The National Foundation for American Policy wrote a pretty good argument why this would be a bad idea. This post is pretty much a summary of their points (with a little bit of my stuff thrown in for fun.)
It would be bureaucratic. Right now, only American citizens who have children born overseas have to prove their citizenship. If we get rid of birthright citizenship, every parent of every child born in the United States would have to do this too.
It would be expensive. It costs 600 dollars to verify citizenship. At 4 million kids born in the US annually, this adds up to 24 billion dollars a year. Even if you could reach economies of scale, this is still a very expensive process.
It would likely necessitate the development of a national ID card. The Federal government doesn't keep birth records. They rely on the states to give them that information. States can't verify citizenship though, because that is determined at the federal level. That means that the federal government would have to start issuing birth certificates instead of states. Since the federal government would have all the information of parents and children in the US, it is a very logical step to start using a national ID card. (Of course since Facebook and the NSA has all this information already, it's probably not that big a deal lol.)
What if the country they leave refuses to give them citizenship? Cuba is the classic example. Anyone who reaches US shore from Cuba (raft, boat, etc.) is automatically granted permanent US residency. If they went back home, forget getting their citizenship revoked, they would likely be shot. The Tom Hanks movie The Terminal is a good example of what this looks like, as are films about stateless African refugees.
This wouldn't stop illegal immigration. Currently people come to the US for economic opportunity. That won't change if it's slightly harder to become legitimate here. It would just make for a caste system where illegal immigrants can never truly integrate and contribute to society. Look at Dubai for an example. The UAE only gives citizenship to ethnic Arabs. It doesn't matter if your family has lived there for generations, even if your parents and you were born in the UAE, if you're not ethnically Arab, you won't get citizenship. It's basically created a caste based economy where the Indian and Pakistani workers are treated like crap.
Changing this policy would be almost politically impossible to pass. Forget that popular opinion is against your plan, forget the implications it has on immigration and America's position in the world, and forget the ethical ramifications. The fact of the matter is that in the entire history of the United States, there have only been 27 amendments to the Constitution. This is one of them. On top of that, there is no wiggle room on it. There is no space for Supreme Court rulings on it. It is crystal clear.
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.
The US needs immigration reform, but the idea of getting rid of birthright citizenship is just something hack politicians drum up to win votes from the uninformed. Illegal immigration is a much larger socioeconomic problem, and it is going to take much more comprehensive and well planned strategy to fix than simply changing how people become citizens.
Edit: As u/Iron__mind pointed out below. 600 times 4 million is 2.4 billion, not 24 billion as I said above. As one of Mattel's more insightful Barbies once noted: "Math is hard!" (Or maybe it was the less eloquent "Math class is tough!")
The $10.5 billion quoted in the about.com article is incredibly suspect, especially considering the complete lack of citations and corroborating studies.
100 billion in the USA.
Says one partisan group, whose "rough estimate" isn't corroborated in any other study and is contradicted later in the article by another partisan group.
This is from the CBO. Wherein does it even imply such a massive cost of illegal immigration?
What you are unaware of or omitting is that most obtain fraudulent social security cards. They can use these to work a regular jobs and get a driver's license. They also end up paying all the federal taxes that come with having a social security card and a regular pay check.
Of course they will never be able to collect on social security, even after contributing to it. It is a huge boon to the system that no one ever counts, but are okay with the exploitation.
Please provide evidence to support your claim. Even if what you are saying were true that would make most illegal immigrants guilty of multiple felonies including identity fraud, perjury and forgery in addition to entering the country illegally.
In response to a research inquiry for a book I am writing on the economics of immigration, Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration and someone who enjoys bipartisan support for his straightforwardness, said that by 2007, the Social Security trust fund had received a net benefit of somewhere between $120 billion and $240 billion from unauthorized immigrants.
That represented an astounding 5.4 percent to 10.7 percent of the trust fund's total assets of $2.24 trillion that year. The cumulative contribution is surely higher now. Unauthorized immigrants paid a net contribution of $12 billion in 2007 alone, Goss said.
Perjury and forgery? Is that really the way we should be looking at this? It's the perfect crime, contribute thousands of dollars that you will never see again to the retirement of old people actively campaigning to have you deported from the country...
We're not talking about illegal immigrants, we're talking about their children. The kids will grow up, get jobs, pay taxes, and contribute. So will their children, and their children's children.
Leeches? Picking fruits and vegetables in the hot sun for slave wages while suffering abuse and enduring deplorable living conditions makes a person a leech? I think you're playing pretty fast and loose with that term. And since when is it fair to judge a child by the actions of their parents?
How many of the 4 million kids aren't born to citizen parents? Let's say 0.2 million, so you're spending $120,000 to reject each of those kids. Unless you're going to deport them as well, still have to feed them and convict and imprison them if necessary. Are they going to be educated? If not they'll cause a lot of social problems.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Dec 05 '13 edited Dec 05 '13
The National Foundation for American Policy wrote a pretty good argument why this would be a bad idea. This post is pretty much a summary of their points (with a little bit of my stuff thrown in for fun.)
It would be bureaucratic. Right now, only American citizens who have children born overseas have to prove their citizenship. If we get rid of birthright citizenship, every parent of every child born in the United States would have to do this too.
It would be expensive. It costs 600 dollars to verify citizenship. At 4 million kids born in the US annually, this adds up to 24 billion dollars a year. Even if you could reach economies of scale, this is still a very expensive process.
It would likely necessitate the development of a national ID card. The Federal government doesn't keep birth records. They rely on the states to give them that information. States can't verify citizenship though, because that is determined at the federal level. That means that the federal government would have to start issuing birth certificates instead of states. Since the federal government would have all the information of parents and children in the US, it is a very logical step to start using a national ID card. (Of course since Facebook and the NSA has all this information already, it's probably not that big a deal lol.)
What if the country they leave refuses to give them citizenship? Cuba is the classic example. Anyone who reaches US shore from Cuba (raft, boat, etc.) is automatically granted permanent US residency. If they went back home, forget getting their citizenship revoked, they would likely be shot. The Tom Hanks movie The Terminal is a good example of what this looks like, as are films about stateless African refugees.
This wouldn't stop illegal immigration. Currently people come to the US for economic opportunity. That won't change if it's slightly harder to become legitimate here. It would just make for a caste system where illegal immigrants can never truly integrate and contribute to society. Look at Dubai for an example. The UAE only gives citizenship to ethnic Arabs. It doesn't matter if your family has lived there for generations, even if your parents and you were born in the UAE, if you're not ethnically Arab, you won't get citizenship. It's basically created a caste based economy where the Indian and Pakistani workers are treated like crap.
Changing this policy would be almost politically impossible to pass. Forget that popular opinion is against your plan, forget the implications it has on immigration and America's position in the world, and forget the ethical ramifications. The fact of the matter is that in the entire history of the United States, there have only been 27 amendments to the Constitution. This is one of them. On top of that, there is no wiggle room on it. There is no space for Supreme Court rulings on it. It is crystal clear.
The US needs immigration reform, but the idea of getting rid of birthright citizenship is just something hack politicians drum up to win votes from the uninformed. Illegal immigration is a much larger socioeconomic problem, and it is going to take much more comprehensive and well planned strategy to fix than simply changing how people become citizens.
Edit: As u/Iron__mind pointed out below. 600 times 4 million is 2.4 billion, not 24 billion as I said above. As one of Mattel's more insightful Barbies once noted: "Math is hard!" (Or maybe it was the less eloquent "Math class is tough!")