Opiniones de Miriam Mata: ENFORCEMENT OF FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

End 'Anchor Baby' Birthright Citizenship

Republican candidate Donald Trump has brought a long-simmering debate over "anchor babies" right up to the front burner with his strongly asserted opposition to the birthright citizenship granted to babies born to illegal immigrants. Already as of four years ago, a Rasmussen poll found 65 percent of likely U.S. voters opposed such automatic citizenship. The number would likely be higher today.

Each year between 350,000 and 400,000 children are born in the United States to illegal immigrants. Since this has been going on for decades there are now many millions of such birthright citizens. Since these "anchor babies" immediately qualify as citizens for welfare benefits, and a few years later are entitled to American public schools, the cost to American taxpayers is many billions of dollars per year.

Over recent years, numerous unsuccessful protests about this policy have been voiced, one even made in 1993 by Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.). He introduced legislation intended to limit birthright citizenship to children of U.S. citizens and resident aliens who are in the U.S. legally. Reid no longer supports his earlier stand.

The entire birthright controversy stems from an incorrect interpretation of a small portion of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment. The clause relied upon for birthright status awarded to anchor babies 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." Proponents of rights for anchor babies customarily ignore or provide a tortured explanation of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in Wong Kim Ark that a baby born in the United States to noncitizen parents who were in the country legally was indeed a full citizen. Newly born infant Wong Kim Ark was indeed an anchor baby, but his parents were legal immigrants. If words still have meaning, proponents of the current granting of citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants cannot cite this court decision to favor what they desire - yet they do.

Then in another ruling handed down in 1982, the Supreme Court stated in Plyler v. Doe that the important distinction regarding legal and illegal parents of a newborn given 84 years earlier in Wong Kim Ark was wrong. Justice William Brennan, who frequently outdid the torturous reasoning of Chief Justice Earl Warren, actually proclaimed that there was no "plausible distinction between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." It is this attitude that has prevailed in recent years.

How out-of-control the birthright process has become can be gauged by awareness that there are now business enterprises run by Chinese companies that bring expectant mothers to the United States so they can give birth to their child here and have the baby immediately designated a full U.S. citizen - another anchor baby.

Competing arguments have arisen to deal with this situation. Of related interest is that only Canada and the United States grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens. Over the past few decades, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Britain, Malta, and the Dominican Republic have repealed their previous automatic citizenship policy for illegal offspring. And no European country now grants full citizenship automatically to a newborn whose parents have entered illegally.

Is an amendment to the Constitution needed to fix the 14th? No. What's needed instead is a clearly stated explanation of the true meaning of the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" portion of the 14th Amendment that would be a reinforcement of what its authors meant and what the Supreme Court stated in the 1898 Wong Kim Ark decision. Currently, there are bills before Congress that agree with this solution. Senator David Vitter (R-La.) introduced S. 45 in his chamber and Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced H.R. 140 in the House. These brief bills are identical and known as the "Birthright Citizenship Act of 2015." They seek to provide a definition of the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" portion of the 14th Amendment. If enacted, they would establish that birthright citizenship should rightfully belong only to a child born in the U.S. if at least one of the parents is 1) already a citizen here, 2) an alien legally here, or 3) an alien actively serving in the U.S. military.

Please phone your representative (202-225-3121) and senators (202-224-3121) in support of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2015 (H.R. 140 in the House and S. 45 in the Senate), which would end automatic citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to illegal aliens.

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African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P.Murray Collection, 1818-1907
The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution considered : the right to pursue any lawful trade or avocation, without other restraint than such as equally affects all persons, is one of the privileges of citizens of the United States which can not be abridged by state legislation : dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Field, Mr. Justice Bradley, and Mr. Justice Swayne, of U.S. Supreme Court, in the New Orleans slaughter-house cases.

Supreme Court of the United States. December Term, 1870.

The first clause of the fourteenth amendment changes this whole subject, and removes it from the region of discussion and doubt. It recognizes in express terms, if it does not create, citizens of the United States, and it makes their citizenship dependent upon the place of their birth, or the fact of their adoption, and not upon the constitution or laws of any State or the condition of their ancestry. A citizen of a State is now only a citizen of the United States residing in that State. The fundamental rights, privileges, and immunities which belong to him as a free citizen, now belong to him as a citizen of the United States, and are dependent upon his citizenship of any State. The exercise of these rights and privileges, and the degree of enjoyment received from such exercise, are always more or less affected by the condition and the local institutions of the State, or city, or town where he resides. They are thus affected in a State by the wisdom of its laws, the ability of its officers, the efficiency of its magistrates, and education and morals of its people, and by many other considerations. This is a result which follows from the constitution of society, and can never be avoided, but in in no other way can they be affected by the action of the State, or by the residence of the citizen therein. They do not derive existence from its legislation, and cannot be destroyed by its power.

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THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE