Who is an American?

Regardless of their parentage, people who have lived here all their lives and are linguistically and culturally American are American. Law should acknowledge this fact. I would vote for the Dream Act, although the reality of these folks being our countrymen ought not to be conditioned upon their going to college or serving in the military. If they're PhD's, they're American PhD's and if they're criminals, they're American criminals. But if the bill passes it will likely be because it appeals to our sense of magnanimity. And that good feeling of granting citizenship to people who not quite fully entitled to it is bound up in those conditions.

On the other hand, a one-year-old who is deported along with its parents should be no more entitled to citizenship because it was born a week after its family came here than if had been born a week before. I'm inclined to think that changing the 14th Amendment to reflect this logic would cause more rancor than it's worth. But if we were starting from scratch, my view is that mere birth on American soil ought not to be sufficient qualification for citizenship.