Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011

Mr. President, today, along with Senator Wyden, we introduce bipartisan tax reform legislation, a piece of legislation that we believe, and hopefully we can gather a consensus in this body to believe, is necessary to be a component of addressing the current fiscal situation.

The Senator from South Dakota just articulated very well the plight we currently are facing with our current Federal deficit and accumulating debt. I don't think I could have said it better than he did. He laid out what I think most Americans are now realizing, and that is we have to get a grip on our current fiscal situation in this country if we are going to provide any kind of opportunity for the future--for prosperity, for opportunity for our young people to get good jobs, buy homes, raise a family, and send their kids to college. And even in a more current sense, we need to get our economy moving again to the point where we can get people back to work and become a prosperous leading nation in the world. We are gradually, and accelerating all the time, losing that position because of our fiscal situation.

This morning, a number of us met--both Republicans and Democrats--in one of a series of meetings we have been having with outside experts. Dr. Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff spoke to us this morning, both distinguished and respected economists, and others who have studied the situation, and they laid out the current status of our fiscal situation and the economic plight it is putting our country into. One of the things they said--and I think the reason I am on the floor this evening--is that unless we address all the aspects in dealing with our fiscal crisis, both in terms of excessive spending that is taking place, and has taken place over the last several years, as well as components for growth, we are not going to successfully address this.

We not only have to look at the spending which has accelerated dramatically in the last few years, and the amount of deficit we are accumulating every year, and the amount of debt we are rolling up, but we also have to look at ways of addressing that by cutting spending and also spurring the economy to growth. The component for growth pretty much falls along the lines of tax reform.

Senator Wyden had worked for 2 years with former Senator Gregg. They spent a great deal of time putting together a very comprehensive plan. Senator Gregg, as everyone here knows, retired after many years of distinguished service. He was recognized as one of the, if not the, leading proponent of budget stability, of economic growth, and of all the aspects that go into dealing with economic situations. He is greatly missed. I had the privilege of being his friend, serving with him, and then having him encourage me to take his place in moving this legislation forward.

I have spent the last 3 months working with Senator Wyden, who is coauthor of that legislation, along with Senator Gregg. We have made some refinements to this and we are introducing it today. We will be doing a formal introduction of it together in the coming days, but the agreement and the growing consensus we hear from everyone is that comprehensive tax reform has to be a component of addressing our fiscal plight and getting us back into a period of sustained growth.

S. 727 is the bill that will be available for people to look at--the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2011. It simplifies our current tax system, it holds down rates for individuals and families, it provides tax relief to the middle class, and creates incentives for businesses to grow and invest in the United States.

As we know, with any structure that is built, the first thing you do is build a solid foundation. What we are trying to do in our tax reform package is to build that foundation based on several basic principles. We believe that to bring forward legislation on a bipartisan basis we have to have a tax package that is revenue neutral, that is not stereotyped or characterized as a backdoor means of raising taxes or of cutting spending. Revenue neutrality means we can go forward knowing it is not used for that purpose but for the purpose of putting in place a tax system that will stimulate growth, provide for better competitiveness for our industries and businesses, and make us a more prosperous nation.

Simplification is a key foundational principle, as well as protection for the middle class and families--fairness across the board. And as I said earlier, economic growth. I want to address each of those.

First of all, achieving a revenue-neutral bill. This has been analyzed by the Joint Tax Committee, and basically we have information back that it is revenue neutral. This analysis is based on a static basis. As we all know, if you put in place policies that will encourage growth and stimulate growth, it becomes a dynamic scoring. But CBO doesn't do dynamic scoring, nor does the JTC--the Joint Tax Committee. But nevertheless, even at the static analysis of this bill, it achieves revenue neutrality. It is our goal to maintain that throughout, as adjustments might be made.

Simplifying the Tax Code has to be one of the very first things we do. Today, the U.S. Tax Code is 71,684 pages in length, and it includes a tangled web of over 10,000 exemptions, deductions, credits, and other preferences. I took three tax courses in law school, and I don't begin to understand the 10,000-plus exemptions and deductions and preferences that are in there. I turn it over to an accountant, who spends every working hour of his week, every day of the year trying to stay up with the complexity of this Tax Code.

It is no secret that Americans spend 6.1 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, and roughly $163 billion a year is spent on tax compliance. It is a great benefit for accountants and tax lawyers, but the average person simply cannot begin to comprehend the complexity of this code, and we pay a significant price for that.

