The Republican-led rebellion rising out of state legislatures to
redefine the 14th Amendment and end guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in
the country is a distraction of epic proportions. It recklessly challenges the
national government's power to decide who is an American, and the system of
federalism itself.

    
There would be no real issue of birthright citizenship if we had
comprehensive reform that ended the current high level of illegal immigration.
Reports of tourists who come here expressly to have an American-born child may
be galling, but they are anecdotal and the numbers are too small to even
register.

    
It is the estimated 4 million American-born children of one or more
unauthorized immigrants who are the real practical concern, and they were born
in the United States because their parents came to this country to work.

    
The "anchor baby" concept that nativists say drives illegal
immigration is wrong. A child born here to noncitizen parents must grow to
adulthood before he or she can apply to legalize the father and mother, who
still must wait many years to get a visa. For adults in Mexico, China or
elsewhere considering whether to go illegally to the United States, that is a
benefit too far off to figure much in the calculation. They come for jobs
needed now.

    
State legislators and voters are right to be frustrated with
Washington's inaction in fixing our immigration system, but
"Washington" is the congressmen and senators we sent there. We need
to make them do their jobs.

    
Polls repeatedly show that most Americans agree on the basic outlines of
immigration reform. It would include a legal temporary worker system that
replaces the de facto illegal program we now have. It would further offer an
earned pathway to legalization or citizenship for the estimated 11 million
unauthorized immigrants now here in that de facto system. And it would continue
tightening our already highly ratcheted-up enforcement.

    
The combination of a legal work program and tough enforcement would meet
the demands of American farmers, builders, high-tech industries and other
businesses while stopping more unauthorized immigrants from coming in.

    
This deal has long been within reach, if only Republicans and Democrats
in Congress could get away from their respective extreme bases and respond to
what the majority of Americans want.

    
Instead, we are now being treated to a needless political circus over
birthright citizenship brought to us by misguided conservatives in our state
legislatures who mostly are out to sucker punch President Obama and the Democrats.

    
Limiting birthright citizenship makes sense on the surface. In a modern
world of easy transportation, for example, why should a child born to a tourist
in the U.S. be automatically an American citizen? The 14th amendment, ratified
in 1868, grew out of guaranteeing citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil
War and to the children of immigrants when the nation was still wide open to
settlement. Few nations are so generous today.

    
It is the Supreme Court that has regularly given a blanket interpretation
to the 14th Amendment requirement that citizenship applies to "all persons
born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof."

    
As much as immigrant advocates oppose giving any ground, the president
would be wise not to fall on his sword defending the court's interpretation.
Rather, he should make reasonable constitutional arguments that caution moving
with care, and reach out to a Republican senator who has been doing the same:
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham last year called for hearings to
explore whether and how to proceed on changing birthright citizenship,
including amending the Constitution, a long-term process.

    
The "model" state citizenship laws creating different types of
birth certificates that were released this week by Republican legislators from
Arizona, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Georgia -- with legislators
in perhaps 40 states said to be in line behind them -- are unprecedented in
their coordinated state attack on federal power. They almost surely will be
rejected out of hand by the courts on federalism grounds, without even
addressing birthright citizenship.

    
It's all so irresponsible.

© 2011, The Washington Post Writers Group