Let me give you an idea of what goes on. A tourist comes to the US with his 4 kids and his pregnant wife. Let's say that it's all legal and on the up and up. She gives birth.
The law here requires that they ADD THE CHILD TO THE FAMILY VISA LIST.
Yup, kid's born here yet he has to have a visa just as if he were a foreign citizen and not a US citizen.
US citizens, BTW, do not require a visa to visit the US.
At the same time if the family came here without a visa, or equivalent, and the situation is otherwise identical ~ they are tourists ~ sojourners ~ not permanent residents, there are those, e.g federal district courts, ICE analysts, and so on who will tell you the kid is now a citizen!
Which means, of course, that the law requires more of legal visitors than of illegal visitors, and not only that, the legal visitors' newborns ARE NOT US citizens, yet the illegal visitors' newborns ARE US citizens.
Obviously we need some changes in the law ~ and fast, and at the same time we need some friendly lawsuits to take this mess to court and ask WTF.
My own thoughts are that the immigration offices throughout the country have been in error by identifying childen born here of illegal aliens as citizens ~ and doing so by simply failing to note that the law still requires them to ADD THE KID TO THE FAMILY VISA.
We could immediately rescind the citizenship of several million "anchor babies" among other things.
Excellent observation . . . and to paraphrase Mr. Bumble (Oliver Twist): If the law thus suppose th, then the law is an ass and an idiot.
Constitution of the United states, Article I, Section 9; Clause 3:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
As frustrating as it may sound, a law rescinding citizenship for anchor babies would be considered ex post facto, and declared unconstitutional.
Bingo!
Congress has the authority to make immigration regular, NOT decide what those immigrants are.
The Founders referred to People IN the States but not of the State to be denizens, BTW. It was supposed to be left up to the State as to whether or not these denizens deserved to be Citizens of the State.
------
Since giving the 14th Amendment the ability of the federal government to extend outside its areas of enumerated jurisdiction would itself be unconstitutional, one must wonder if this 'error' was purely accidental.