Wrong Target on Immigration

The 14th Amendment to the federal Constitution, passed after the Civil War, guarantees that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. . . .” Simple, emphatic language.

Now Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-San Diego) is trying to get Congress to enact a law barring automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants on the ground that their parents are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and owe allegiance elsewhere.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is considering supporting Bilbray’s bill. It shouldn’t. If the supervisors feel they really must speak out on the federal matter of immigration, they would do better to demand that Washington make good on the obligation to help localities meet the fiscal demands put on them by immigration.

And they should take more care to avoid jabbing their thumbs in the eyes of Orange County’s burgeoning minority populations. Most in those groups are citizens; many are immigrants themselves, and others are the children and grandchildren of men and women who came here to seek better lives. They are legitimately concerned by what they see as increasing anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and especially in California.

San Diego supervisors unanimously backed Bilbray’s proposed law, which he said if passed would go directly to the Supreme Court to decide whether it’s constitutional--which it almost certainly is not.

Orange County supervisors supporting Bilbray say they are concerned about the cost of welfare benefits granted to the children of families in which the children are legal and the parents not. Of course, no illegal immigrant is entitled to any direct welfare payment.

Bilbray contends, wrongly, that his bill would not punish children; it would merely change the current practice of “rewarding” them for the illegal acts of their parents.

The solution to illegal immigration lies at the border, not in the welfare offices or hospitals where the undocumented sometimes wind up. It is important to remember also that they have come not for benefits but for jobs.