cutoff point? Would you revoke the citizenship of already-born babies, and if so, starting at what age?

Bob/rmck1:

If I had a magic law-passing wand, I would grant birthright citizenship to those legal aliens who were resident in this country for five consecutive years. It's an arbitrary number, I admit, but it seems to be a period of time long enough to demonstrate serious commitment to the country. Of course, I'm not over-committed to that number. Perhaps it should be a bit less or a bit more. I don't know, and I'm open to suggestions.

To answer your last question, I would not revoke citizenship to those already born at the time of the change. Not only does it violate the legal and moral principle of ex post facto, but it wouldn't be very practical.

This is not a theoretical discussion.

Certainly, it is a discussion of solving a "problem" for which no evidence of a significant, non-theoretical negative impact has been demostrated. It is, in that sense, "theoretical", though I would prefer the term hypothetical.

Many Mexican women already come here while pregnant to give birth in the US, and there are actually businesses that bring late-term pregnant Korean women to this country specifically so their children will be born US citizens. How much longer before this catches on worldwide?

Who cares? No significant negative impacts of either example are established, and until they are, discussing how to deal with those presumed negative impacts is premature and entirely hypothetical.

No it's not true, Stefan, because probably 90% of America's legal immigrants during the previous immigration boom were Europeans. In general, there was a common cultural thread. Nothing could be further from the truth with Muslims. Again, remaining "ghetto-ized" is a much more viable option than it was a century ago.

No, there wasn't a common cultural thread. Now that time has gone by and everyone has been boiled in the melting pot for a bit, we see little difference between the Irish Catholic hedge fund manager and the Yankee Protestant hedge fund manager, for example, but two hundred years ago those differences were vast.

The "native Americans" (as the English-descended Protestants of the early 19th century referred to themselves) considered the Irish to be uncivilized barbarians and Catholicism to be a heathen and pagan foreign rite. They saw them as completely "other" and felt no tie of common cultural kinship. Newspaper ads would read, for example "Women wanted — To do general housework… English, Scotch, Welch, German, or any country or color except Irish." Even blacks were often preferred over the Irish, and nativist Americans organized themselves into gangs to fight the Irish immigrants.

"Oh completely. It's of a piece with Intelligent Design, the War on Christmas and flag-burning and marriage Amendments. All following a strategy of using essentially non-issues -- probably a lot more coordinated than any of us would care to think -- to keep people on that side of the culture war feeling besieged." - Bob

"Non-issues?" If these are such non-issues, Bob, then why is it so hard for the Democrats to give them up?

Why support late-term abortion on demand? Why nominate judges who would force a private, non-profit organization like the Boy Scouts to accept leaders and members it doesn't want? Why support the right to burn the flag (an issue that doesn't really get that much traction, anyway)? Why support gay marriage imposed by judicial fiat? Why support discrimination against white men in employment decisions?

Democrats have made it clear that not only do they support these leftist policies, but have shown that, if they can't impose them through democratic means, they're perfectly happy to impose them un-democratically.

I agree that no small number of Republicans are insincere on these social issues, but if you don't want Republicans to outflank you on these social "non-issues", then don't give them the opportunity.

I used the example of the Irish because I'm of Irish descent myself, and because the history of old New York is sort of a hobby of mine, but the same general pattern also applied to other immigrant groups such as the Italians, the Jews, or the Chinese. They were all, in their time, excoriated as filthy savages with strange languages and stranger religions who had nothing in common with American culture and would only pollute and corrupt the country.

"No, there wasn't a common cultural thread. Now that time has gone by and everyone has been boiled in the melting pot for a bit, we see little difference between the Irish Catholic hedge fund manager and the Yankee Protestant hedge fund manager."

Yes, but 400 years later - and 140 years after the end of slavery - we still see the difference between the white hedge fund manager and the black hedge fund manager. Some divisions are more difficult to erase than others.

I give up. What U.S. policy dramatically improves another country's civil rights & economy? And how does addressing those issues all over the globe make more sense than addressing the issue of immigration within our own borders? Posted by: chaunceyatrest

Oh, how about not backing governments that suppress efforts to democratize their political system? How about an end to military aid, and instead boosting aid for health, education and general welfare? How about allowing equal access to U.S. markets (particularly for agricultral goods)? How about insisting that U.S. investment mirrors standards enforced in the U.S.? How about encouraging family planning, even if it includes abortion?

These are the things that can improve the lives of people meaning they are less likely to feel the need to flee their homelands.

Sorry, Urinated, but your facts are numerically insignificant as you are referring to small and isolated rural communities founded mostly at the middle of the 19th Century. This isolated monolingualism was not the case for the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the U.S. during the first great wave of immigration, which came a couple decades later, and whose numbers were considerably smaller than those of the last 20-30 years.

