Abrignac wrote:Naw, I don't think I'm the smartest person in the room. I'll save that honor for someone else. But, if it's so important, call your congressman and ask him to start a campaign to amend the Constitution. Until that happens, I believe I'm in the majority.
It IS that important and there ARE people already working on it as stated. You believe what you want....doesn't make it so. Here's a bit more for you to ignore....
The Impact of Birthright Citizenship
Between 300,000 and 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the United States every year. Put another way, as many as one out of 10 births in the United States is to an illegal immigrant mother.2 All of these children are considered by the executive branch of the U.S. government to be U.S. citizens who enjoy the same rights and are entitled to the same benefits as the children of U.S. citizens.
The population of U.S.-born children with illegal alien parents has expanded rapidly in recent years from 2.3 million in 2003 to 4 million in 2008; since these figures do not include children who are 18 years of age or older nor those who are married, the actual figure is somewhat larger.3
The two citizenship benefits that have drawn the most attention in the birthright citizenship debate are, first, food assistance and other welfare benefits to which a family of illegal aliens would not otherwise have access, and second, the ability of the child when he grows up to legalize his parents, and also to bring into the United States his foreign-born spouse and any foreign-born siblings. The sponsored spouse can, in turn, sponsor her own foreign-born parents and siblings, and the siblings can, in turn, sponsor their own foreign-born spouses, and so on, generating a virtually never-ending and always-expanding migration chain.
Because having a child on U.S. soil can cement an immigrant’s presence in the United States, provide access to welfare benefits, and ultimately initiate chain migration of the child’s extended family and in-laws, children born to illegal aliens and legal temporary visitors are sometimes referred to as “anchor babies.” These benefits have contributed to the growth of a “birth tourism” industry.
The voices calling for a change to the current application of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment are quite diverse and are not limited to activists and policymakers. The influential Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner held in a recent court decision that the policy of granting automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal and temporary aliens is one that “Congress should rethink” and that the United States “should not be encouraging foreigners to come to the United States solely to enable them to confer U.S. citizenship on their future children.”4
Benefits. Most benefits Americans would regard as “welfare” are not accessible to illegal immigrants. However, illegal immigrants can obtain welfare benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps on behalf of their U.S.-born children. Many of the welfare costs associated with illegal immigration, therefore, are due to the current birthright citizenship policy. Put another way, greater efforts at barring illegal aliens from federal welfare programs will not significantly reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access the benefits. Nationwide, 40 percent of illegal alien-headed households receive some type of welfare. In some states, the rate is higher: in New York, 49 percent receive welfare; in California, the rate is 48 percent; in Texas, it is 44 percent; and in Georgia, 42 percent of illegal alien-headed households receive welfare.5 Only 19 percent of households headed by native-born citizens make use of a major welfare program.
Of course, states offer additional welfare benefits as well. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich recently released data from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services indicating that children of illegal aliens in Los Angeles Country received $50 million in welfare benefits during the month of February 2010 alone. The report estimates that 23 percent of all CALWORKS and food stamp issuances in Los Angeles County are to illegal immigrant parents who collect on their U.S.-born children’s behalf. The supervisor estimates that illegal immigration and birthright citizenship cost taxpayers in Los Angeles County over $1 billion annually, not including education costs.6
Despite taxpayers’ assistance, approximately 59 percent of illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children live in or near poverty. In total, 21.5 million immigrants (legal and illegal) and their young children live in or near poverty. In California, Arizona, Texas, and Colorado illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children account for roughly a fifth of the those in poverty.7 Ultimately, treating the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens as citizens has the statistical effect of increasing the percentage of U.S. citizens living in poverty.
It is important to remember that births to illegal aliens are not spread evenly throughout the United States. Some states, particularly those closer to the southern border, carry a much larger burden. According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, between 60,000 to 65,000 babies are born to illegal aliens in Texas every year, representing about 16 percent of total births statewide. The report estimates that between 2001 and 2009, births to illegal immigrant women totaled 542,152 in Texas alone.8