Anchor Babies and the 14th Amendment

I received an e-mail from a friend this morning regarding "anchor babies." Anchor babies are children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, who have U.S. citizenship upon their birth. PRO-immigration groups claim that this is a natural interpretation of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which among other things states:

"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. 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. "

Citizenship is usually determined by either jus soli (right of the soil) or jus sanguinis (right of the blood). The United States is one of the countires that operates under jus soli, according to the 14th amendment. This means that all that is required of someone to achieve U.S. citizenship is to be born here. Under jus sanguinis, you must have at least one parent already a U.S. citizen to be considered a citizen at birth.

If you do a little checking, you will find out that the 14th amendment was intended to protect African slaves who were brought over to the U.S. on ships. It was more of an anti-discrimination law than an immigration law!

I completely agree with Arizona, and now Texas. I hope and pray more states take a harder stance on immigration issues. Once an illegal is here, OUR government pays for their food, medicine, education, incarceration and much, much more. The cost of all of this is staggering. Maybe until the U.S. figures out our OWN issues we should simply close the borders altogether.

According to the U.S. Census, the number of foreign-born, 0-4 year olds estimated in 2003 was 33,751,944. Those from European nations numbered 4, 861,934. That number was almost doubled by Asian born children at 9, 238,656. Latin American foreign born children 0-4 years in 2003 totalled nearly HALF of all children counted. All other nationalities came in at 2,138,441. (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign/acst2.html#reg).

Almost 20 million of those 33,751,944 born were illegal.

That's a LOT of anchor babies. They are called anchor babies because they act like anchors to their families who would be the boat. Once they get dug into U.S. soil, they aren't going anywhere. And why should they? They get jobs and medicine at the expense of real U.S. citizens, and their children get educated here. We even incarcerate their criminals instead of deporting them.

Just food for thought. Think about his issue...and contact your governement representative to them know that the 14th amendment needs to be modified to state that it does NOT include illegal immigrant children born in the United States.