Birthright citizenship is based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was originally enacted to ensure ONLY the civil rights for the newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Fleeced again?

A Texas lawmaker is introducing a bill in February that would battle the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to children born on American soil — including those born to illegal immigrants.

Lawmaker Leo Berman believes that immigrants are committing a crime against the U.S., from the time they're in the hospital — but we grant their children citizenship anyway. "They're violating our sovereignty and we're granting them citizenship," he said.

Democratic Texas lawmaker, Joaquin Castro says Berman is trying to interpret the Constitution to fit his agenda and create a name for himself. "It's a low blow against children," he said.

 "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."

A serious and scholarly debate has been on-going for years about whether illegal aliens (and temporary visitors) are, in fact, "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. Some scholars insist that the phrase has no real meaning of its own, but rather is essentially another way of saying "born in the United States." They believe the Fourteenth Amendment requires that any child born on U.S. soil be granted U.S. citizenship. Other scholars look to the legal traditions observed by most courts, including the presumption that all words used in a legislation are intended to have meaning (i.e., not simply be restatements) and that, if the meaning of a word or phrase is unclear or ambiguous, the congressional debate over the legislation may indicate the authors' intent. These scholars therefore presume that "subject to the jurisdiction" means something different from "born in the United States," so they have looked to the original Senate debate over the Fourteenth Amendment to determine its meaning. They conclude that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment did NOT want to grant citizenship to every person who happened to be born on U.S. soil.

Ron Paul weighs in

Center for Immigration Studies

Video!