Correct the birthplace citizenship interpretation for economic security

The New York Times recently published a story about a six-month pregnant Honduran woman who committed a felony by illegally re-crossing the southern border after a prior deportation because she would “do anything” to have her baby born on U.S. soil to gain U.S. citizenship. But if the New York Times was aiming for sympathy for the birthplace citizenship policy, it backfired on social media. 

That article was published on the heels of new Pew Research Center data that found that in 2023, nearly 1 in 10 births among the 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. that year were to mothers here either illegally or with temporary immigration status. The Department of Homeland Security stated that the U.S. Border Patrol encountered over 15,000 pregnant women illegally crossing the border in 2023. After President Donald Trump took office, that number dropped by 81%.  

In Peter Schweizer’s new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, he reports that 50,000 to 100,000 Chinese babies are born in the U.S. each year to Chinese mothers who practice birth tourism in the U.S. or to American surrogate mothers before the U.S. citizen babies return to China to be raised there. The Chinese Communist Party supports these tactics, particularly among Chinese elites, raising U.S. national security concerns. These Chinese-raised U.S. citizens can return to the U.S. as adults to vote, join the U.S. military, become federal employees, and petition for their relatives to join them in the U.S. 

For babies born to illegal or temporary status parents who remain in the U.S., the taxpayers are significantly affected by high costs. First, these children are eligible for all government welfare benefits, including cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services, which are provided to the otherwise ineligible parent for the benefit of the child. The children also receive free K-12 public education at an average yearly cost of $20,100 per student.

Some argue that illegal immigrants don’t impose costs on U.S. taxpayers because they cannot receive welfare. This is wrong in multiple respects. First, illegal immigrants are fully eligible for free means-tested government healthcare through Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital funding. Free healthcare to illegal immigrants is also provided by some 10,000 federally funded community health centers, and through other government programs. 

Illegal immigrants also use public roads, parks, sewers, police, and fire protection, which accelerates wear and tear on our infrastructure and increases the need for both expanded infrastructure and first responder services. Others on the right often omit these high costs in their cost/benefit calculations. 

On average, illegal immigrants receive $2.40 in government benefits and services for every $1 in taxes paid. A report by the National Academies of Sciences shows that the fiscal cost of immigrants rises sharply as their education level declines. 

Immigrants with only a high school degree or less impose net costs on U.S. taxpayers that continue for generations. On average, a four-year college degree is required for someone in the U.S. to pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. NAS estimates that only 15% of children of immigrants with at most a high school education will themselves graduate from college.

At least 40% of adult illegal immigrants lack a high school degree compared with 6% of U.S.-born adults. Some 30% have eight years or less of education. With low education levels, illegal aliens tend to have lower wage jobs, paying little in taxes while receiving many government benefits and services.      

The Biden administration brought an average of over 2.7 million inadmissible immigrants into the U.S. during each year of its presidency. Estimates of the current number of inadmissible immigrants residing in the U.S. range from 16 million to 20 million or more. Assuming the lower estimate of 16 million, illegal immigrants impose a net fiscal cost (government benefits received minus taxes paid) of $130 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. How much is $130 billion? It is the equivalent of a 95-cent tax increase on every gallon of gas sold in the U.S. 

A second economic effect of the mass influx of low-skill illegal immigrants is the suppression of wages and employment among the vulnerable U.S.-born workers who compete with them. Nearly 100 academic studies have examined this topic, of which 86% reported the commonsense result: Low-skill immigrants push down the earnings and employment of lower-skilled, U.S.-born workers. The negative impact is most pronounced among black males. The aforementioned National Academy of Sciences report indicates that low-skill immigrants (both legal and illegal) may have already reduced the wages and employment of similar U.S.-born workers by as much as 30%. 

The erosion of male wages and employment undermines marriage and family structure in low-income communities, which, in turn, greatly increases social and welfare costs on the domestic side of the ledger. Note, 70% of black children are now born outside of marriage. The principal liberal theory for this dramatic decline in marriage and the black family structure has been the decline of black male wages and employment. If this explanation is even partially correct, low-skill immigration will continue to have devastating impacts on low-income black populations, but others on the Right do not discuss this ill effect. 

The costs of mass illegal immigration are economically and socially unsustainable for the U.S. to survive as a nation for another 250 years. The erroneous birthplace citizenship interpretation of the 14th Amendment has been a significant pull factor of illegal immigration for decades, which has brought national and economic security threats to our country. 

It is past time to correct the interpretation of the 14th Amendment: A child born in the U.S. must have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. 

Robert Rector is a senior research fellow on health and welfare policy at The Heritage Foundation. Lora Ries is the director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center.