Like A Virus

Well.  THIS is rather alarming:

One in twelve babies born in the U.S. in 2008 were the offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new study, a statistic that could inflame the debate over birthright citizenship.

Undocumented immigrants make up slightly more than 4% of the U.S. adult population. However, their babies represented twice that share, or 8%, of all births on U.S. soil in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s report.

“Unauthorized immigrants are younger than the rest of the population, are more likely to be married and have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population,” said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew in Washington, D.C.

The report, based on Census Bureau data and analysis of demographic characteristics of the undocumented population, also found that the lion’s share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the U.S. and therefore citizens.

Or....maybe not so much as it seems at first glance.  At least not by itself.  Some rough, back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that, assuming four million overall births in the U.S. per year, and 8% being to illegal parents, that factor by itself would increase the de facto illegal population from 4% to about 5.5% in twenty-five years.  Whereas the illegal population quadrupled over the LAST twenty-five years through....illegal immigration.  Which means the birthright citizenship debate is, at best, a secondary effect of the central problem - the refusal on the part of the federal government to control the borders and value, instead of sneeringly devalue, citizenship.

But then, how much debate is there really about birthright citizenship at the "official" level, anyway?  Casting cutting it off as a constitutional amendment is prima facie evidence of the cynical unseriousness of its proponents.  The real action is in the recognition, by both Ensign Ed and Mark Levin, that the Fourteenth Amendment already disallows birthright citizenship:

The 14th Amendment makes one condition in its language: “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.”  So far as I know, that has led courts to consider children born of legal immigrants citizens of the US, since they submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of America and its laws. A case can be made that the clause could restrict birthright citizenship to only those legally in the country — and it would certainly be easier to float a test case with a deportation order than it would be to amend the Constitution. 

As Levin exhaustively details, the context of the Fourteenth Amendment was according full citizenship to freed slaves.  Indians - i.e. "Native Americans" - were NOT accorded full citizenship because their political allegience was not undivided.  Else why was the U.S. government making treaties with Indian tribes?  Political allegience, IOW, was part of being "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  Illegal aliens fall short on both sides of that coin, since they are by definition citizens of a foreign country AND are not subjecting themselves to U.S. law by the act of openly flouting our immigration statutes by crossing the border without authorization.  Ergo, by the clear language of the Fourteenth Amendment, children of illegal aliens CANNOT be naturalized U.S. citizens by dint of their being born on U.S. soil.

Hence, a constitutional amendment banning birthright citizenship would be doubly futile, first because it'll never pass, and second, because even if it did, the feds and the courts would simply ignore it like they are existing immigration law.

What is needed is the same kind of thing that dieters always want to avoid in favor of the newest faddy weight-loss shortcut: eat less and differently, and exercise.  In the case of cutting off illegal immigration, it means voter education and vigilence in electing right-wing Congresses and presidents that will control the borders, enforce immigration law, re-value citizenship, and reconstitutionalize the courts so that they don't serve as enablers and accomplices to the border erasure crowd, and then keeping such Congresses and presidents in power.  Period.

Exit quote from Levin:

The law is clear that a person born here from illegal immigrant parents is not a citizen, yet our politicians refuse to enforce the Constitution and the law behind it. There’s no such thing as, "Birthright citizenship." We can thank activist judges for creating chaos and neglecting their Constitutional duties.