By Don Schmitz
Our Constitution is explicit — 14th Amendment, Section 1: 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. If you are born here, you are a citizen.
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has recognized only three narrow exceptions to birthright citizenship: diplomatic children, tribal Indians, and invading armies. The 13th Amendment adopted in 1865 forbade slavery, while the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 during the Reconstruction era of the Civil War, granting rights and liberties to formerly enslaved people. Republicans sought to overturn the horrible 1857 Dred Scott decision which ruled African Americans could not be citizens. Subsequently, waves of immigration and the success of the “melting pot” has created the vibrant, dynamic culture that is America. As a country, we are the most welcoming of legal immigrants in the world. In 2022 alone, 2.6 million legally immigrated here, and we are home to one-fifth of the world’s international migrants.
We’ve seen a 400 percent increase in our immigrant population since 1965, with 50 million people born outside of the U.S. residing here. Next in line is Germany with 15 million. The utter disaster of our collapsed border with many millions of illegal aliens flooding the country has sharpened our policy debates on this topic and clearly was pivotal in the recent election. In other desirable destination countries, most immigrants have legal status. In Germany only 4 percent are illegal, whereas in the U.S. it is at least 22 percent, and probably higher. Struggling to manage finite resources, and with an official population of 334.9 million, (not including tens of millions of illegal immigrants), Americans are concluding that we are at capacity.
They want illegal immigration stopped completely, and in a Gallup poll this year 55 percent want legal immigration to be reduced. A country that accepts more immigrants by far than any other is by definition a society that cherishes the richness legal immigrants bring to our culture.
The ad hominem attacks of the left labeling anyone wanting a controlled border as racists used to be effective, but of late falls mostly on deaf ears. We are the epitome of a welcoming people, and even in the face of the human tragedy the open border policies of the Biden administration created, a huge 81 percent of us support policies to allow children brought here illegally to remain and become citizens. The debates will continue, irrespective of the juggernaut of the incoming administration that will close the border. This week, the Biden administration is auctioning off the steel panels meant to build the border wall in Arizona before they leave office, a parting shot.
The term “anchor babies” is relevant to the debate, a term referring to the idea that if a woman delivers a baby in the U.S. that child is now a citizen, providing an “anchor” for future immigration status for the mother, and pursuant to current immigration law, gives an advantage to their extended family. President Barack Obama proposed to allow parents of U.S.-born babies to avoid deportation, known as “chain migration.” Two hundred fifty thousand babies are born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants per year, and 33,000 “birth tourists” come to the U.S. annually. ICE prosecuted a multimillion-dollar Chinese ring called “You Win USA” charging $80,000 per customer, assisting them on how to lie about their true intentions, and promoting the benefits of giving birth here including free education and “an easier way for the whole family to immigrate to the United States.” It’s another facet of the gaming of the system, with organizations like the Mexican cartels raking in billions of dollars trafficking in people. This practice is squarely in the crosshairs of President-elect Trump, who has promised that he will immediately issue an executive order that the “correct interpretation of the law” does not grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
Incontrovertibly this will be hashed out in the courts and may well end up at SCOTUS. In 1898 SCOTUS, in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, ruled that the phrase in the Citizen Clause of the 14th Amendment stating “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant being required to obey U.S. law.
The courts have ruled that children born here to foreign nationals are citizens, but the legal debates are raging whether the precedent applies to illegal immigrants. After all, if they are here illegally, they are not obeying U.S. laws. This debate is neither new nor attributed solely to Trump. In their 1985 book “Citizenship without Consent; Illegal Aliens in the American Policy,” Yale professors Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith argued Congress should be constitutionally permitted to adopt a rule denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. The abuse is real, but we can and should solve it.