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I lived several years in the Middle East. It was commonplace for pregnant women to fly over here to have their baby, thereby conferring US citizenship on it, before returning back home. Why do we give it away so easily? Why was this whole citizenship/immigration issue never put to some kind of public debate instead of rammed down our throats? And when they changed the immigration laws in the mid-1960s to move us away from European-based emigres, why was that not a bigger issue at the time? It had among the most profound affects on our society of any law in our history -- in essence, a conscious decision to change our demographics, our culture, our values -- and yet I never hear of it being the result of years of public debate. And why is it not permissible for us, even now, to change our immigration laws to permit only the most talented to come here? It is as if we are dealing with a force of nature rather than a legal issue we can control. I realize the issue of illegals is a separate one -- I guess as a nation we have decided, by default, that there is nothing we can do in either case.

Why do we give it away so easily? Why was this whole citizenship/immigration issue never put to some kind of public debate instead of rammed down our throats? And when they changed the immigration laws in the mid-1960s to move us away from European-based emigres, why was that not a bigger issue at the time?

One reason is that Senator Kennedy and other proponents misstated the effects of the 1965 immigration act. I don't know if they intentionally lied or they just didn't know or didn't care. Back in 1965, when it was acceptable to bring up such topics, Senator Kennedy guaranteed that the immigration bill would in no way change the ethnic make of up the United States. The proponents also promised that the bill would not significantly increase immigration. But, we have more immigration in a week now than they promised would ever occur under the bill. They said to expect a few thousand immigrants during the first 3 years or so and then immigration would drop to virtually nothing. Now, if the opponents were smart, they would have insisted on putting caps in the bill rather than taking Senator Kennedy's word for it.