The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was adopted on July 9, 1868. The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment has to deal with Birthright Citizenship which states,
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Birthright Citizenship is something that needs to be looked at carefully and revised, because it is relatively easy for illegal immigrants to break and abuse the laws to receive welfare and other assistance that sometimes is not needed. The fourteenth amendment was written to legalize slaves and their children, not to legalize children of illegal immigrants.
People abuse the Fourteenth Amendment for their own personal gain, this is obvious. In an editorial by the LA Times called "The 'Birthright Citizenship' Debate," they quote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2010 saying, "People come here to have babies, they come here to drop a child; it’s called 'drop and leave.” Subsequently backing Professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school when he said, "a parent from a poor country can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Both of these quotes carry something in common, in that they both say that people come here for two reasons; to have babies and to make them citizens and give them all the advantages of the welfare state. They break the law by coming here illegally and then break the law again by receiving benefits from the welfare state.
As Senator Lindsey Graham said, “people come here to have babies.” According to George F. Will in his article, “An argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship” said, "Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals and more than a half of all births in that city and nearly 10% of all births in the nation in recent years having been to mothers who are here illegally.” By the numbers, Immigrants don’t just happen to have babies while there are here, they plan the child’s birth to use as a tactical advantage, gain access to U.S. welfare and gain footing in the country.
The Fourteenth Amendment was to provide slaves and children of slaves citizenship throughout the union. George F Will in his article ‘an argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship’ said, “if those who wrote and ratified the 14th amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not." Saying the 14th amendment includes illegal aliens is like saying Constitution included the English. The Democratic Party, the so called ‘people's party,’ is even thinking about abolishing section one of 14th amendment. According to Kelly Goff in her article "The Progressive Case against Birthright Citizenship," Ms. Goff revealed a poll revealing that more Americans favored decreasing immigration than increasing it. Now, Linda Chavez of the Wall Street Journal said that the 14th Amendment doesn't include illegal immigrants because back then all immigrants were illegal there were no laws restricting immigration. Though true, people tend to forget that Ellis Island existed, where one in ten immigrants were rejected for being too sick or unhealthy. There were laws restricting immigration, not as restrictive as today, but obviously there were some limits to how people could come into the country. If you break immigration law or do not meet requirements, you can’t come in, and if you’re found inside the country illegally you are deported, what is so radical about following the law? Revising section one of the Fourteenth Amendment would take away incentives to have babies here illegally.
A great way to fix this problem would be to adopt Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La) Bill that was proposed in 2013 which says a child born on US soil would become a citizen only if at least one of his parents was a US citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident or an immigrant serving in the US military.
This would curve the amount of births to illegal parents in The United States as well as reduce strain on our welfare system.