Along that line, people feel a real sense of unfairness in this. They are always wondering if their neighbor has a better accountant or a better tax attorney or has figured out a way to take advantage of a deduction or exclusion or a tax preference that they may not be aware of. You know: You are having coffee on April 16 and talking about filing your taxes yesterday and saying: Well, you did take the deduction for X, Y or Z, didn't you? Or how about that extra room in your house you use for business? Or did you know you can deduct the cost of pencils, but also driving down to pick up a latte, or whatever, if you are meeting somebody for business? This stuff goes on and on forever. And you think: Gosh, I didn't know that. He got a better deal than I did.

We lose our sense of confidence in terms of the fairness of the tax system. So simplification is absolutely essential. And for a 71,000- plus page Tax Code, I think it is an absolute necessity.

We reduced the number of tax brackets for individuals, first of all, from six to three. We also eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which means you have to calculate your taxes twice, in many instances, to see which one is the higher and which one you pay. That doubles the amount of time, or it adds a lot to the amount of time.

I want to point to this chart here on my right, the Wyden-Coats Tax Reform Act of 2010. This is what a simplified U.S. individual tax return form will look like if this bill is passed. It is one page. It incorporates, obviously, the information about who you are and whether you are married, your spouse's Social Security number and yours, et cetera, et cetera; whether you are head of household, these very simple provisions here that are on the tax form now. We can all figure out how to work through to here.

Right here, you list your dependents and their relationship to you, and you get their Social Security numbers and then to see whether you qualify for a dependent's deduction, and then you check those off.

You list your capital gains and your dividends here. Your total income is added together, and then you adjust that by some very simple retained exemptions that we have not taken out, and deductions, and tax credits, all still on one page. You come down to the payment, and you either get a refund or you owe the government a little more money. And that is it. Then you send it in.

We also have a provision in there if you don't want to do this yourself or you have some confusion. It is basic enough. You can do it electronically or by telephone or whatever, and ask the IRS to do it for you. They will calculate it for you, send it to you, so you can review it and then certify that it is correct or that you have questions that can be answered.

Point No. 1: Simplification is absolutely necessary. It can be done, and we have structured it so with three

brackets that allow us and allow individuals to fill out their taxes on the basis of this simple form.

Thirdly, after revenue neutrality and simplification, we are talking about how do we use this to grow the economy. Clearly, with the fiscal situation we are in today, we are not going to solve our problem just by cutting or by raising taxes. We need to have a growth component so we can achieve more revenue through the prosperity and growth of corporations and income levels of individuals and so forth. So we are reforming our code in a way to help us get out of this fiscal situation by improving the prosperity and growth of the country.

Our current tax system places the employers and businesses at a disadvantage in the global marketplace. If you look at this chart on my left, the United States, out of the 36 most competitive countries competing for global business around the world, is 35th. We are 35th out of 36 in the highest rate of taxes paid by our corporations, and they are competing against countries such as Germany, France, Austria, Turkey, Chile, and all these that are listed here--Asian nations and so forth--that have much lower combined tax rates than the United States.

We want to lower this level of payment of taxes in the United States by U.S. businesses to 24 percent from the current rate of 35 percent. If we go by a combined rate, it ends up with numbers a little different than that, but we want to move the United States down here into the competitive area where we are competitive with all those countries that we compete with to sell products overseas in this global economy. We do that and pay for it by eliminating a lot of the credits, special preferences, exemptions, and deductions that are available in those 71,000 pages, resulting in 10,000 or more special exemptions. We eliminate a lot of those in return for a lower corporate rate.

I talked with a number of businesses--small, large, and medium--that were saying if we can just get the rate down where we are competitive, we do not need to dig into the Tax Code to try to find all these special exemptions. It has been called corporate welfare. It doesn't always fall into that category. Some of this is legitimate, but it is not across the board. While it addresses problems of a specific industry or a specific company, it does not address it across-the-board in a way for their competitors to be treated in the same way.

Under Wyden-Coats, we try to level the playing field and make investing in the United States more attractive to businesses of all sizes. We have a repatriation provision in there which at another time we will explain in more detail. But a number of organizations, including Heritage and the Manufacturers Alliance, have done studies and produced information that shows that a lowering of this rate is a job creator. It is a growth component. The Heritage Foundation found that the legislation could create up to 2.3 million new jobs a year, while cutting the Federal deficit by an average of $61 billion, just through the changes we have made in the corporate structure of taxation. The Manufacturers Alliance published a paper that concluded such an approach would ``create nearly 2 million jobs on a net basis and add an extra $500 billion to GDP by 2015.'' The alliance also estimated that the increase of economic activity from this legislation could reduce the debt by $1.2 trillion over the coming decade.