No, they weren't just isolate rural communities; in fact, many of the most vibrant immigrant communities were in the major cities such as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New Orleans, etc.

Actually, it's probably harder. A Sicilian immigrant to New York a hundred years ago could live in a tenement building on Rivington Street, say, populated exclusively by fellow immigrants from her same village. The rest of the street would be made up of fellow Sicilians, with each building representing one village back home. She could shop, work and socialize within a few blocks of her apartment and do all of it entirely in Sicilian dialect, with little or no need to learn English or adapt to American customs. Posted by: Stefan

I guess you haven't been to Brooklyn lately, nor have you been in a few other cities on the West Coast or even the Midwest. It's not just a couple of streets as it was on the Lower Eastside, it's entire sections of cities in some cases.

The fact of the matter is that immigration to the U.S. has been higher over the last 30 years than it was during the period of time American once considered its great period of immigration. And more of these people are non-European who, in spite of what you believe, have nothing in common culturally with their new "home."

It is not that common for a pregnant woman to travel to the United States for the express purpose of giving birth. As a percentage of all US births, I am sure it is less than one percent.

There are a few hospitals in Texas that see a lot of this, one in Brownsville in particular, but they are an anamoly. These particular hospitals are heavily burdened by the practice, as they have a hard time getting reimbursed for the costs, but they are not reprsentative.

My evidence for the above is purely antecdotal. It is based on my brief stint as an immigration lawyer and on the fact that my mother runs a health clinc for illegal aliens. She sees hundereds every week. Her patients seldom arrive in the US in the advanced stages of pregnancy.

A couple of years ago, she did have one woman came to her with a "newborn." The woman had supposedly given birth to the little girl at home. To my mother's practiced eye, the kid semeed to be 7-14 days old. My mother realized what the woman was trying to do and decided to help her. The state official in charge of the birth certificate registry called my mother and informed her that she too realized what was was going on. She said she'd let it slide -- this time -- and would issue a birth certificate. This was in Illinos, BTW.

On the other hand, plenty of illegal aliens get married and have kids once they are already here. But the number of pregnant women who cross the border for the expres purpose of giving birth to an "anchor baby" is vanishingly small.

As a former immigration lawyer, I will tell you that having American-born children makes ZERO, NADA, ZILCH difference in the decision of whether to deport the parents. The Board of Immigration Appeals has said so in no uncertain terms on a number of occasions.

What happens when two illegal aliens who have, say, a nine-month-old infant are deported? Simple: the kid is deported with them. Even though he or she is an American citizen. Even if the parents are being repatriated to a country which is a dictatorship, such as the People's Republic of China.

Now, in truth, deportation is not very common. The BIA and INS issue many deportaiton orders, but most of them are not actually carried out. The INS will mail you an order of deportaiton, but they won't send agents to your home to arrest you. Instead, the order says "appear at 26 Federal Plaza on July 1 at 8:30 a.m. and have your bags packed." Not surprisingly, no one every shows up at the appointed time and place. The only way you actually get deported is if you are picked up by law enforcement officians on an unrelated charge. They will learn of the order of deportation and turn you over to the INS -- or maybe they won't. Sometimes the INS will even let you go. I saw this happen once when a Border Patrol agent took pity on my client

But from a strictly legal perspective, the fact that illegal parents have an "anchor baby" makes no difference whatsoever. They are just as subject to deportation as anyone else.

Lastly, I should note that even as a staunch Republican I am personally disgusted and horrified by this proposed legislation. I am generally sympathetic to the right wing position on most immigration issues; I believe that we are, in fact, being overwhelmed by immigrants, and that we need to take a "breather" so that our culture and economy have time to adapt.

However, I am disgusted by the idea that anyone would try to strip American-born children of their citizenship. Anyone who is lucky enough to be born in America should get to stay. I thank God every day that I was born here, and cannot imagine depriving someone else of that blessing. Also, while the parents did enter America illegally, I still beleive that they are doing something noble and admirable. They are trying to build a better life for themselves and for their families, and American citizenship for the kids is one of the most important gifts they can give to their baby.

I wonder why anyone would want to come from Korea to the US...

...The employment rate is higher in Korea, the schools test higher, and more homes have broadband access than in the US.

Why do they come here for economic means, then?

The answer is: They don't come for economics.

"[Irish, Jews, Italians and Chinese] were all, in their time, excoriated as filthy savages with strange languages and stranger religions who had nothing in common with American culture and would only pollute and corrupt the country."

They may no longer be regarded as savages, but there is absolutely no question that there were political ramifications to their arrival. It used to be that Protestant Christianity was routinely taught in public schools. The political effect of bringing large number of non-Protestants into this country was that this was no longer possible.

