CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES - Article XIV

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES - Article XIV

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.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The idea of preventing application of Article XIV to children of immigrants is punishing the child, that makes this immoral and unethical.

"How widespread are U.S. births by foreign tourists and undocumented migrants?" PBS NewsHour 8/25/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Some GOP presidential candidates have decried birthright citizenship and so-called “anchor babies” -- children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally.  There’s also talk of “maternity tourism,” when foreigners arrive to give birth before returning home.  Judy Woodruff learns more from Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute and Susan Berfield of Bloomberg Businessweek.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Back in this country, the volatile issue of immigration continues to spark debate in the 2016 presidential campaign.  The latest round centers on babies born in the U.S. to parents who are not American citizens.

DONALD TRUMP Republican Presidential Candidate:  I will use the word anchor baby.  Excuse me.  I will use the word anchor baby.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Donald Trump started this latest furor over a term that immigration advocates view as derogatory.  He complained of children born in the U.S. who immediately gain American citizenship and become the means for entire families, here illegally, to stay.

Fellow Republican Jeb Bush weighed in as well.

JEB BUSH, Republican Presidential Candidate:  There ought to be greater enforcement.  That’s the legitimate side of this, greater enforcement, so that you don’t have these anchor babies, as they’re described, coming into the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  By yesterday, an exasperated Bush was trying to douse criticism for using the term.

JEB BUSH:  You give me the name you want me to use, and I will use it.  How about that?

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Moreover, the former Florida governor insisted that, unlike Trump, he wasn’t talking about Latinos at all.

JEB BUSH:  What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed, where there’s organized efforts.  And, frankly, it is more related to Asian people coming into our country having children in that organized effort.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Bush campaign aides call the practice birth tourism, with foreigners arriving legally just in time to have a child.

Numbers are hard to come by.  The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates some 230,000 children are born in the U.S. each year with at least one parent here illegally, while the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter rules, estimates 36,000 births a year by women who come to the U.S. to have a baby, then leave to go back home.  Others say that number is smaller.