Legislation has been introduced into the US House of Representative that would deny citizenship to children if both of their parents were unauthorized immigrants. This would effectively seek to repeal the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that says that a person born in the United States is automatically a US citizen. The Migration Policy Institute has just published a report showing the probable impact of this law were it to be passed. The analysis by demographers Jennifer Van Hook (of Penn State University) and Michael Fix reveals that the proposed change in the law would dramatically increase the number of unauthorized immigrants in this country:
Rather than shrink the size of the unauthorized population in the United States, repeal would likely expand it — and expand it substantially. A second worrying finding is that repeal would set in motion a sizeable, self-perpetuating class of unauthorized immigrants for generations. This perpetuation of hereditary disadvantage based on the legal status of one’s ancestors would be unprecedented in US immigration law.
Supporters of the legislation have in mind that (a) people would no longer migrate to the United States if they knew that they could no longer produce an "anchor baby" and (b) that a family would be easier to deport if all members of the family are unauthorized immigrants. The MPI study suggests that, in fact, the unanticipated consequences of this proposed change would be radically different than expected by its supporters.
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