It's been a while since we've heard from the Dred Scott Republicans on amending or repealing the 14th amendment. Apparently the Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Center was a far shinier wedge issue, so they dropped this one. But circling back on it to close the loop, it turns out to be a self-defeating policy idea.
[E]nding birthright citizenship is also bad policy for those who want to decrease the population of illegal immigrants — because it has the exact opposite effect. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute reported today [pdf] that even the most conservative changes to birthright citizen could cause the proportion of children without documents to double, from 2% of all children living in the U.S. to 4%.
The report looked at the likely growth of the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. between now and 2050, not taking into account changes in the flow of immigrants based on enforcement or the economy. Under the current system, all children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents are citizens, meaning illegal status is not passed down the line to future generations. The illegal immigrant population is younger, on average, than the population overall, and had about 340,000 babies in the U.S. in 2008 — about 8 percent of the total number of children born in the U.S. that year.
If those children were undocumented, they would pass down illegal status to their children. The report projects that by 2050, about 4.7 million undocumented immigrants would have been born in the U.S., 1 million of them to U.S.-born parents.
So the only policy solution that would make any sense for the Dred Scotters would be to round up and deport everyone in the country who is here without legal authorization. Then take away birthright citizenship. Because if you do it without getting rid of all the undocumented folks, well, you just end up with more undocumented people. But even Haley Barbour recognizes that "common sense tell us we’re not going to take 10 or 12 or 14 million people and put them in jail and deport them."
In other words, Republicans are short on common sense, long on crazy, divisive rhetoric. Nothing new in that, just sayin'.