Some of my best friends are U.S. citizens, but designing an executive amnesty around granting legal status to their parents is a particularly bad idea.
I was reminded of this when reading one of the many speculative media musings about the possible shape of a post-election executive amnesty.
Such articles note that the president is unlikely to try to grant legal status to all illegals (thank goodness for small favors!). He is, therefore, likely to design an amnesty for some defined subset of illegal aliens, such as those who have been here for a while, or who are the parents of U.S. citizens. The latter would be mostly young to very young, and most would be citizens because of their birth in the United States.
My objection is based on the fact that other aliens, currently outside the country, would look at this precedent and calculate that the smart thing for them to do is to: 1) come to the United States illegally, and 2) promptly have a child here.
An executive amnesty is bad enough for a number of reasons, and all such amnesties would tend to encourage future illegal immigration, but one that would encourage both illicit entries and the birth of more children (mostly in poverty), is worse than the others.
Further, this is a sort of two-for-the-price-of-one deal; in many cases a single citizen child will have two illegal alien parents.
We have an adequate number of people, generally, and an abundant number of people in poverty, without encouraging the expansion of the latter part of the population still further.