Breitbart News -- Caroline May

Approximately 350,000 to 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. each year. Due to current policy, all automatically become U.S. citizens, Center for Immigration Studies legal policy analyst Jon Feere testified before a House panel Wednesday.

“To put this in perspective this means that one out of 10 births in the U.S. is to an illegal immigrant mother,” Freere said at a House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security hearing titled “Birthright Citizenship: Is It The Right Policy For America?”

He explained that, regardless of the foreign allegiance and/or illegal status of the parents, their children, if born on U.S. soil, are automatically afforded the benefits of U.S. citizenship, including a Social Security Number and U.S. passports. This benefit also applies, he noted, to those born to mere tourists and other people with temporary status in the U.S.

“It is unlikely that Congress intended such a broad application of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, and the Supreme Court has only held that children born to citizens or permanently domiciled immigrants must be considered U.S. citizens at birth. Some clarity from Congress would be helpful in resolving this ongoing debate,” Feere said.