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"Not unless one or other parent is already a
"LEGAL" U.S. Citizen."

Unfortunately, that is not the state of the law today. The 14th Amendment provides "all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the U.S." "Subject to the jurisdiction thereof" has been interpreted to exclude children of ambassadors (who have diplomatic immunity, and thus are not subject to U.S. laws) from U.S. citizenship, but not children of non-citizens or even children of illegal aliens. While I would like to see Congress use Section 5 of the 14th Amendment to legislate that automatic citizenship for persons born in the U.S. will only be afforded to those for whom at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and then fight it out in court, the current state of the law is that anyone born in the U.S., even if their parents are tourists or illegal aliens, are U.S. citizens.

Dittos on this. Any illegal alien is not under the jurisdiction of the US in any sense and thus there is no 14t h Amendment requirement to make them citizens. The exceptions that are already given to diplomats need to be given to illegal aliens. No automatic citizenship under such cases. This would end a huge amount of the abuses in the immigration system.

" This perversion of American citizenship, commonly called ?birthright citizenship,? is the result of the federal government and judiciary?s willful misinterpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[i] In truth, the Citizenship Clause confers nothing so broad. The plain language of the 14th Amendment does not grant automatic birthright citizenship. A review of the Senate debate before the 14th Amendment?s ratification makes clear that the Citizenship Clause?s proponents were careful to preclude any automatic grant of citizenship based only on birth within the territory of the United States. Some legal theorists, along with those who favor unrestricted immigration, argue that only another amendment to the Constitution would be constitutionally adequate to end automatic birthright citizenship. That is wrong. All we need do is read (and enforce) the Citizenship Clause as written. Legislation to enforce the limits inherent in the Citizenship Clause is well within the Congress? constitutional power. As the 14th Amendment itself explicitly states: ?The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.?[ii]"

Congress has the power to enforce the 14th amendment and has the power under Article III section 2 to enforce appellate jurisdiction. It thus can define the limitation granted by 'subject to the jurisdiction' to mean simply those who are legal residents and exclude illegal aliens. There is such a bill, btw:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d107:190:./list/bss/d107HR.lst::|TOM:/bss/d107query.html