Repealing the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by some politicians as a means to combat illegal immigration, is shortsighted and wrong. Doing so would undo a vital provision that ensures citizenship by soil. Any repeal would also immediately increase the illegal population dramatically, raising projections to 14 million by 2020, and turn a generation of innocent children into an untouchable caste. Despite living in the United States, this generation would be cut off from standard rights.
The logic behind this proposal is deeply flawed. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) asserted that “people come here to have babies” and “drop a child.” On the contrary, America attracts immigrants – legal and illegal – with its promise of freedom and opportunity. Illegal immigrants come here for better wages and better health care. It is no wonder that people living in country with endemic poverty, savage drug lords, a corrupt police force and little hope of improvement choose to risk what little they have to flee across the border to a land of opportunity.
Another bogus theory concerns the possibility that terrorist organizations will send brainwashed women to America to raise and indoctrinate their “terror babies” to carry out homegrown attacks against the U.S. This belief has spread quickly because it plays to people’s fears, but – being blind speculation – has no facts to support it. Treason does not require a birth certificate. Homegrown terrorism has included American-born and foreign-born citizens alike.
If the 14th Amendment were to be repealed, a large swath of children and young adults who beforehand had the opportunity to enjoy a public education and citizenship, would find themselves without a future. Given the choice between living in America or Mexico, they would probably choose to stay. Inevitably, they would be the first generation of a permanent lower class of second-class citizens. Poverty, illiteracy and crime would rise.
The proposal misinterprets the Constitution through a slanted historical context that ignores its whole meaning. Advocates of the repeal say that the amendment was passed in 1868 to grant citizenship to the children of former slaves and that its writers could not have predicted the illegal immigration problem. This view is not entirely true. The amendment did more than that. It forced states to comply with the Bill of Rights. Also, it explicitly referred to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” By not clearly stating, “all children of former slaves,” it established a timeless principle unlimited to historical restrictions.
Playing around with the amendments has nothing to do with enforcing federal law. If politicians do not like immigration law, they can fix it without altering the Constitution. A silly repeal will not make the issue go away.