I'm not arguing that this was a good thing or a bad thing. But it was a thing. In a democracy, demographic changes result in different political outcomes. People have the right to decide whether they'll like those outcomes without being referred to as nativists or racists or isolationists or xenophobes. People have the right to decide how much and what kind of immigration is in their best interests. Nowadays it seems to be only the interests of the immigrants and the businesses that are given any consideration at all.

I guess you haven't been to Brooklyn lately, nor have you been in a few other cities on the West Coast or even the Midwest. It's not just a couple of streets as it was on the Lower Eastside, it's entire sections of cities in some cases.

I live in Brooklyn, actually, and I used to live in LA. I'm not disputing that you can live a "separate" existence in the US these days -- I'm saying that this is no different than it was in the past. Here, for example, is what the New-York Historical Society (the odd hyphen is theirs, not mine) says about "Little Germany" a century ago: "Home country fixtures from beer gardens to delicatessens, singing societies to shooting clubs bestowed a distinctively German flavor to the area. Immigrants constantly renewed the neighborhood's transplanted culture, as the steamship packets delivered passengers from Germany and Eastern European nations through the port of New York. New arrivals could work, drink, eat, vote and worship in their native tongue fortified by the company of the nearly half-million people of German descent living in New York."

It wasn't just a few streets on the Lower East Side -- it was the entire Lower East Side and East Village back then. It was entire sections of cities. Remember, too, that at the time most working people never really travelled outside of their neighborhood except for work.

Denying citizenship to the children of illegal aliens would serve to create a permanent underclass. Is this really a wise policy? I think not.

Those who want to deal with anchor babies want to also reduce illegal immigration. If there are very few illegal aliens, then there's no such risk.

What, then, is the value of US citizenship?

Our elites aren't big fans of this whole U.S. sovereignty thing. It gets in the way of business. In fact, they're working to build an EU-style superstate. No, really. Start here and keep following the links. They want us to think of ourselves as "North American Citizens" and not citizens of the U.S.

Anti-American plans like the DREAM Act would further devalue U.S. citizenship: illegal aliens could take discounted college educations from U.S. citizens.

As for today's massive illegal immigration being like past decades, here's one major difference that means something to those who are serious about things: the U.S. southwest used to belong to Mexico, and now we're allowing them to re-settle what they refer to as their "Lost Territories".

I wonder if this issue is simple misdirection on the part of anti-abortion advocates. They maintain that life, and the inalienable rights that go along with it, begin at conception. With respect to citizenship, then it doesn't matter where you were born, what matters is where conception takes place. If it takes place in the US, then you're a US citizen. If not, then you're not, no matter where you're born. Obviously it's hard, if not impossible to say where conception takes place, which is why the law relys on actual birth. If birthright citizenship is eliminated, then the way is clear to assert the rights of the unborn and eliminate legal abortion in the US.

The fact of the matter is that immigration to the U.S. has been higher over the last 30 years than it was during the period of time American once considered its great period of immigration. And more of these people are non-European who, in spite of what you believe, have nothing in common culturally with their new "home."

Over the past week I've talked to people who were Haitian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Brazilian, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Moroccan, Thai and Tibetan. They all live and work here, they all want to make money and build a good life for themselves and their families. That's enough in common for me.

"I wonder why anyone would want to come from Korea to the US...The employment rate is higher in Korea, the schools test higher, and more homes have broadband access than in the US.
Why do they come here for economic means, then?
The answer is: They don't come for economics."

Population density, Korea: 1,282 people per square mile.
Population density, USA: 83 people per square mile.

Per capita income, Korea: $17,700
Per capita income, USA: $37,800

Korea has military conscription.
The USA does not have military conscription.

Korea sits next to two large and aggressive neighbors that have recently invaded it.
The USA sits next to two basket cases that have never invaded it.

However, I am disgusted by the idea that anyone would try to strip American-born children of their citizenship. Anyone who is lucky enough to be born in America should get to stay.

Being born here should not be a guarantee of citizenship. Why should it be a snap for some and a five year (or more) process others?

I thank God every day that I was born here, and cannot imagine depriving someone else of that blessing. Posted by: Joe Schmoe

I, too, can't imagine what it would be like to have not been born an American, except maybe to have been born a Canadian, a Great Britain, a (West) German, a Frenchman, a Swede, an Australian, a New Zealander, etc., etc. Contrary to what too many Murkans "think," we do not have a monopoly on Life, Libery and the Pursuit of X-Boxes.

It isn't 1895. America is becoming grossly overcrowded. This may be counterintuitive to some of you, fine. Then