I wish to repeat that. While CBO or the Joint Tax might score this on a static basis--meaning that from lowering tax rates they do not calculate in what the potential growth from that might be in a fluid way, a dynamic way--history shows us that every time taxes are lowered, there is an uptick in economic activity and more important an uptick in the hiring and a drop in the unemployment rate. Getting us more competitive with our competitors around the world will clearly bring a yet undetermined number of more revenue coming into the Government based on higher profits by our companies and resulting in more employment. That is a key component of this tax reform.

Protecting the middle class and families is also another key component of our tax reform and of the Wyden-Coats plan. Today a family of four in Indiana making $90,000 and filing jointly would owe nearly $13,000 in personal income taxes. Under Wyden-Coats that family would keep more of their hard-earned money and save approximately $5,000 in personal income taxes.

We protect and extend important tax deductions for families. We do not eliminate all deductions to reach our simplified Tax Code with only three levels of taxation. Without increases, we retain the rates. We don't raise any of the rates that are currently in place. We keep the dependent tax credit, which is set to drop to $2,400 in 2 years. Under the Wyden-Coats plan, we permanently set that credit at $3,000, a benefit to families. The child tax credit is scheduled to revert to $500 in 2013. Wyden-Coats eases the tax burden on families by permanently setting the child tax credit at $1,000.

We promote personal saving and investment. We think it is important that we encourage saving and investment. Today we have three separate IRA or Individual Retirement Account plans for savings and investments available to individuals in the United States. Wyden-Coats promotes this by expanding tax-free saving opportunities and consolidating these three new accounts into one account that would allow a married couple to contribute up to $14,000 a year to tax-favored retirement and savings accounts.

We take the three current plans in existence, we consolidate them into one. We increase the amount per year that can be, tax-free, donated to those savings and retirement accounts as another way of looking out for families and their need to save for the future.

We are making the Tax Code fairer. Today our current tax system picks winners and losers, with hundreds of specialized tax rates that benefit some but not all. These credits, specialized earmarks within this Tax Code that we are working with today, total $1.1 trillion. We want to eliminate, under Wyden-Coats, a number of those exemptions and end a number of specialized tax breaks that favor one sector of the economy or special interest group over another. We want to level this out.

I recognize and Senator Wyden also recognizes that there will be issues with this bill, especially from groups that benefit from these special exemptions, but those special exemptions and tax earmarks often put other companies at a disadvantage, and it is time, as I said, to make our system fairer and more simple. Ronald Reagan once said: To put it simply, our tax system is unfair, it is inequitable, it is counterproductive and all but incomprehensible. Reagan went on to say that were he living at this time, even Albert Einstein would have to write to the IRS to help him fill out his 1040 form each year.

It is 25 years since we had any meaningful tax reform; 1986 was the last time. During that time, our Government has vastly expanded Tax Code reform into a complicated, tangled web of deductions and loopholes for tax lawyers to decipher. But if we can reform this Tax Code and encourage job investment here at home and, through doing this, create more American jobs and make our country more competitive in a global market, we will have taken a major step to moving forward in terms of addressing the fiscal plight we are currently in.

Senator Wyden and I are open to suggestion. This is not set in concrete. This is not a be-all, end-all plan. We don't have all the answers to this complex problem. But we think this is an essential start to a debate that is necessary to be accompanied by other solutions that we have to bring to our current fiscal situation. We want to put this in as a starter, as a way of saying 2 years-plus of hard work by two people who are knowledgeable about this topic--and I do not begin to bring myself up to the speed Senator Wyden and Senator Gregg achieved in the 2-plus years of very hard effort, but I am trying to learn as fast as I can. We want to bring forward a bipartisan, Democratic-Republican plan which we think is based on principles that are necessary to stimulate our growth and provide fairness and simplification of our Tax Code. We want to provide it. We are asking everybody to look at it, examine it, come to us with your questions. There will be a lot of things to like. There will be some constituents who will find some things they do not like because it takes away a special exemption that they perhaps depended

on. But we want to explain the basis on which we have made these decisions. We are open to suggestions, as long as those suggestions allow us to retain those basic principles and maintain us at revenue neutrality level and a fairness across-the-board to families and businesses and individuals throughout this country.

I urge my colleagues to take a look, to work with us. The door is open for us to sit down and talk, whether to colleagues in the Senate or families or businesses across the country who want to bring their special input to this particular effort. We look forward to working with them and, over time, incorporating this in the plan to make us a fiscally healthier country and a country that is growing and dynamic and can retain its place as a place of prosperity and opportunity for not only those of us today but for our future generations.

