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Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano on Friday rejected Republican calls to amend the Constitution to prevent children of illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship. “Any talk of amending the Constitution is just wrong,” Napolitano said in comments at the daily White House press briefing. Some Republicans have suggested the 14th Amendment should be changed to prevent the natural born children of illegal immigrants from obtaining citizenship. The amendment was approved after the Civil War to ensure citizenship for freed slaves, especially in the South. Critics argue that illegal immigrants come to the U.S. for the express purpose of winning citizenship for...

The Republican U.S. Senate nominee says she's tough on illegal immigration but draws the line on altering the amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born in the United States. BY MAEVE RESTON Republican U.S. Senate nominee Carly Fiorina said Thursday that she opposes calls from some conservatives to alter the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born in the United States. Fiorina sought to appeal to conservative voters on immigration issues during her party's primary this spring, strongly backing Arizona's tough new law on illegal immigration, for example. But she drew the line Thursday at the question...

One of about every 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the offspring of unauthorized immigrants, a Pew Hispanic Center study released Wednesday concluded. According to the study, an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in this country that year had parents who were in the United States without legal documentation. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that those children automatically become U.S. citizens, but some members of Congress are pushing to change that provision. That effort -- rooted in the debate over illegal immigration, particularly of people from Mexico -- has created some...

One in twelve babies born in the U.S. in 2008 were the offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new study, a statistic that could inflame the debate over birthright citizenship. Undocumented immigrants make up slightly more than 4% of the U.S. adult population. However, their babies represented twice that share, or 8%, of all births on U.S. soil in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center's report. The report, based on Census Bureau data and analysis of demographic characteristics of the undocumented population, also found that the lion's share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal...

PHOENIX — About one out of every 15 children in the United States was born to a family where at least one parent is in this country illegally, according to a new report today. And four out of five of them are “anchor babies,” the Pew Hispanic Center concluded. The figures, which the organization calculated based on 2009 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, are the best estimates to date of the scope of the issue which has resulted in calls to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to children solely by virtue of their birth within this country. That...

Immigration: The 14th Amendment was written to guarantee citizenship for freed slaves. It's been misinterpreted to give citizenship to children of illegal aliens. Now some GOP leaders want to restore its original meaning. In Texas this year, some 60,000 so-called "anchor babies" will be born to the 1.5 million illegal aliens estimated to reside there. They're called that because under the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment they're automatic citizens, encouraging more illegals to arrive and making it hard to deport those already here. "There is a problem," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told NBC's "Meet The Press" Sunday....

Should Lawmakers Consider a Birthright Citizenship Change to the Constitution? Yes, denying kids automatic citizenship would curb illegal immigration. No, this is not the issue that warrants a change to the U.S. Constitution. Maybe, because birthplace alone should not make the child of an illegal a U.S. citizen. Other (leave a comment)

Yesterday I spoke with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) who caused a bit of a stir by tentatively endorsing a plan to modify the century-old standard of birthright citizenship — by constitutional amendment if necessary. I asked the senator about what such an amendment would look like and whether it stands a chance of ratification, and about whether he favors the amendment in part as a way to sell his comprehensive immigration plans to conservatives in South Carolina and across the country. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.Daniel Foster: When you spoke up about birthright citizenship along with...

Republican members of Congress press for changes to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that would prevent automatic citizenship for babies born to illegal immigrants. The debate could resonate in Texas, where not only 1.5 million illegal immigrants are estimated to reside but at least 60,000 babies are added to their households annually. Parkland Memorial Hospital delivers more of those babies than any other hospital in the state. Last year at Parkland, 11,071 babies were born to women who were noncitizens, about 74 percent of total deliveries. Most of these women are believed to be in the country illegally. In...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R) says America faces a new and growing foreign threat: illegal immigrants and tourists who come to here for the express purpose of giving birth so their children obtain citizenship. Groups that study immigration trends say the number of "birth tourists" to the United States is relatively small, perhaps a few thousand a year. The number of U.S. citizens born to illegal-immigrant parents is believed to be much higher; there were about 4 million such children living in the United States in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. "This is a symptom of...

