Anchor Babies

I read an article from the Denver Post about problem with babies being born in America, and being granted citizenship, also known as "anchor babies." The author felt that words in the Constitution, specifically the 14th amendment should be changed. Ireland recently changed a few words up in their Constitution about granting babies born in their country citizenship. They changed it so the baby needs to have at least parent who is a citizen of Ireland. This seems like a very good idea to solve the problem of "anchor babies." The even bigger issue is what happens to the parents when they have a child born in America. They are not citizens but their child is. Personally I think the baby should stay with the parents because families should stick together. The couple problems that I can think of for allowing the 14th Amendment to be changed where one parent must be a citizen is one, changing an Amendment around would never get done. People love and believe in the American Amendments, and feel that the Amendments are the basis of America, so it would be very hard to change around something as important as Amendment. Two, what happens to the other parent that is not an American citizen. This would split the family up even more, and in the end we are back to the same problem as before.

Border Fencing Is Crucial to Ensure American Security

Contrasting the last article I read, this one talks about how a border fence is necessary. At first I highly doubted that America would build a fence all along the border between Mexico and America, but instead they simply want to build fences covering the very rough parts of the border, where most of the drug trafficking occurs. This is not that far-fetched and seems like a pretty good idea to limit some of the bad drugs into America. However will it ever get done? The article on opposing view points said that to date only 12 miles of fencing has been done, with a plan of fencing 854 miles. The author of the article seemed upset that so little had been done, because the writer felt that it was the governments duty from the Secure Fence Act to finish completing the fence. It seems like whatever the government wants to get done takes forever to complete, so this person should not expect much. Some of the reasons why the author felt the fence needed to be built were a little out there, for example that it could stop the next major terrorist attack. But it could also help slow down the drug trafficking on the border. Overall I feel like some parts of the border should be fenced up, but even if its fenced, people will still figure out a way to come into America. No matter what border enforcement tries to do, people will still find a way to come into the country.

"Border Fencing is a Bad Policy"

I read an article on Opposing Viewpoints about how building a fence along the boarder would not be a good idea, and is a bad policy. The article had six reasons for why it wouldn't work. The first reason is that it wouldn't work. People have been getting through the border illegally for hundreds of years. No matter what way America tries to keep people out of the country, people are still going to find a way to get into the country illegally. The second reason is that it makes the problem worse. They brought up statistics how people used to just come to the border and work for a season, then go back. Now, however, people are trying to sneak in illegally and it causes many problems. This brings up the point that when things get harder and riskier to do, more people want to do it. Another great point that the article had was how costly it is to build a fence. Are economy is so bad that the pros of building a fence to not out way the cons to build in entire fence. Also Hispanics who come into the country might actually be benefiting the economy. At the end of the article they were unable to come up with any conclusion on what to do with the illegal immigration problem, but they did conclude that building a fence would not be the best idea. I also agree with this. I definitely do not think that building a fence would work, and it seems very far-fetched.