Mr. President, the Tlingit and Haida people, the first people of Southeast Alaska, were perhaps the first group of Alaska Natives to organize for the purpose of asserting their aboriginal land claims. The Native land claims movement in the rest of Alaska did not gain momentum until the 1960s when aboriginal land titles were threatened by the impending construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. In Southeast Alaska, the taking of Native lands for the Tongass National Forest and Glacier Bay National Monument spurred the Tlingit and Haida people to fight to recover their lands in the early part of the 20th century.

One of the first steps in this battle came with the formation of the Alaska Native Brotherhood in 1912. In 1935, the Jurisdictional Act, which allowed the Tlingit and Haida Indians to pursue their land claims in the U.S. Court of Claims, was enacted by Congress. After decades of litigation, the Native people of Southeast Alaska received a cash settlement in 1968 from the Court of Claims for the land previously taken to create the Tongass National Forest and the Glacier Bay National Monument. Yes there was a cash settlement of $7.5 million, but the Native people of Southeast Alaska have long believed that it did not adequately compensate them for the loss of their lands and resources.

When the Native people of Southeast Alaska chose to pursue their land claims in court they could not have foreseen that Congress would ultimately settle the land claims of all of Alaska's Native people through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA, of 1971. Nor could they have foreseen that they would be disadvantaged in obtaining the return of their aboriginal lands because of their early, and ultimately successful, effort to litigate their land claims.

The Claims Settlement Act imposed a series of highly prescriptive limitations on the lands that Sealaska Corporation, the regional Alaska Native Corporation formed for Southeast Alaska, could select in satisfaction of the Tlingit and Haida land claims. None of the other 11 Alaska-based regional Native corporations were subject to these limitations. Today, I join with my Alaska colleague, Sen. Mark Begich, to reintroduce legislation to right this wrong.

For the most part, Sealaska Corporation has agreed to live within the constraints imposed by the 1971 legislation. It has taken conveyance of roughly 290,000 acres from the pool of lands it was allowed to select under the 1971 act. As Sealaska moves to finalize its land selections, it has asked the Congress for flexibility to receive title to slightly different lands that it was not permitted to select under the 1971 legislation.

The legislation we are introducing today will allow Sealaska to select its remaining entitlement from outside of the withdrawal areas permitted in the 1971 legislation. It

The legislation we are introducing today will allow Sealaska to select its remaining entitlement from outside of the withdrawal areas permitted in the 1971 legislation. It allows the Native Corporation to select up to 3,600 acres of its remaining land entitlement from lands with sacred, cultural, traditional or historical significance throughout the Alaska Panhandle. Substantial restrictions will be placed on the use of these lands.

Up to 5,000 acres of land could be selected for non-timber or mineral related economic development. These lands are called ``Futures'' sites in the bill. Other lands referred to as ``economic development lands'' in the bill could be used for timber related and non-timber related economic development. These lands are on Prince of Wales Island, on nearby Kosciusko Island.

Sealaska observes that if it were required to take title to lands within the constraints prescribed by the 1971 legislation it would take title to large swaths of roadless acres in pristine portions of the Tongass National Forest, the original selection areas containing 112,000 acres of old-growth timber. The lands it proposes to take for economic uses under this legislation are predominantly in roaded and less sensitive areas of the Tongass National Forest, meaning that under this bill Sealaska likely will select roughly 39,000 fewer acres of old-growth than otherwise might be the case. In the process it will at most select 9 percent of the second-growth, leaving the U.S. Forest Service hundreds of thousands of the 428,972 acres of second-growth in the forest. It will be selecting about 28,570 acres of second-growth, leaving the Forest Service more than 88 percent of the second-growth in the forest for it to use to promote a ``young''-growth strategy in our Nation's largest national forest.

The pools of lands that would be available to Sealaska under this legislation are depicted on a series of maps referred to in the bill. It must be emphasized that not all of the lands depicted on these maps will necessarily end up in Sealaska's ownership. Sealaska by this legislation will not receive title to lands in excess of its remaining acreage entitlement under the 1971 legislation and this legislation does not change that entitlement total, still to be finalized by the Bureau of Land Management.

Now this legislation has traveled a long path, one that has seen it change substantially to meet a variety of concerns. Early in the 110th Congress, Alaska Congressman Don Young in 2007 introduced H.R. 3560 to address these issues. Later in September 2008 I introduced legislation similar to, but somewhat different from that bill to give all parties time to thoroughly review the measure. In 2009, I reintroduced the bill after Sealaska and the communities of Southeast Alaska worked collaboratively in good faith to identify issues that may arise from the transfer of lands on which those communities have relied on for subsistence and recreation out of the Tongass National Forest and into Native corporation ownership. Throughout 2009 and into 2010, I and my staff held 12 town meetings in Alaska to collect comments on the bill, and made modifications to it in response to the comments we received. When the bill did not advance in 2010, my staff again held two town meetings and other briefings this winter to gain additional comments and suggested changes in the bill. It is after these comments, and following email and letter suggestions from a variety of sources, that I and Senator Begich now move to reintroduce a new version of this bill. It will be somewhat different than a new bill also being introduced today by Congressman Young in the House, a bill more similar to his original bill from 2007.

The legislation we are introducing today in the 112th Congress is different from the original bill in numerous respects. In some cases, the lands open to Sealaska selection have changed from those that were available in the first House bill to accommodate community concerns. For example, this bill reduces the selection pool to about 79,000 acres. It allows for timber land selections in North Election Creek, Polk Inlet-McKenzie Inlet, near Keete, at 12 Mile Arm, at Calder, all on Prince of Wales Island, at several sites on Koscuisko Island and on northern Kuiu Island. These sites are far different than in 2009 since following comments, all of the areas on northern Prince of Wales involving Red Bay, Buster Creek and Labouchere Bay have been deleted

from the bill to meet the concerns of Port Protection and Point Baker residents. Also a large 12,462-acre parcel in the Keete area also was removed to accommodate environmentalist concerns. This bill also makes a series of map changes in these parcels, removing 745 acres at Karheen Lakes on Tuxekan Island to protect fisheries, and removes timber lands around Halibut Harbor and Cape Pole on Koscuisko Islands to also protect fishermen and boaters.

Concerning Future sites, this bill keeps 30 sites, specifically dropping the 30-acre Dog Cove site, near Naha, north of Ketchikan, as a result of State and community concerns and imposing a restriction against development for 15 years of a proposed geothermal site at Pegmatite Mountain, 25 miles north of Tenakee on Chichagof Island. That restriction allows the possibility of a renewable energy site to serve Hoonah and Pelican and perhaps Tenakee, if other projects can't first be completed to provide lower-cost power to those communities. The bill already has removed several dozen Future sites that had been proposed since 2007.

The bill in a change from the 2009 version includes a number of conservation areas, totaling 151,650 acres, to help protect fisheries and karst formations on Prince of Wales, Kupreanof, Kuiu and Sukkwan and Goat Islands. The conservation areas, first proposed after public comment in spring 2010, remove no timber lands from the current timber base, but do provide added protections to key fishery habitats such as those around Sarkar Lakes, Eek Lake, Bay of Pillars and Lovelace Creeks. Further to protect fisheries, this bill, as sought by many fishermen, imposes an 100-foot setback requirement for any timber lands conveyed to Sealaska from timber operations around class 1-A fish streams for 5 years--plenty of time for the State of Alaska to consider whether it needs to make any changes in its current State Forest Practices Act setback requirements.

The bill retains a series of changes made in the bill in the past to solve concerns over any unintended consequences that the bill might cause concerning the definition of Indian country in Alaska. It removes all sites from possible conveyance in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. It removes any presumption that any site qualifies as a sacred, cultural, traditional or educational site in Southeast, returning the nomination process for all such selections to the regulations that covered such selections immediately following the 1971 act's passage. And the bill incorporates a host of changes sought by governments, the state and a wide variety of groups and individuals to clarify language and solve concerns over everything from public access guarantees to access rights by bear guides. The bill maintains public access rights to all 17(b) easements and guarantees public access to all timber lands.

Sealaska also has offered a series of commitments to ensure that the benefits of this legislation flow to the broader Southeast Alaska economy and not just to the Corporation and its Native shareholders. The biggest is that all revenues will need to be shared under Section 7(i) of ANCSA with all other Native shareholders statewide.

We all hope that after 40 years that this measure can advance to passage this Congress and resolve the last land entitlement that Southeast Alaska's more than 20,000 Native shareholders have long had a right to receive. It is impossible to expect Alaska's Native corporations to provide meaningful assistance to Alaska's Native community if they continue to be denied the lands that Congress intended them to receive to utilize to provide economic benefits for the Native peoples of the State. I hope this measure can pass and become law before the 40th anniversary of the claims settlement act in December of this year. Justice delayed truly is justice denied.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, America's illegal immigration problem is clearly way out of control. We can all agree that we desperately need to better protect our borders, ensure that only citizens and legal residents can be hired for jobs in this country, and reverse misguided policies that serve as a magnet for further illegal immigration.

