Republican Senators Attempt to End Birthright Citizenship Again

GOP Senators introduced new anti-immigrant legislation targeting the children of undocumented immigrants.

In a statement release Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “I am disheartened when Senators who swear by the Constitution in one breath look to re-write it in the next for political gain. The Constitution is clear: if you are born on U.S. soil, you are an American. The courts have repeatedly reaffirmed the 14th Amendment because it is the only objective, non-political criteria to determine citizenship.”

The legislation takes a different approach to earlier proposals, made this year by Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky, to amend the Constitution.

Four Republican Senators, including Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas as well as Vitter and Paul, are driving measures to prohibit U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants from obtaining birthright citizenship.

The senators argue the improper interpretation of the 14^th Amendment has led to thousands of ‘anchor babies’- children born to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who can then sponsor family members for legal residency.

Vitter declared “‘Birth tourism’ is certainly a reprehensible practice, but it is not an illegal one yet. It is astounding that the U.S. government allows individuals to exploit the loopholes of our immigration system in this manner, and Congress has the authority and the obligation to put a stop to it once and for all.”

Republicans maintain such a change in the law would put an end to so-called “birth tourism,” or the practice of foreign mothers entering the country to give birth on U.S. soil so their children can obtain automatic citizenship.

But according to a 2006 study by the National Center for Health Statistics, only 7,670 of the 4.2 million live births in the country were children born to non-resident mothers.  What year is this data from?

The government does not monitor the citizenship or reason for being in the country at the time of the birth.

Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst with the Immigration Policy Center said, “There’s no evidence that birth tourism is a widespread problem. There are ways to dealing with that issue without such sweeping changes. This is like using a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.”

In order to amend the Constitution, approval is needed from two thirds of the House and Senate and three-fourths of all the states.  The proposed changes are unlikely to be passed at this time.

ABC News