Changing 14th Amendment Will Expand Bureaucracy, Warns Immigration Attorney

Altering the 14th amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship would expand bureaucracy and could create a complicated birth registry, according to Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and adjunct professor of political science at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“If a state birth certificate is no longer presumptive proof that  someone is an American then some government bureaucracy is going to have to make that decision,” Stock said during a briefing held Monday by the Libertarian CATO Institute. “It’s going to cost money, government agencies are going to get it wrong, so there’s going to be a lot of litigation, and were going to end up…with a National Birth Registry.”

The notion of altering the amendment as an attempt to stem the number of illegal immigrants coming to the United States has gained some traction within recent months, including from moderate Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

“I’m looking at the laws that exist and see if it makes sense today,” Graham said in a July interview with Fox News. “Birthright citizenship doesn’t make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”