Misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution

Fred Elbel.

Website by Fred Elbel, Elbel Consulting Services, LLC

Quite simply, the Fourteenth Amendment currently is being interpreted to grant automatic birthright citizenship to children born in the United States of illegal alien parents (called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency). This clearly is contrary to the original intent of Congress and the States in ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment.

While it has been the practice to bestow citizenship to children of illegal aliens, this has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court.

Professors Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith have noted¹ that:

“The present guarantee under American law of automatic birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens can operate…as one more incentive to illegal migration and violation by nonimmigrant aliens already here [.] When this attraction is combined with the powerful lure of the expanded entitlements conferred upon citizen children and their families by the modern welfare state, the total incentive effect of birthright citizenship may well become significant.”

References

1.   Professors Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith, “Consensual Citizenship” (Chronicles, July 1992)