In need of real solutions

IT WASN’T surprising when Donald Trump—who had already branded Mexican immigrants as rapists—released an immigration plan that attacked the long-standing principle that anyone born in this country is automatically a U.S. citizen. Unfortunately, Trump isn’t alone in the 2016 Republican presidential field in proposing a rollback of socalled birthright citizenship.

To their credit, some Republican candidates have refused to board this shameful bandwagon. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who once supported ending birthright citizenship, has had second thoughts. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush affirms that birthright citizenship is a “constitutionally protected right.”

That opposition to birthright citizenship has become a mainstream position in the Republican race is doubly depressing.

The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States . . .” Many other countries confer citizenship based on bloodlines, which makes sense if nationality is viewed in terms of ancestry, race or ethnicity. But in America, a nation of immigrants, citizenship is defined differently.

The opposition is based on the canard that birthright citizenship is (in Trump’s words) “the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” It’s true that citizens may sponsor their parents’ admission to the United States. An undocumented parent may also be eligible for some benefits for her child and may be less likely to be deported. But these inducements are much less significant factors in illegal immigration than the desire for work and a better life.

A charitable reading of the opposition to birthright citizenship is that it reflects frustration over the influx of undocumented immigrants. But the best response to that concern is comprehensive immigration reform that would both secure the borders and provide a path to citizenship for millions of otherwise law-abiding immigrants.