Today, I am introducing a bill that falls into that third category, to get rid of these magnets that encourage further illegal activity. The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationalization Act in order to change our current practice of granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens born on American soil. When it comes to U.S. citizenship, it is not just where an individual is born that matters, at least it should not be. The circumstances of the person's birth and the nationality of his or her parents are of at least equal importance. I simply do not believe our Constitution confers citizenship on children who happen to be born on U.S. soil when both of their parents are foreign tourists or illegal aliens. The Constitution does not mandate or require that. Yet that is our policy.

Each year, 300,000 to 400,000 children are born in the United States to at least one parent who is an illegal alien or a foreign tourist. A significant subset of that number includes children born to two parents who are not U.S. citizens--the category my bill attacks. Despite the illegal status and foreign citizenship of the parent, the executive branch of our government now automatically recognizes these children as U.S. citizens upon birth. This practice is not mandated by Federal law or the Constitution. It is based on what I believe is a fundamental misunderstanding of the 14th amendment of the Constitution. As such, this policy is incompatible with both the text and legislative history of the citizenship clause. I don't think the 14th amendment grants this birthright citizenship to children of illegal aliens. In fact, all we have to do is look at history and the actual text of the Constitution as our guide.

The 14th amendment does not say all persons born in the United States are citizens, period, end of story. It states that citizenship extends to ``all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.''

This latter phrase is important. It is conveniently ignored or misconstrued by advocates of birthright citizenship. But, of course, a fundamental rule in terms of constitutional interpretation is that words are assumed to be there for a purpose. If those words had no meaning, had no impact, then the Founders would not have written them into that part of the Constitution.

Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction a foreign government has over that person. That is why American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress actually passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

I am introducing today's legislation because it is apparent that Congress must reassert its plenary authority over naturalization and make clear that ``subject to the jurisdiction thereof'' does not include children born in this country to illegal aliens or foreign tourists. Those parents are clearly subject to the jurisdiction of foreign governments.

My bill limits birthright citizenship to individuals born in the United States to at least one parent who is a legal citizen, a green card holder, or an active member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Congress clearly has the power to determine that children born in the United States to illegal aliens are not subject to American jurisdiction.

As Judge Richard Posner, of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, held in a 2003 case: ``Congress would not be flouting the Constitution if it amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to put an end to this nonsense.'' That is exactly what my bill would do, put an end to this nonsense.

Closing this loophole will not prevent anyone from becoming a naturalized citizen. Instead, it will ensure that he or she has to go through the same process as anyone else born of foreign national parents who wants to become a U.S. citizen.

Our practice of birthright citizenship is clearly an incentive to illegal immigration. It does a disservice to every would-be citizen who is actually following the rules, applying to be naturalized, standing in line, often for a very long time.

This misguided policy of birthright citizenship not only undermines the stability of our immigration system, but it has severe fiscal consequences as well as serious national security implications. Recent news reports have highlighted the growing popularity of what is known as birth tourism.

Web sites actually advertise birth packages for foreign visitors so pregnant women can give birth in the United States and ensure automatic citizenship, under current practice, for their newborn children. Of course, with that automatic citizenship comes the full benefits thereof, including unlimited travel to the United States, educational benefits, and the ability to settle here as an adult and eventually, down the line, the ability to grab back the parents and get them into U.S. citizenship.

One such agency that appeals to foreign mothers to be by describing the benefits of American-born children, pointing out that a one-time investment in a birth package will result in a lifetime of benefits for their family was in the news recently. Specifically, it says: Your children will be able to attend U.S. public elementary schools and they may apply for scholarships designated for U.S. citizens and they are entitled to welfare benefits--all of this explicitly spelled out in the advertising for this agency.

Just last month, authorities in California shut down a makeshift maternity clinic after discovering 10 newborns and one dozen Chinese women who paid as much as $35,000 to travel to this country to give birth to children who would automatically be recognized as U.S. citizens.

Birth tourism, as amazing as this is, is not a new phenomenon, as women from other countries have long traveled to the United States legally, on tourist or student visas, and given birth while here. However, recent reports indicate that the practice is escalating. A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds that every year 200,000 children are born to women who were lawfully admitted to the United States on a temporary basis.

Each of these children receive U.S. citizenship, despite their mother's allegiance to a different country and even if the father is not a U.S. citizen. Birth tourism is certainly a reprehensible practice, but it is not an illegal one. It is astounding that the U.S. Government allows individuals to exploit the loopholes of our immigration system in this manner. It is obvious that Congress has the authority and the obligation to put an end to it.

In addition to this birth tourism--and by that I refer to focusing on tourists here legally under a tourist visa. Of course, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of children born in this country to two illegal immigrant parents, and those children, under the same practice, automatically become U.S. citizens.

