Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he still would like to see hearings on abuses of the 14th Amendment by illegal immigrants who come
“„“What’s wrong with looking into this? The Washington Postdid,” McConnell (R-KY) told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. [...]
“„Pushed to explain what outcome he expects from hearings, McConnell said he wasn’t sure what “remedy” would be presented. Still, it should be done, he said, adding : “Why don’t we take a look at it?”
“„I don’t like illegals having U.S.-citizen kids any more than anyone else, but there’s no evidence suggesting that this “drop and leave” stuff is true — anything’s possible, I suppose, but it’s just an assertion at this point. My own sense is that most illegal alien women who have kids here (accounting for nearly 10 percent of all children born in the U.S. each year) didn’t come for that purpose; they came for jobs or to join relatives, and one thing led to another, birds-and-bees style, and they had kids. There are no doubt some people who dash across the border illegally to have kids, but they just can’t amount to a large share of the problem. Nor does the problem of “birth tourism” require a change in the Constitution — we just need to permit (and require) our consular officers to reject visa applications from pregnant women, inviting them to re-apply once they’ve given birth in their own countries.