Denying citizenship for illegal immigrants' children is a bad idea
Go back, however, and read the transcripts of the 1866 debate in the Senate and you find that both those for and against the amendment readily acknowledged its application to illegal immigrants. A Pennsylvania senator, for example, objected to granting citizenship to the children of aliens who regularly commit "trespass" within the United States. The concern then was with babies of gypsy or Chinese parents.
But Congress and the ratifying states opted instead to uphold a founding principle of the republic that was fundamental to the peaceful building of a multiethnic immigrant nation, however imperfectly. In a world plagued by bloody ethnic conflicts, that concern remains valid.
The WaPo writer goes on to say that it is not a immigration strategy for women to purposely have their babies in the US. Not true. Foreigners have used anchor babies as well as marriage and other techniques to gain entrance to the US and illegal alien entrance and anchor babies are proliferating. Groups such as La Raza and MECHa openly talk of it to build their population for power to retake the southwestern portion of the US. This population is being used as a weapon.
It is time to deny them automatic citizenship and secure our borders.
