EDITORIAL: Fix immigration, not the Constitution

Calls to rewrite the Constitution's 14th Amendment, to deny citizenship to babies born in this country to mothers here illegally, demonstrate how urgently the nation needs immigration reform. The longer the system's failings fester, the more susceptible we'll be to such demagoguery.

Rather than playing to the crowd, officials should solve the problem, which means doing a better job of securing the borders, policing illegal hiring, providing a route to legalization for undocumented immigrants already here, and repairing the balky legal immigration system.

Without that sort of comprehensive reform, frustration with the status quo will continue to spawn excesses like Arizona's round-up law and the proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to gut the 14th Amendment provision that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

The goal is to eliminate the incentive for women to come here illegally to have "anchor babies" who are automatically U.S. citizens. There's no real tally of how often that happens. And having one delivers little immediate advantage for parents. Those babies must wait until they are 21 years old before they can even petition for legal status for their parents.

Anyone born in the United States should be a citizen of the United States. That clear line of demarcation shouldn't be lost in the anti-immigrant fury of the moment. hN