'Baby drop' a drop in the bucket

Republican Senators John McCain, Charles Grassley, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are ill-advised in their effort to amend the Constitution to revise the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing U.S. citizenship to natural-born Americans regardless of their parents' legal status. That clause in the 14th Amendment overturned the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blacks could not be U.S. citizens.

These senators allege that hordes of pregnant illegals risk all to enter America and "drop a baby," which instantly becomes a U.S. citizen. Regardless of greatly increased Administration resources which have, in part, reduced illegal immigration and declining crime rates in Arizona, which has become the poster state of overreaction to the immigration issue, these senators stoke the flames of fear and loathing by proposing a radical revision of the 142-year-old legacy of Constitutional principle championed by their party when it served the people and not the wealthy corporate elites.

Scratch the surface of reality and their gambit is exposed for the shameless sham it is. Figures for 2008 reveal that of over 4 million live U.S. births, a tad under 8,000 were attributed to the aforementioned "baby drop." The gusher that our fearless four rant about turns out to be a mere drop in the bucket.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn