Read the article and then come with up with a conclusion

http://americanaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/illegal_immigration_by_the_numbers_part_2

Well said, and I couldn't agree more.

Yes I could look them in the eye and tell them that. Most likely through an interpretor.

Could you tell american kids who belong here the country is going to hell because we are letting people leach off of it.

should illegals even be coming here. What would you rather have armed guards shooting them before they get here or this law passed. They are criminal and giving the kid citizenship ends up rewarding the parent for commiting a crime as the kid is eligible for welfare and all that

look it up it is all over the palce. Look at anchors away on youtube. It s a cbs report that even talks about roaches ( illegals) coming into the hospital soaking wet because they swam across the river

Thank God another patriotic american. I agree the 14th amendment was written to protect newly freed slaves it was not meant to be exploited to leach off our country because they are from a hole in the wall. The only way to keep them out is to make is as uncomfortable as possible here. Then there is no reason to come. The illegals act like we owe it to them and they thumb their noses at us. That is in addition to not attempting to learn our language.

Liberals just want to keep birthright citizenship because they dont want the latino vote to go agaisnt them and they figure the voters will vote liberal.

I think anyone who supports illegal immigration ( including anchor babies) is a traitor to this country.

Just like many of the provisions of the "Original Constitution", the Fourteenth Amendment has been perverted from its original intent. The words state that the "States" shall not make laws... It states nothing about the limits of the Federal government. We already limit which foreigners giving birth on US soil automatically gain US Citizenship. Why would we not place the same limits of Criminal Invading Aliens? While we are at it, we need a measure that requires verification of citizenship for the granting of ALL benefits, and denies those benefits to ANYONE here illegally. These are the same domestic protections used by other countries to protect their national sovereignty.
The pundits cry that America is better than that. No we are not. We have the same rates of unemployment, a sky-rocketing national debt, and a tendency towards social programs that will bankrupt the nation eventually (Look at California!). It is time for Americans to protect America.

They didn't come here legally because the system in place prevents them from doing so, check immigration laws on this. My great grandparents became legal residents by arriving on a boat and not being sick. Today, the process takes many, meany years, 13 if you're a Mexican, for instance. That's why. Second, the illegal immigrants are not taking jobs from U.S. citizens, they are filling jobs that need doing that no one here would do for a low wage. So, they fill an economic void WE created for them. If U.S. employers, particularly in the service industries, were willing to pay fair wages, the illegal immigrants would not come here b/c there would not be anything for them here. It's like ants in your kitchen: if you leave out the crumbs, the ants will come for them. The ants didn't cause the problem, you did by leaving out something they valued. If you want to fix the problem, don't start with the symptom, start with the root cause: employers and fair wages.

Immigrants today do not have the luxury of coming into a modern day Ellis Island, like our grandparents and great-grandparents did: if they could get here and weren't ill, they entered legally. Today, that process can take 13 years for a Mexican, to cite one example. Don't compare apples to oranges. If you want to be angry at someone for the number of illegal/undocumented workers, look at the companies that refuse to pay legal workers a fair, decent and livable wage. Or the companies that avoid the trouble altogether and take their factories overseas so they can pay cheap labor, avoid taxes, a skirt labor and environmental laws. These are the true illegals, not those that come in to fill an economic gap that WE have created.

They are, therefore, a sympton of a broken link in our economic system, not the problem that many here make them out to be. It is either,a) employers who refuse to pay a fair, decent and livable wage &benefits) or, b) U.S. workers who, today, so look down upon the physical labor that initially made our country so great that they refuse to do these jobs without greater pay/protections.

First of all, I really don't think this Bill, approved or not, would have any teeth in it for enactment, because a constitutional amendment contradicts it. The 14th amendment is pretty straightforward, ANY PERSON born here is a citizen. If you want to change that, you need another amendment. Next, to those that would make the sweeping argument that illegals come here to take benefits and jobs that do not belong to them, I urge you to do research and find out who these people are. The majority come here to work and work hard they do. The majority of them do pay into our tax, welfare and retirement system without a hope of being able to take out. They are here to fill a gap in our economy that U.S. citizens will not fill for the pay the undocumented will accept.

"I doubt very seriously that our framers anticipated that people from other countries...were going to sneak into the US so there unborn children would be citizens upon birth and thus giving them...access to our Social Security, health care, etc."

How about this:

"I doubt very seriously that our framers anticipated that people from other countries...were going to sneak into the US so there unborn children would be citizens upon birth and thus giving them...access to our land, our resources, our sources of food, etc."

We were founded by "undocumented immigrants" (or "illegals") - who stole from others and murdered them to get what they wanted. Yet you don't think they would mean that people should become citizens in the very manner they became citizens? Interesting.

