Reply #74: So the child is a citizen of where in your worldview?

[politicat]

Let's take a bunch of countries that only have birthright citizenship (several in S. America, a number in Africa, and then there are countries that have really fucked up citizenship rules, like your great-grandparents had to give birth while sitting backwards on a milk cow under a full moon.) The parents come to the US, maybe legally, as students, but they overstay their visas or work illegally or have a speeding ticket and become illegal. Then they have a kid. Then they all get deported.

Where's the kid a citizen? Not in the country his parents are from - that country only has birthright citizenship. You gotta be born there. Kid's not a US citizen because the parents were illegal.

Guess what? Kid can't leave the airport. No passport. US can't issue one to a non-citizen, and the parents' country won't. No documentation, no travel. But kid can't stay and kid can't go. What, do we build orphanages next door to every International Airport in the US to house the children of the deported? You wanna feed 'em?

There are people who have lived for years in airports because they don't have the right documents. You really want to do this to a couple thousand (yes, that's all) kids a year?

Removing birthright citizenship just adds about 300 layers of complexity to a nasty problem.