14th Amendment Debate

The 14^th Amendment has been part of the U.S. Constitution since 1868. Under the law, anyone born in America is a citizen. But, in the past couple of days, several Republican have been working to end birthright citizenship.

Joanna Hernandez tells Big 2 News she is a Republican because of her religious beliefs. But when it comes to immigration reform, Hernandez said she has a hard time staying on the conservative side. Hernandez

doesn’t believe the 14^th Amendment needs to be changed. In fact, she believes if illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S., making their child a legal citizen, the parents should become legal citizens as well.

“If the parents are here illegally, but the child is a citizen; that’s still a child and they still need their parents,” said Hernandez.

"I would like to see it changed, because I think its encouraging people to come to the public hospitals and have their birth for free," said Laurie Moore, who lives in the metroplex.

Moore tells Big 2 News she’s forced to pay yearly taxes to support Parkland Hospital, a public medical facility, in Dallas. She said that more than 50% of babies born at Parkland are of illegal immigrants.

"It just frustrates me that it's free services to people who don't even live in the county and someone has to pay for it and we are paying for it," Moore said.

Craig Emmert is a political professor at UTPB. He said it would be possible to amend the 14^th Amendment, but it would be difficult. Emmert said to change the amendment it would require either passing a statute or adding a new constitutional amendment.

"But that requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate. Plus ratification in three-fourths of the states, all of those steps would be difficult to achieve in my judgment,” Emmert explained.