A case in point is a bill being discussed in Congress to fight illegal immigration by denying birthright citizenship to children born in America to illegal immigrant parents. This would violate the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution, enacted 129 years ago to guarantee that all children born in America are granted citizenship with equal rights and protections under our laws.

America has every reason to stop illegal immigration. We should heed the words of Father Theodore Hesburgh, who said that we must close the back door of illegal immigration in order to keep open the golden door of legal immigration.

In doing so, we will ensure that our laws are respected, while preserving the benefits immigrants bring to America: they fill key segments of the labor force, contribute to high-tech innovation, and serve as a "powerful source of vitality and stability in our distressed inner cities," according to Fannie Mae chairman James A. Johnson.

The bill, H.R. 7, is being considered in the House Immigration Subcommittee. It would end the constitutional guarantee that was put in place to prevent the revival of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, or any other means of excluding a class of Americans from full citizenship.

There are many legitimate means to reduce illegal immigration, but violating a constitutional right is not among them. Rather than change the Constitution, Congress should concentrate on effective enforcement of immigration laws.

Last year, Congress passed a new law that comprehensively addresses the issue of illegal immigration. Among its many provisions, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 increases border enforcement (it nearly doubles the size of the Border Patrol), increases penalties for alien smuggling, and makes it more difficult for visitors to overstay legal visas and become illegal immigrants. Congressional oversight of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is undoubtedly having a further positive impact on the total effort to stop illegal immigration, and to increase respect for immigration laws.

To my mind, it is doubtful that elimination of birthright citizenship would have a significant impact on illegal immigration, or that it would even touch the fundamental incentive that brings many illegal immigrants to America -- the desire to work and improve their lives.

Beyond its clear violation of the 14^th Amendment, legislation to end birthright citizenship would create a new series of practical problems for citizens and government alike. Native-born Americans would have to prove their parents' citizenship in order to enjoy the rights and privileges of their own citizenship. This in turn would introduce new possibilities for racial and ethnic discrimination. A stateless class would be created -- the first native-born non-citizens to grrow up in America since the children of slaves before the Civil War.

Lastly, it is absolutely clear that legislative efforts to circumscribe the 14^th Amendment would raise a series of doubts and concerns about the bedrock civil rights protections that have been enshrined in our Constitution since the Civil War.

No aspect of today's illegal immigration problem justifies an assault on the 14^th Amendment. Everything in our character as Americans -- regardless of our party affiliation, reggardless of where we were born -- should lead us to venerate and preserve the structure of civil rights protections that the struggle and sacrifice of Abraham Lincoln and countless Americans produced a century ago.
 

Kemp is Co-Chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and Co-Director of Empower America. He was the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee in 1996.
 

July 15, 1997: Article by Jack Kemp opposing changes in the 14^th Amendment aimed at denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents, and citing economic benefits of legal immigration, appears in El Nuevo Herald (Spanish-language counterpart of the Miami Herald) under the title "La Ciudadania Como Derecho Inalienable." Same article appears July 21 in the Washington Times under the title ("A Cure That is Worse Than the Disease;" in India-West (Oakland, California) July 18; in Excelsior (Orange County Register's Spanish division) July 11; in the Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii, New York-New Jersey, Canada, and Seattle-Tacoma editions of Philippine News July 16; in Raivaaja, the Finnish-American weekly, July 16; in the Montgomery Journal (Maryland) July 16; in El Pregonero (Washington, DC), July 24; in Ahora (San Diego) September 4; in La Nacion (Washington, DC) August 29; in La Prensa (Dallas) September 3; in La Oferta Review (San Jose, California) September 24; in La Voz Hispana de Colorado on September 24 (Spanish) and October 1 (English); in Panorama (Pittsburgh) October issue; in Al Dia (Philadelphia) November 13, in El Mundo (San Francisco) November 27; in El Diario (New York) November 29; in 20 de Mayo (Los Angeles) December 6.