Litigation

Push, push, alas another "illegal" baby is born! Birthright citizenship must be stopped?

By Angel Reyes

News today from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal report that 1 in 12 births is the U.S. are illegal!  Let's put it another way.  "Undocumented" women account for 1 in 12 U.S. births.

Wow, if that "statistic" doesn't cry out for Federal comprehensive immigration reform, I don't know what does.  The demographic facts are simple.  Like it or not, undocumented women are younger and more likely to give birth to multiple babies.  Hence, 8% of U.S. babies are born to undocumented, mostly Hispanic women.

Most of us forgot about the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Time to bone up.  Any child born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen, no matter what.  "[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," grants citizenship to all babies born in the U.S. to undocumented women.

So, should we change the Constitution?  Sounds easy enough, but in reality it is only political rhetoric.  Let's face it, we've amended our Constitution only 26 times in over 200 years.  And remember, the first 10 of those amendments came as a package deal along with our Constitution.  Maybe we should get serious about immigration reform.  Bring the shadow workforce out into the sunlight and let their kids, who are U.S. citizens, live as any of us would or could.

Full post as published by Angel Reyes Blog on August 13, 2010 (boomark / email).