Birth Tourism

National Review Online ^ | March 16th | Mark Krikorian

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Arrrrrrghhhhh! For many people, including some here at the Corner, the solution is to end automatic citizenship at birth, but I'm not a fan of that. The way we determine citizenship is simple and decentralized — we need to do a better job of tracking birth records to ensure they're legitimate, but if they are, that's all you need to demonstrate citizenship, so there's no need to petition a bureaucrat in Washington.

But . . . if you're going to keep automatic citizenship at birth, there are two things you can't do — wink at massive illegal immigration (almost one out of 10 births in the U.S. is to an illegal alien mother) and give visitor visas to pregnant women.

[Kellis91789]

“...we need to do a better job of tracking birth records to ensure they’re legitimate, but if they are, that’s all you need to demonstrate citizenship, so there’s no need to petition a bureaucrat in Washington.”

Wouldn’t the same be true if the birth certificate listed the citizenship of each parent and the child ? Citizenship should be that of one or both parents. If citizenship of the parents was verified before the birth certificate was issued, then the birth certificate would be the only check needed later in life to find the citizenship of the child, just as it is now. I don’t see the burden mentioned here as “petition a bureaucrat in Washington”.

Citizenship based on where the mother happens to be standing when she drops child — even when she is a tourist or here illegally — has got to stop. Either that or the ground she is standing on should be deemed temporarily to be foreign soil belonging to her home country ;-)

[DugwayDuke]

Either that or go back to the old system.

Used to be that if a child was born from alien parents within the nation, that child could become a citizen at age 18 if the child asked to become one. The child, nor the parents, had a right to remain in the US until the child asked for citizenship.

[algernonpj]

In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by stating:

“Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, 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. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”

http://www.14thamendment.us/birthright_citizenship/original_intent.html