Natural Born, Or Not

Is there a law on the books that simultaneously protects the rights and the safety of minors born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil - thus becoming American citizens - if their parents were deported?

Moot point. As far as I know, the courts have already ruled that children born of illegals while in this country are not citizens.

Updated, 4/5/2006, 15:45

I was going on memory for that statement. I recall some discussion in the courts on the topic, but I don't remember detail. I'm researching for right now. Stay tuned.

Update #2, 4/5/2006, 16:21

I should have grabbed the article on the topic again before reciting from memory. A challenge to the current interpretation of the fourteenth amendment has been launched on a couple of occasions, but has gotten nowhere. The challenge states that current immigration practice misinterprets the natural-born language in the amendment and ignores the clear intention of the authors, which was to exclude "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States" (Jacob Howard, 1866). At the moment, the status of children born to illegals is ambiguous, so the status quo stands.

In any case, to Strother's original question, Congress needs to act to explicitly reject the notion of "anchor babies." If the courts refuse to act on the ambiguity, then it is always appropriate for Congress to do so. If their parents were illegal when they were born here, then they are illegal as well and need to be returned to the country of their parents' origin.