I'm No 'Anchor Baby,' I'm an American

SAN JOSE, Calif.--America has hit rock bottom in the immigration debate. Not satisfied with "cracking down" on people who enter this country without authorization, some in Congress now want to take away the right to citizenship of American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

As the son of an undocumented immigrant, and as an American citizen by birth, I know the power that citizenship gives me. I also know what taking it away would mean to a generation of children of immigrants.

The Citizenship Reform Act, currently in subcommittee in the House, is un-American. It goes against the 14th Amendment, which says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." This provision was designed to protect freed slaves. Now it feels like undocumented immigrants are America's new slave class. This country depends on our labor but does not want to afford us the protections of law.

The bill is based on the belief that undocumented immigrants came here with an evil plan to have babies, so those babies can sponsor their parents for citizenship once they become 21. This might sound like an irrational plan, but enough people believe in it that they've even given children born here to undocumented parents a name -- "anchor babies."

I didn't realize I had a different status from my mother until I was a teenager. We were coming back from a visit to Mexico. My mom's visa had expired just weeks earlier. When we were going through customs, an immigration official told my mother she could not come in because she was a "foreigner." My mom had to stay in Mexico for a year. I had to live with my aunt and uncle during that time. Not having papers can rip a family apart.

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