Do all babies born in the USA automatically become citizens even if the parents DON"T want them to be American?
If I am French, Italian, or a citizen of any country other than USA, and I am here on vacation or business and just happen to give birth here, even if not planned, is my child an American citizen?
If so, maybe that is reason enough to stop granting citizenship just because of birth.
Isn't it a little presumptuous to just ASSUME every pregnant woman who happens to be in the US when she goes into labor wants her child to become a citizen of a country that she owes no allegiance to, has no allegiance to, never wanted to be a part of, etc?
Shouldn't we really just assume that if, say, Mexicans wanted their kids to be American, they would legally apply for citizenship and wait like everyone else? After all, if the parents choose not to even attempt to become a citizen themselves, or begin the process and then give up for whatever reason they have, such as "It takes too long (and is not worth it in the end?) so I won't do it, or "It's too expensive (and not worth the expense?) why should we think it is an honor for their children to be American? If the children want this, they can apply when they are adults and understand what they are doing, right?
When the parents go around waving their Mexican flags, they are saying they love Mexico, so shouldn't we help them by allowing their children to be full Mexican citizens also, without automatically saddling them with dual citizenship? After all, how can one be equally loyal to two different countries at the same time? That's quite a burden for a newborn baby. We should really just keep it simple and allow the babies born in the USA to remain a citizen of the country his/her parents are loyal to, and citizens of, whether it is America, Mexico, Thailand, China, etc, and if anyone is going to change the citizenship, or add to the citizenship, of this minor child it really should be the right/responsibility of that child's parents or legal guardians, not the US government.
Maybe the mother to be really does come here for vacation, work-related reasons, or for free medical care and not for auto-citizenship and maybe it's racist to believe that they come here for citizenship for kids that they don't have themselves so it couldn't be too important an issue for them, and I think the US government should really stop making every baby born here an American. If the mother claimed at the border or when applying for a visa that she is coming here to shop, who is the US gov't to say "I am making your French baby a French-American baby, or a Mexican-American baby, because your body decided it was time for your baby to be born while you were shopping in the US, even though you didn't mention coming here for that reason when applying for a temp visa, and if the mother gets pregnant in the US, and/or overstays the visa, or comes through the desert illegally, she should just be put on the next plane home, as dishonest people aren't the type of people (good moral character?) that can obtain citizenship legally, so keep families together, and a first step toward keeping families together would obviously be to make sure that they have the same citizenship so the choice about whether to take baby back or leave baby in the US is removed, and the only option will be to bring the baby back to their own country.