We must close birthright loophole

Those who support the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship (jus soli) are extremely short sighted.

I too am repulsed by Donald Trump's loose, emotional blathering on immigration issues. But this birthright matter urgently needs correction.

The now obsolete 14th provided citizen status for former slaves. But it also provides a) citizenship to newborns who can provide "anchors" for whole families. And it provides b) citizenship for "vacation babies" who go back with their parents to their home country.

We spend countless man-hours and millions of dollars vetting people applying for status here. Many are needed for their skills, yet we wade laboriously through the system because we want to ensure applicants will be useful contributors, good citizens, and are not criminals or carriers of vicious diseases.

Delays encourage illegal immigration. Better funding would help.

The 14th bypasses all the verification. We blindly take what we get. If you only look at the bulk of undocumented people who have kids here, the parents are here mostly for economic reasons. Many contribute to society, even to serving in the armed forces. Yet some are criminals or carriers of diseases. A modernized guest worker program would prevent abuses to both the US and the workers.

There are now reports of tens of thousands of vacation babies. They go back home with a U.S. passport and grow up there. But they are U.S. citizens, so they can later walk back in, and we cannot reject them for any reason.

Who are they? Spies? Terrorists? Disease carriers? Criminals?

Over time, other major countries wisely have gradually tightened up this very same concept. They have gone to birthright by parentage, generally requiring one parent to be a citizen or legal resident. We need to fix this loophole now.

Richard Cichanski

Palatine