This, too, is a very dangerous practice, a magnet to attract more and more illegal activity across the border, when we say we want to do everything to stop that. Certainly, if we truly want to do everything we can to stop that, we need to unplug those magnets, stop that policy from attracting more and more illegal crossings across the border.

So I introduce this important legislation today, and I thank Senators Paul and Lee and Moran for joining me in addressing this critical issue. I invite all the Members of the Senate to join me in doing this.

Mr. President, America's illegal immigration problem is clearly way out of control. We can all agree that we desperately need to better protect our borders, ensure that only citizens and legal residents can be hired for jobs in this country, and reverse misguided policies that serve as a magnet for further illegal immigration.

Today, I am introducing a bill that falls into that third category, to get rid of these magnets that encourage further illegal activity. The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationalization Act in order to change our current practice of granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens born on American soil. When it comes to U.S. citizenship, it is not just where an individual is born that matters, at least it should not be. The circumstances of the person's birth and the nationality of his or her parents are of at least equal importance. I simply do not believe our Constitution confers citizenship on children who happen to be born on U.S. soil when both of their parents are foreign tourists or illegal aliens. The Constitution does not mandate or require that. Yet that is our policy.

Each year, 300,000 to 400,000 children are born in the United States to at least one parent who is an illegal alien or a foreign tourist. A significant subset of that number includes children born to two parents who are not U.S. citizens--the category my bill attacks. Despite the illegal status and foreign citizenship of the parent, the executive branch of our government now automatically recognizes these children as U.S. citizens upon birth. This practice is not mandated by Federal law or the Constitution. It is based on what I believe is a fundamental misunderstanding of the 14th amendment of the Constitution. As such, this policy is incompatible with both the text and legislative history of the citizenship clause. I don't think the 14th amendment grants this birthright citizenship to children of illegal aliens. In fact, all we have to do is look at history and the actual text of the Constitution as our guide.

The 14th amendment does not say all persons born in the United States are citizens, period, end of story. It states that citizenship extends to ``all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.''

This latter phrase is important. It is conveniently ignored or misconstrued by advocates of birthright citizenship. But, of course, a fundamental rule in terms of constitutional interpretation is that words are assumed to be there for a purpose. If those words had no meaning, had no impact, then the Founders would not have written them into that part of the Constitution.

Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction a foreign government has over that person. That is why American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress actually passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

I am introducing today's legislation because it is apparent that Congress must reassert its plenary authority over naturalization and make clear that ``subject to the jurisdiction thereof'' does not include children born in this country to illegal aliens or foreign tourists. Those parents are clearly subject to the jurisdiction of foreign governments.

My bill limits birthright citizenship to individuals born in the United States to at least one parent who is a legal citizen, a green card holder, or an active member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Congress clearly has the power to determine that children born in the United States to illegal aliens are not subject to American jurisdiction.

As Judge Richard Posner, of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, held in a 2003 case: ``Congress would not be flouting the Constitution if it amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to put an end to this nonsense.'' That is exactly what my bill would do, put an end to this nonsense.

Closing this loophole will not prevent anyone from becoming a naturalized citizen. Instead, it will ensure that he or she has to go through the same process as anyone else born of foreign national parents who wants to become a U.S. citizen.

Our practice of birthright citizenship is clearly an incentive to illegal immigration. It does a disservice to every would-be citizen who is actually following the rules, applying to be naturalized, standing in line, often for a very long time.

This misguided policy of birthright citizenship not only undermines the stability of our immigration system, but it has severe fiscal consequences as well as serious national security implications. Recent news reports have highlighted the growing popularity of what is known as birth tourism.

Web sites actually advertise birth packages for foreign visitors so pregnant women can give birth in the United States and ensure automatic citizenship, under current practice, for their newborn children. Of course, with that automatic citizenship comes the full benefits thereof, including unlimited travel to the United States, educational benefits, and the ability to settle here as an adult and eventually, down the line, the ability to grab back the parents and get them into U.S. citizenship.

One such agency that appeals to foreign mothers to be by describing the benefits of American-born children, pointing out that a one-time investment in a birth package will result in a lifetime of benefits for their family was in the news recently. Specifically, it says: Your children will be able to attend U.S. public elementary schools and they may apply for scholarships designated for U.S. citizens and they are entitled to welfare benefits--all of this explicitly spelled out in the advertising for this agency.

Just last month, authorities in California shut down a makeshift maternity clinic after discovering 10 newborns and one dozen Chinese women who paid as much as $35,000 to travel to this country to give birth to children who would automatically be recognized as U.S. citizens.

