Birthright citizenship; closing this loophole is good first
Birthright citizenship; closing this loophole is good first step to stopping illegal immigration
San Gabriel Valley Tribune (California)
January 15, 2011
By Rep. Gary Miller
Since our nation's founding, the United States has been a beacon of individual liberty, free enterprise, and opportunity.
As a result, people from all across the globe have immigrated to the United States to live fuller, freer lives. We are a nation of immigrants united under the American flag and legal immigration has paved the way for millions to pursue the American Dream.
Although we have a robust and generous legal immigration system, many have blatantly broken the law and come to the United States illegally.
While America is a welcoming society, we have a duty to protect the citizens and legal residents of this country by enforcing our current immigration laws and closing loopholes that facilitate illegal immigration.
This includes ending automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
America must close this loophole because it misinterprets the true meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, costs legal American taxpayers billions annually, and encourages even more illegal immigration.
As originally written, the citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to guarantee citizenship to all freed slaves.
However, a gross misinterpretation of the amendment has created an attractive incentive for illegal immigration.
When observing the debate surrounding the ratification of the amendment, it is clear that the authors intended only to grant citizenship to persons born here who were "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.
In fact, one of the authors, Senator Jacob Howard, stated that the Fourteenth Amendment would: "not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors, or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."
The authors of the Constitution also understood the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to have the same meaning as the phrase "and not subject to any foreign Power," included in the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
It would be difficult to argue that illegal immigrants and temporary visitors are not subject to a foreign power or that they do not owe allegiance to anybody but the United States.
America must also end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants because it costs American taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
At present, America's national debt is rapidly approaching a record $14 trillion dollars.
At the same time, one study found that illegal immigration costs taxpayers upward of over $113 billion each year and automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants is contributing to this astronomical cost.
In fact, in 2010 there were over 300,000 births in the United States to illegal immigrant mothers.
By granting children of illegal immigrants' citizenship, the child can eventually anchor an entire family into the United States, even though they gained access to our nation illegally.
Consequently, the child - and potentially their family - will have access to a wide array of taxpayer-funded benefits, including access to a U.S. education and recently enacted government-run health care.
In these very difficult economically challenging times, there is no reason that hard-working American families should be forced to bear these costs.
Some may argue that it is "unfair" to deny children of illegal immigrants' citizenship.
However the primary responsibility of the federal government is to protect the interests of legal U.S. citizens and residents, and not those individuals who willingly and outright violate or manipulate our immigration laws.
Ultimately, it is the parents who bear the responsibility for placing their children in this difficult situation.
All in all, it is wrong to grant birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants because it undermines the Constitution, contributes to our nation's fiscal mess, and rewards those that have broken our nation's immigration laws.
It is time now to act and end automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants and Congress has the ability to do this now.
Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly delegates to Congress the right to legislate how the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment are to be applied. As a result, Congress could legislatively undo this misrepresentation. The solution is simple and Americans are ready for meaningful change.
Although ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants is not the end-all be-all for America's nation's illegal immigration woes, it will be a giant step in the right direction and will greatly reduce the illegal immigration magnet.
The United States is one of the few remaining developed countries to grant citizenship to all children born on its soil and it is time to put an end to this practice.
Rep. Gary Miller represents California's 42nd Congressional District and is an original co-sponsor of H.R. 140, the Birthright Citizenship Act.
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