Can Birthright Citizenship Finally Be Ended?
By Harris Sherline
July 30, 2009
With all the hullabaloo about TARP, the stimulus bill, the out-of-control spending of the Obama administration, and the health care proposal that's currently being debated, perhaps one of the most important pieces of legislation in America's history has started to work its way through Congress. It could just be that the practice of "Birthright Citizenship" may finally be coming to an end.
There are those who will see this as some form of discrimination, particularly against Hispanics, while others will view as righting a serious wrong that has been tolerated by Americans for far too long.
The idea, of course, is to stop the practice of automatically granting American citizenship to anyone who is born here, regardless of the status of their parents. Even children whose parents are both U.S. non-citizens automatically become citizens. This includes more than 400,000 babies who are born within our borders and whose parents are illegal aliens.
Writing in business Week (July 24, 2009), "Nearly All Wealthy and Emerging Nations Have Eliminated Birthright Citizenship -- We Should Too," Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, observed: "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...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.
On April 2, 2009, Representative Nathan Deal (R-GA) introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 to correct this long-standing inequity. It's interesting to note that the bill has 82 co-sponsors. Rep. Deal also observes that, contrary to the view of those who favor Birthright Citizenship "...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...The Supreme Court has ruled only that the Constitution requires babies of legal immigrants be U.S. citizens."
The language of Rep. Deal's bill is brief and to the point. Consisting of approximately 160 words, it modifies Section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S. 1401) to read in part: "...a person born in the United States shall be considered 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States for purposes of subsection (a)(1) if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is --
(1) A citizen or national of the United States;
(2) An alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or
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