Birth tourism, as amazing as this is, is not a new phenomenon, as women from other countries have long traveled to the United States legally, on tourist or student visas, and given birth while here. However, recent reports indicate that the practice is escalating. A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds that every year 200,000 children are born to women who were lawfully admitted to the United States on a temporary basis.

Each of these children receive U.S. citizenship, despite their mother's allegiance to a different country and even if the father is not a U.S. citizen. Birth tourism is certainly a reprehensible practice, but it is not an illegal one. It is astounding that the U.S. Government allows individuals to exploit the loopholes of our immigration system in this manner. It is obvious that Congress has the authority and the obligation to put an end to it.

In addition to this birth tourism--and by that I refer to focusing on tourists here legally under a tourist visa. Of course, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of children born in this country to two illegal immigrant parents, and those children, under the same practice, automatically become U.S. citizens.

This, too, is a very dangerous practice, a magnet to attract more and more illegal activity across the border, when we say we want to do everything to stop that. Certainly, if we truly want to do everything we can to stop that, we need to unplug those magnets, stop that policy from attracting more and more illegal crossings across the border.

So I introduce this important legislation today, and I thank Senators Paul and Lee and Moran for joining me in addressing this critical issue. I invite all the Members of the Senate to join me in doing this.

Mr. President, cell phones today are becoming ubiquitous and more essential to our everyday lives. Americans today have over 300 million wireless phones.

We use these phones in new and innovative ways. Consumers today increasingly use their cell phones for much more than just talking. Mobile broadband services now allow us to surf the Internet, search for nearby shops or restaurants, and watch videos right on our wireless handsets.

Since we now use these devices in new ways, it can be more difficult for consumers to realize they have exceeded their monthly subscriptions for cell phone service. This can have dramatic consequences for consumers.

Consider the case of a Navy ROTC midshipman who mistakenly left his smartphone's roaming function turned on while he was abroad. His phone downloaded e-mail messages, and he was sent a bill for almost $1,300. News outlets have highlighted other cases from across the country, including cases where children on family subscription plans racked up thousands of dollars in extra charges. A 13-year-old's cell phone data usage led to a bill for almost $22,000.

Bob St. Germain of Massachusetts was billed $18,000 for a 6-week period when his son used a cell phone to connect a computer to the Internet. I am proud to have Mr. St. Germain's support for the legislation I am introducing today. Unfortunately, these stories we hear about in the media are certainly not isolated cases, just the most egregious.

In fact, a recent Federal Communications Commission, FCC, survey found that 30 million Americans, or 1 in 6 adult cell phone users, have experienced cases of ``bill shock.'' Cell phone bill shock occurs when a consumer's monthly bill increases when they have not changed their plan. In about one in four cases, the consumer's bill increased by more than $100. According to a survey by Consumers Union, the publishers of Consumer Reports magazine, the median bill shock amount was $83.

With new, advanced developments in technology, bill shock is a growing problem. The introduction of faster ``4G'' networks will make it easier than ever for customers to burn through data limits. Americans who have cell phone ``family plans'' with multiple phone lines may face even greater difficulty monitoring their usage. More and more cell phone companies are dropping their unlimited data plans, and the risk of bill shock only stands to get worse.

Although consumers can already access their phone usage by requesting this information from their cell phone provider, the FCC survey found that almost 85 percent of American consumers who suffered bill shock were not alerted that they were about to exceed their allowed voice minutes, text messages, or data downloads.

In many cases, a simple alert message would help consumers avoid bill shock. That is why today I am pleased to introduce the Cell Phone Bill Shock Act of 2011.

This legislation is similar to what I proposed in the last Congress. It would require that cell phone companies do two things: first, that they notify cell phone customers when they have used 80 percent of their limit of voice minutes, text messages, or data usage. This notification could be in the form of a text message or email, and should be free of charge. Second, this legislation would require cell phone companies to obtain a customer's consent before charging for services in excess of their limit of voice, text, or data usage. Customers could give such consent by calling or sending a free text message or email to their phone company.

In the European Union, wireless phone companies already provide similar notifications when wireless consumers are roaming and when they reach 80 percent of their monthly data roaming services.

Congress already approved legislation to help consumers avoid bank overdraft fees from debit card and ATM transactions. Banks must now obtain their customer's permission before allowing debit card transactions which would incur overdraft fees. My legislation extends that same concept to cell phone customers, who should benefit from similar protections against ``bill shock.''

The texting and Internet capabilities that make today's cell phones more useful than ever should be applied to help consumers avoid bill shock. Sending an automatic text notification to one's phone or an email alert should not place a burden on cell phone companies. Passing my commonsense legislation will help prevent consumers from facing ``bill shock'' problems in the future.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.