Is it time to change the 14th Amendment?

Think of the 400 “birth tourism” babies born in Orange County in a single year as snuggled in little pink and blue bassinets waving tiny Stars and Stripes, and that’s a pretty nice image.

But then think of the $2 million the feds say an Irvine company made off mostly wealthy mothers who came to Orange County from China on allegedly fraudulent visas, mothers who for the most part pleaded indigent and reportedly received tax-supported deliveries at local hospitals, and the image is spoiled.

Since the FBI raids on birth tourism apartments earlier this month, I’ve asked dozens of people if it’s time to repeal a seemingly simple but very powerful sentence in the Constitution, the first line of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. ...” ...

Rep. Loretta Sanchez tells me, “The 14th Amendment is critical to the foundation of our country and I will continue to fight any efforts to repeal it.” ...

HELPED MAKE SLAVES CITIZENS

The weirdest thing I found was that while birth tourism in the U.S. involving mainland Chinese has doubled in recent years, this isn’t the only place where birth tourism is a problem.

Hong Kong, too, is inundated with expectant mothers seeking local citizenship – from mainland China ...

Today, of the 31 most advanced economies according to the International Monetary Fund, only the United States and Canada make babies citizens regardless of parental citizenship ...

Most countries now require that at least one parent be a citizen ...

Remember that part of the 14th Amendment that says, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”? Chapman Professor John Eastman states that clause allows Congress to fine tune how citizenship is determined.

“Children of those who are only in this country illegally are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ in the broader sense intended by the 14th Amendment,” Eastman explained, “and they are therefore not automatically citizens at birth.” ...