An op-ed I read in Tuesday, August 31’s USA Today made some valid points regarding birthright citizenship loopholes that illegal workers exploit in order to stay in their U.S. jobs. I hope the points made in this editorial will convince you to sponsor a Senate version of H.R. 1868, a House bill to eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens.

Less-educated citizens and legal immigrants have had high rates of joblessness since before the 2007 economic downturn, yet they continue to compete with 8 million illegal workers for jobs in construction, manufacturing and the service industries. Replacing illegal workers with unemployed citizens and legal immigrants has proven difficult, in part, because many illegal workers have U.S. born children who have been granted U.S. citizenship. The federal government has been slow to remove illegal aliens with citizen children. Birthright citizenship has become a de-facto path to permanent residency for illegal workers, and an obstacle to unemployed Americans who need those jobs to support their own children.

This is an unsustainable situation for 30 million jobless Americans. Either the federal government must fully enforce immigration law against all illegal aliens, including those with U.S.-born children, or the U.S. should abandon the archaic practice of giving away citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.

Please introduce legislation similar to H.R. 1868 to protect jobless citizens and legal immigrants from the federal government’s failure to fully enforce immigration laws by clarifying (not changing) the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment.

Phone me if you would like to talk about this.

Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA

P.S. The U.S. is the only first-world country that allows this, and it’s not even legal! We Must end this practice immediately, and retroactively if possible.