What can be done? - The 14th Amendment
Millions of Americans have served in defense of the United States of America. Many have died to preserve the freedoms that we take for granted - freedoms granted to United States citizens by the US Constitution. Granting birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens whose first act in coming here is to break our laws, cheapens the meaning of our Constitution and denigrates the principle of the rule of law upon which our country was founded.
Although some experts believe that a Constitutional amendment would be necessary to remedy the misinterpretation, many believe that Congressional action would be sufficient and is urgently warranted. The 14th Amendment itself stipulates that Congress has the power to enforce its provisions by enactment of legislation. The power to enforce a law is necessarily accompanied by the authority to interpret that law. Therefore, an act of Congress stating its interpretation of the 14th Amendment - as not including the offspring of illegal aliens - is long overdue.
It should be noted that the Supreme Court stated in a footnote of the 1982 Plyler v. Doe case that "[e]very citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States", and that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." Yet this note specifically addressed children who were born outside of the United States, and not those born to illegal alien parents within the United States. Thus, it indeed remains within the purview of Congress to act to interpret the 14th Amendment in accordance with Article I of the Constitution.
Indeed, Congress has indeed realized the need to act. Rep. Howard Stump (AZ) introduced H.R 190 in 2001 to deny citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers. In 2003, the Citizenship Reform Act of 2003 (H.R. 1567), introduced by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), was introduced to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens. The Citizenship Reform Amendment (H.J. Res. 44), introduced by Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), would have amended the U.S. Constitution to provide that no one born in the U.S. will be granted automatic U.S. citizenship unless a parent is a U.S. citizen or has been lawfully admitted for permanent residence at the time of the birth. Unfortunately, none of these bills survived.
2009 action: support H.R. 1940
Representative Nathan Deal (R-GA) has introduced H.R. 1868, The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009. This bill would end the process of granting automatic birthright citizenship to the babies born in the United States to illegal aliens. This bill is assuredly deserving of the full support of the sovereign American People and their elected public servants. Those who wish to support this bill should contact their Representatives to ask them to cosponsor H.R. 1940.
The following article is from Business Week
Nearly All Wealthy & Emerging Nations Have Eliminated Birthright Citizenship -- We Should, Too, by Roy Beck, July 24, 2009
"Maternity tourism is just the beginning of the silliness of birthright citizenship that goes to the babies of foreign students, temporary foreign workers, international travelers--and the millions who break the law to criminally enter this country.
All told, federal law (not the Constitution) gives citizenship to an estimated minimum 400,000 babies each year who don’t have even one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent legal immigrant. This is a huge impediment to efforts to stabilize U.S. population to allow for environmental sustainability. And it is a great incentive for more illegal immigration.
Each of these babies becomes an anchor who retards deportation of unlawfully present parents--and who eventually will be an anchor for entire families and villages as chain migration leads to the immigration of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Birthright citizenship is an antiquated practice that has been abandoned by nearly all wealthy nations and emerging nations (recently India and Indonesia) and by the majority of poor nations.
The Supreme Court has ruled only that the Constitution requires babies of legal immigrants be U.S. citizens. It is time to join the modern world, pass H.R. 1868 (Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009), and limit citizenship to babies who have at least one parent who is a citizen or legal immigrant."