We shouldn't deny citizenship to children of illegals born here

Abrogating birthright citizenship additionally would create practical chaos. All Americans would have to prove their citizenship. Birth certificates would no longer do. Yet we lack a national registry of who is a citizen.

As West Point professor Margaret Stock says: “The government would have to adjudicate the citizenship status of every child born within U.S. borders based on the exceedingly complex rules of derivative citizenship, or citizenship by blood. Currently, [it] takes more than a year to make such determinations, and the process is expensive and fraught with error.”

The abrogationists confuse the historical ecosystem on the U.S.-Mexican border with illegal immigrants in general. Pregnant Mexican women from border towns do commonly cross just to have a baby in the United States. But their extended families have often straddled the border for a century or more. The women tend to be middle class, pre-pay the hospitals in cash and go home, though their children can someday return.