Under bill, being born in U.S. wouldn't guarantee citizenship

September 16, 2007
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... 60590/1009
BY DAVID WHITNEY
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Each year, an estimated 400,000 babies are born in the United States to mothers who are illegal immigrants.

Although Congress has never passed a law saying so, no president has ever ordered it, and no court has ever ruled on the issue, each baby becomes a U.S. citizen when it takes its first breath.

That could change if legislation that U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., cosponsored in April becomes law.

Lungren, who served as California's attorney general from 1990 to 1998 and worked on the last successful push for an immigration overhaul in Congress in the 1980s, said he is trying to stimulate a debate on what he thinks is a key factor that is drawing immigrants illegally across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Critics have another word for it.

"Xenophobia," said Crystal Williams, deputy director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "They are afraid of having more Hispanic citizens."

Contributing to the evolution of U.S. policy is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, it was intended to ensure that children of freed slaves were extended U.S. citizenship. The amendment states simply that anyone born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is a citizen.

U.S. policy has come to recognize "birthright citizenship" in just about every vital transaction.

Need a passport? The State Department requires a birth certificate.

Need a driver's license? Same thing. A U.S. birth certificate equals citizenship.

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, called it "citizenship by bureaucratic default" because the policy is not the deliberate result of laws being passed, executive orders issued by the White House or court rulings.

The only Supreme Court case that dealt with the 14th Amendment on the issue was in 1896, and it was limited to legal permanent aliens, Camarota said.

Many organizations concerned about the increasing number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border say there are two ways to curb the problem:

• Crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

• Repeal the 14th Amendment.

In April, Lungren joined Reps. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., and Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., in introducing a bill that stops short of repealing the 14th Amendment. Instead, it calls for defining what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means.

The legislation declares that the clause would apply to any person born to a parent who is a citizen, a legal alien or an alien serving in the military.

Lungren said he thinks that provision would pass constitutional muster, noting there already is an exclusion to the 14th Amendment for children of foreign diplomats and representatives born in the United States.

"If you have a chance to raise your child in the United States rather than Mexico for the foreseeable future, it seems to me I would rather raise them here in the United States," Lungren said. "Some would say that is a natural instinct."

While virtually everyone agrees such a law would hit the courts soon after it was signed into law, how the courts would rule is uncertain.