Should the U.S. end birthright citizenship? Adopted in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen.

• Position: DEBATE

YES

America's illegal-immigration problem is out of control. To change this, we must better protect our borders, particularly the border with Mexico, and ensure that only citizens and those in our country legally can be hired for jobs.

But that's not enough. Currently, babies who are born in this country to two illegal immigrant parents automatically become U.S. citizens. This happens between 300,000 and 400,000 times each year, and it needs to change. It's just flat wrong, and it serves as a magnet to attract illegal immigrants to the U.S.

I recently introduced legislation that would grant automatic citizenship only to those born in the United States to at least one parent who is a legal citizen (including naturalized citizens), legal immigrant, or active member of the armed forces. Closing this loophole would not prevent anyone from becoming a citizen. What it would do is ensure that he or she has to go through the same process as those born to foreign parents outside the U.S. who want to become American citizens.

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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was not intended to grant citizenship to the children of people living in our country illegally. Adopted in 1868, this Amendment was specifically designed to address the horrible injustice of slavery by guaranteeing that children born to former slaves would automatically be American citizens.

My goal is to make sure that the 14th Amendment is not stretched to allow a person born in the United States to illegal immigrants to automatically have citizenship. I want to bring the 14th Amendment back to what its authors intended-nothing more and nothing less. *

--SENATOR DAVID VITTER

Republican of Louisiana

NO

Attempts to eliminate birthright citizenship are an assault on the Constitution and on innocent children born in the U.S. These attempts are based on myths and, if successful, would undermine basic principles of equal rights and adversely affect all...