Focus on Anchor Babies Misses Broader Immigration Problems

Focus on Anchor Babies Misses Broader Immigration Problems | Economics21:
"The United States and Canada are the only two industrialized countries that confer automatic citizenship on babies born within the countries’ borders, even if their parents are not citizens. 
In the United States, this is a constitutional right.
The Fourteenth Amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States …”
...One answer is to go back to the basic immigration plans agreed upon by the congressional leaders in 2007 and 2013.  
This would allow undocumented workers without criminal convictions to pay a fine, receive a special visa allowing them to work legally, and place them in line for a green card behind existing applicants.
This approach did not pass because members from both parties objected. 
Some Democrats said it was too tough because recipients of the new visas would not be able to receive welfare payments for five years and family preferences for future immigration were restricted.
Some Republicans thought it was too easy, equivalent to "amnesty," a code word for opposition to immigrants, because it opened a path for undocumented workers to stay here legally—and did not fully address security problems at the Mexican border..."