Sen. Graham, speaking on Fox News last week, said it was “a mistake” to allow American-born children of illegal immigrants to become citizens automatically, a practice known as birthright citizenship. He said that along with a plan to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, he would also amend the 14th Amendment as a way of discouraging future unauthorized immigration. Throughout the week Mr. Graham stood firm on his proposal. “We can’t just have people swimming across the river having children here — that’s chaos,” he said Wednesday in another interview with Fox News. The proposal caught Republican and...

There are parts of Fox News I cannot watch. There is that self-important blowhard. There is that worldwide ambulance chaser. But as often as I can, I watch their news program at 6 p.m. My favorite part of that program is the lightning round, and especially the contributions of Charles Krauthammer. Charles normally dissects an issue with precision and accuracy. But not today, the 5th of August. He posed the issue whether a Congressman was right to say we need to amend the 14th Amendment to deal with the problem of anchor babies. Krauthammer made the mistake of not reading...

For a GOP doubling down on a strategy of division and discrimination, the Constitution appears increasingly old and in the way. As part of a crass strategy to appeal to anti-immigrant paranoia and racism, Republican leaders are now assaulting the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment, which was passed after Lincoln’s death, ratified his life’s work. Republicans propose to repeal its guarantee of citizenship as a birthright, and while the impetus for this assault on constitutional principle comes from the GOP’s tea-intoxicated fringe, it has been seconded by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain, and Sen. Lindsey...

The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.

Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when you're 8 1/2 months pregnant, give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind, a sacred constitutional right, as old as the 14th Amendment itself. The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right, the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades. In fact, this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when...

Republicans may be calling for hearings into revising the 14th amendment, which guarantees citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, but it looks like they're not going to get 'em. Russ Feingold, who chairs the Constitution Subcommittee, which would conduct the hearings, has "no plans" to allow them to go forward, his spokesman confirms to me. And Feingold, in a statement, is reiterating that Federal immigration reform, not amending the Constitution, is the solution: "We can and should address the problem of illegal immigration head-on without amending the Constitution. The way to do that is to pass bipartisan comprehensive legislation improving...

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday added their voices to GOP calls for congressional hearings into altering the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. (snip) McCain said Tuesday the he supports “the concept of holding hearings.” In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, McCain expanded on his terse comments from earlier in the day, saying that the Constitution is a “strong, complete and carefully crafted document that has successfully governed our nation for centuries and any proposal to amend the Constitution should receive extensive and thoughtful consideration.” “Congressional hearings are always...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said yesterday he’s talked with other senators about crafting a constitutional amendment that would deny U.S. citizenship to illegal aliens’ children born in the United States. Graham’s idea is an abrupt about-face for a senator whose advocacy of giving legal status to the nation’s 12 million illegals prompted radio host Rush Limbaugh to call him “Sen. Grahamnesty.” Graham, along with President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) led a 2007 failed immigration reform effort that would have created a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

An email entitled "Cheap Tomatoes ???" is about an educator in Southern California who shares details regarding her numerous negative experiences with illegal immigrants' children in her school district, who are obviously Mexican. The school and the school district were un-named as was the author/teacher, so I did a little research. As it turns out, the viral email is based on a true story - the original letter much unchanged from the time it was first released in 2006. It is sad that the public school system has declined so much in recent years. Although everyone has their theories as...

SHANGHAI — What can $1,475 buy you in modern China? Not a Tiffany diamond or a mini-sedan, say Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao. But for that price, they guarantee you something more lasting, with unquestioned future benefits: a U.S. passport and citizenship for your new baby. Zhou and Chao, a husband and wife from Taiwan who now live in Shanghai, run one of China's oldest and most successful consultancies helping well-heeled expectant Chinese mothers travel to the United States to give birth. The couple's service, outlined in a PowerPoint presentation, includes connecting the expectant mothers with one of three Chinese-owned...