The “anchor baby” thing is an administrative determination. You have people reading more into that statement than is really there ~ it can be reversed, and since it’s just administrative and not based on any law, it’ll reverse the citizenship status of all those who previously benefited from it ~ as well as their offspring.
That is just one of two current controversies in the 14th Amendment.
Justice Thomas completely surprised the SCOTUS when in his concurring decision in the gun rights McDonald v. Chicago decision, he wrote a brilliant 100 page thesis in defense of the “privileges or immunities” clause in section 1 of the 14th Amendment. It showed some very strategic thinking.
First of all, section 1 is under intense scrutiny right now, for its “citizenship clause”, for the reasons you mentioned. And yes, it may be changed by statute alone. However, Thomas foresaw an inherent danger, of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”, with the potential for overturning the entire section, which he could make some considerable argument, would be a disaster.
This is because the “privileges or immunities” clause basically gives the authority to the federal government to intervene if a State decides to persecute some of its citizens by denying them their rights. And he did so, as part of McDonald, by assigning this denial to *gun* rights.
Game, set and match. A work of genius on his part.
At the time, the “privileges or immunities” clause had become ill used in legal decisions, but because of his thesis, it is again front and center and in the spotlight. That concurring decision should be in legal textbooks for the next 100 years.
And though very few other black Americans realize how essential it is to their freedom, with his concurring decision, Thomas has done them as a group more good than anyone in recent memory. Not that they will ever appreciate it.
The other big problem in the 14th Amendment, right now, as cited by the administration, is in the 4th section.
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned...”
Which they half-seriously suggested gave the president unlimited spending authority to pay any accrued debts, even from promises *he* made.
Fortunately, I don’t think anyone bit on that nonsense. However, this does open the door to a future, Republican, congress, nailing that particular coffin lid shut as well. Likely while they are closing that citizenship clause loophole.