Free Republic

All this talk about "anchor babies" and "birth tourism" and congressional hearings on the 14th Amendment are political sound and fury that accomplish nothing constructive regarding U.S. immigration policy. Constitutional tinkering based more on fear than facts is dangerous business. And opponents of changing the way a newborn's citizenship is determined correctly point out that a national registration system would be needed, creating an entire new federal bureaucracy. Are the costs worth the uncertain benefits? The challenge is deciding which of those illegal immigrants to force to leave, which to allow to stay and how to prevent others from disregarding...

LOOK WHO'S 'NATIVIST' NOW!August 18, 2010 "Nativism in American politics has become so rampant that it is considered scandalous in Republican circles for a judge to acknowledge paying any attention to foreign courts and their legal rulings." -- New York Times editorial, Aug. 3, 2010 The New York Times runs this same smug editorial every few months -- at least I think it's the same editorial -- to vent its spleen at conservatives who object to American judges relying on foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution. But when it comes to anchor babies, The New York Times and the...

Last night I heard McCain say we should have hearings on immigration. Someone please tell Hannity and McCain that we have had at least three hearings in very recent years. Overwhelmingly they have showed that birthright citizenship was never intended for illegal aliens in the 14th amendment. Does McCain thnk we are stupid? http://judiciary.house.gov/legacy/6042.htm http://books.google.com/books?id=U2aiZ4xPirUC&lpg=PA1&dq=%22Dual%20citizenship%2C%20Birthright%20citizenship%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false On another Fox show with Bill Hemmer, he mis-stated that the 14th amendment included anchor babies. Either they are not doing their homework, or they are intentionally trying to mislead the uninformed masses.......... again.

Amnesty is defined as the action of governments by which persons or groups who have committed a criminal offense of a political nature that threatens the sovereignty of a country, are granted total or partial, conditional or unconditional, immunity from prosecution for that crime. Amnesty law, the core of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, is not the solution to our illegal alien crisis, despite misguided claims from the Left. Indeed, past amnesty law dramatically increased illegal immigration, and any suggestion of new amnesty law only encourages more of the same, with illegals crowding into the country to get in under the wire...

Adopted in 1868, the 14th Amendment defined citizenship — making it clear that former slaves and their descendents were American citizens. But part of that amendment, that everyone “born in” the US becomes a citizen, has become controversial during the immigration debate, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others calling for hearings on whether to repeal or revise the language. A Pew survey out this week notes that illegal immigrants who have children here (who then become insta-citizens) represent a not-insignificant portion of new births. Of the 4.3 million babies born in 2008, 340,000 were to illegal immigrants. The breakdown:...

Discussion about the 14th Amendment and its granting of citizenship to anyone born in the United States heated up again on Friday, this time focused on an attempt made by Harry Reid more than 15 years ago to end so-called birthright citizenship. As more than a couple news outlets pointed out on Friday, Mr. Reid did sponsor legislation in 1993 that would have, among other things, increased patrols at the border and rolled back the practice of giving citizenship to babies born in America to illegal immigrants. The Nevada Democrat’s office responded on Friday that some of those accounts were...

Five years ago, my family took a vacation to Niagara Falls. On our return across the Canadian border, U.S. Immigration officials detained us for several tense hours because we happened to be the unlucky renters of a car that matched some sort of suspect list. The same year Immigration officers were busily occupied with the travel risk of the Simpson family, hundreds of thousands of babies were born in hospitals all across the U.S. to parents who gained entry in the country illegally (obviously not driving Hertz rental cars). The parents' reward, other than a beautiful newborn: shiny new made-in-the-USA...

It is my considered opinion that Congress has authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to define the jurisdiction of the United States. Indeed, it is my contention that Congress has exercised that power on many occasions, most recently in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Senator Jacob Howard, the author of the citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, defined who would fall within the "jurisdiction of the United States": [E]very 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...

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...