I'd be interested in seeing your sources - you seem to be implying that all undocumented immigrants come over here to have babies. Please point me to the research that has shown that.

I'd be interested in seeing your source for this claim.

This bill does not amend the Constitution, it violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (see the title of the bill).

Services to legal residents are limited already. People don't come here for the services because they generally don't get any.

I have not thought about this issue this way, only that it blatantly violates the 14th amendment (unless you make it do acrobatics). In 2007, over 1 million people became Legal Permanent Residents (http://bit.ly/4u4FyG) & under this legislation their children would be ineligible for citizenship, regardless of how long their parents have lived in the states.

As far as social welfare benefits, the POWRA made immigrants ineligible for most benefits until they have been in the US for 5 years; an undocumented person is not eligible for most benefits (including TANF, what people usually call welfare).

Regarding children of undocumented immigrants - should kids be punished for the parents' decision to enter the US illegally, regardless of whether the parents planned to have kids here or not? Could you really look a child in the face and tell them they don't deserve food b/c their parents violated civil law? Lord help us as a nation if our citizens could actually do that.

Again do you people choose to be ignorent or are you just born that way???? Stop foccusing on the parents mistake for just a second and think of the children!! whats to become of them if this bill passes when they grow up?. Suffer the hardships the way there parents did for coming to the us illegaly. When they were acctually born on american soil and have absolutly no say in there parents decision to come here illegally? Of what country would they be citizens of? This bill makes me sick and so does Rep Deal for being ignorent and well racist. Taking the birth rights is'nt going to make anything better i simply just don't understand why we should blame the children and deny them the rights they should be intitled to.

The only way for this method to be legal is for the constitution's citizenship clause of Amendment 14, Section 1, to be amended. A bill cannot (at least should not...) change the basic rules of the constitution.

Thumbs Down. If people are using loopholes (aka anchor babies), then modify the Constitution.

I am interested to know if any other country in the world grants automatic citizenship upon birth? I will have to research that. At any rate, we have to do something and this looks like a step forward for a change. I also wonder the nationality of those who are so strongly opposed? I somehow do not feel that the threat to our constitution is the driving force behind the objections - more than likely more personal than that. America belongs first and foremost to it's citizens who have had family members fight and die for generations for their country. Now, that creates a loyalty that simply living here and taking advantage of the system will never produce.

America's population would be stable were it not for issues with our borders: both legal and illegal immigration. Anything over 100,000 per year of total immigration creates a net increase in our population. If we continue allowing so many immigrants for enough years, we'll wind up crowded like China. We need to control our borders -- if we did that, then this bill isn't an issue cause so few would be coming in illegally.

Ditto.

I strongly support this as I believe ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS have been screwing the USA by using this issue for so long and we just keep letting them get away with it. Our government is soft and it is time to make a stand and start to stop all the stupid things that all the dumb well wishers keep doing that continue to suck the future away from our country. If these people want to be a part of our great USA then do it right, work for it just like we all have to.

Thank goodness! I've heard of many cases where there was much mishandling [by the government] over this and nobody ever cared about handling the situation!

here here. This has been the biggest loophole that has compounded the number of illegal immigrants in this country. There is a high percentage of pregnant women from Mexico that come here illegally just to have their child so they can stay. Look at what's going on with Calif and some of the other border states.

AMERICAFIRST - WELL SAID!! I AM TIRED OF ALL RACE CARDS..

You have not read the ENTIRE Amendment. " and SUBJECT to the jurisdiction thereof" is what you are missing. A foreigner is NOT A SUBJECT of the US, and there fore all kids a foreigners! The CURRENT law is unconstituional!

They are not Mexican Americans if they are here illegally they are Mexicans Braking our Immigration laws and need to be sent home, Mexico. Let their Government take care of them. and pay for their babies being born. 99.9% of them work under the table and do not pay taxes.

You cannot amend a Constitutional amendment with a statute. You would need to use the process of Constitutional Amendment found at http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/ to amend or repeal the 14th Amendment. That process states that an amendment can only be "proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures." Once it is proposed, the amendment would then have to be ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States).

I'm glad for this process, because this bill would put us in the same camp as Kuwait where there have been multiple generations born in that country w/o gaining citizenship. Many Americans condemned that back in 1990 and it's not the right thing to do now.

How in the hell, would taking away the current gift of automatic citizenship of a child who just so happens to have been born on American soil, and make the undocumented as well as their criminal parents, mulitply the problem? Can you answer me that please? It would only make the whole mess a lot simpler for all. If you're not legal, or documented, then you have no rights here and are not welcome because you broke our laws crossing the border illegaly in the first place, and any children you have while here, are not citizens here either, and you, and all your undocumented family, can go back to where ever it is you came from until you decide to abide by our laws and guidelines, and come here the lawful and correct way! How does that multiply any complications?