@Zardoz,
Heyas, in my own family, it would be one big clusterfuck if birthright citizenship went away.
My father is the child of immigrants (Grandma was from what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire but that particular plot of land is now in Ukraine; Grandpa was from Romania). My mother was the grandchild of immigrants (mother's family were from Poland and Romania IIRC and father's family were from Romania and
maybe Russia).
If birth doesn't convey citizenship, then how far back do we have to go? Does my dad have to take a citizenship test? He's 94, almost completely blind, and no longer competent to handle his own affairs. Making him take any sort of test is ludicrous, and it's a helluva slender thread for both my brother and me (and potentially also my nephew) to have to hold onto, in terms of citizenship.
Do my brother and I have to take the test? If we do, then what about my cousins, who are the daughters of Dad's late brother? Do they have to, because there's no parent left to take theirs?
What if somebody fails the test? If I fail, then it's just on me, presumably. And I suppose I can be sent to El Salvador (at least I can speak the language) or South Sudan or wherever because no one can figure out where I'm really from anymore. But if my brother fails, does that automatically mean my nephew fails, too? He's 29 years old and does IT for the Navy. Which means he's got some sort of clearance, IIRC. Forcing him out of the country is just plain dumb.
In a very small way, we're semi-lucky, seeing as we're full-blooded Jews (and not converts) and have the right of return. We could claim Israeli citizenship and go there, assuming there's still an Israel by then.
But what about our neighbors, who have their own issues? Immigrant coworkers who worked so hard to become citizens—since they already took and passed the test, do they have to take it again?
The US could end up a land of folks from India and Slovakia and Brazil and the like who've already passed, if this is taken to its absurdist conclusion.
Who's an immigrant? Who's required to prove they have the right to be here? Is it if you have just one immigrant grandparent? One immigrant great-grandparent? One parent? This is starting to sound like mullatos, quadroons, and octoroons? Or is one drop of immigrant blood enough? 'Cause if it is, then we're talking about the same standard that the Nazis used for determining if someone was Jewish.
This is a bureaucratic nightmare that would be really easy to prevent.....