14th Amendment Research Paper

Since the 1800s, the United States has allowed its people to exercise jus soli, the right to American citizenship, given that they are born on U.S. soil. The idea of
“birthright citizenship” was reflected in the fourteenth amendment which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside”, (Will). However, when the fourteenth amendment was passed, the immigration process was slow moving.
As this was the time of the Industrial Revolution, people were immigrating to America in search of better opportunity. Though the voyages to get to the relatively new world were difficult, the process of being granted citizenship
Now, there is a very different story. As the United States has become more popular country to reside in, the nation has seen an influx of immigration. The means of moving to the United States has become long and complicated as there are many “steps in the immigrant visa process,” (“The Immigrant Visa Process”). Many immigrants choose to come to the U.S. undocumented. Since the interpretation of the fourteenth amendment holds that anyone born in the United States is an American citizen, birth tourism has become very popular. Birth tourism is “the practice of foreigners traveling to the United
States to give birth and add a U.S. passport holder to the family” (Feere). In search of better lives for themselves and their unborn children, these foreign parents travel to coast or border cities to have their babies. The fourteenth amendment ensures that the children will be U.S. citizens, thus the parents can live comfortably in this country. People from all over the world have taken advantage of this rule and strategically give birth on U.S. soil in order to secure the benefits that come with citizenship.
The most notable sources of birth tourism are Asia and Mexico (Feere). In
Southern California has seen a large increase in chinese birth tourists (Sheehan). There are reportedly some maternity centers in southern California (specifically Los Angeles) that “primarily cater to Chinese and
Taiwanese” (Feere). Some argue that this mass immigration from Asia “is actually a win for the United States,” (Brush). Because “Asian-Americans...punch well above their weight class in higher education,” (Brush), they may be able to help with the current shortage of engineers and other jobs in the math and technology field. Similar sentiments are also said of Mexican birth tourists. Mexican mothers strategically “apply for visitors’ visas that permit border residents to travel inside a 25-mile zone in the United States for up to three days for shopping and family visits,” (Feere) . They take advantage of these visas and have their babies in American territory. Naturally, the border states like Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona and California are most affected by Mexican birth tourists. Like in the case of the Asians, some argue that Mexican birth tourism has a positive outcome, as many of the low paying jobs can be taken by these people.
While it may be beneficial in the short run, the long term effects of birth