The Amended Amendment

Senator Lindsay Graham has figured out why all those pregnant foreign women are flocking to these shores to give birth. It's not because of our "best in the world if you can afford it" health care. Actually, our infant mortality rate is higher than that for Liechtenstein, Anguilla, and the Czech Republic, and you don't see airports crammed with pregnant women there.

It's the Anchor Baby Syndrome. Even if you are an illegal immigrant, a baby born on U.S. soil (or preferably in a U.S. hospital, having a baby on the dirt is really unsanitary) is automatically an American citizen per the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. All those sneaky illegal parents have to do is remain in hiding until their U.S. citizen baby is old enough to petition the courts to allow them legal status. It may take eighteen years or so, but all good things take time.

The 14th Amendment was written to ensure citizenship for former slaves after the Civil War. Senator Graham noted that its writers could not have anticipated modern air travel allowing women to drop in to the U.S. just to give birth. It's high time to amend the amendment and close this gaping loophole!

The amended amendment might have unintended consequences though. As the junior lieutenant in the 802d Engineer Battalion, I was naturally assigned the onerous duty of Intelligence Officer (not that I ever exhibited any signs of Military Intelligence). This required "Top Secret" clearance and a background check. My clearance was delayed when the background check revealed that my grandfather never actually became a U.S. citizen. Apparently, the Delaware & Hudson Coal Company was in such a hurry to get him working in the mines that they scurried him though a side door at Ellis Island. Fortunately, my father had a genuine "Born in the USA" birth certificate. The powers-that-be figured I wasn't a third generation North Korean "sleeper" spy and granted my "Top Secret" clearance.

Dad was technically the son of an illegal immigrant. The 14th Amendment made him (and by extension me) a citizen. If Senator Graham's amended amendment goes through, we are actually illegal aliens. As illegal aliens, Dad and I didn't have to go in the Army. He spent two years getting shot at by the Japanese in the Philippines and on Okinawa and I spent a year getting sneered at by the North Koreans across the DMZ, and we didn't have to!

Senator Graham, that's a great idea you have there. Too bad, it's seventy years too late.