There is a story in today's Arizona Republic on how the US Border Patrol will start to punish repeat border violators (Border Patrol to toughen policy on illegal immigrants): 

Now, a first-time offender faces different treatment than one caught two or three times. A fourth-time violator faces other consequences... In Southern California, the U.S. attorney's office doesn't participate in a widely used Border Patrol program that prosecutes even first-time offenders with misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in custody, opting instead to pursue only felonies for the most egregious cases, including serial border-crossers and criminals.

Whether or not this change in US Border Patrol policy will be enough is open to debate. Some lawmakers believe the only way to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States is to remove the automatic birthright of anyone who is born in the United States (Republicans Eye Change to Birthright Citizenship). 

But now at least one prominent Republican lawmaker wants to change the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which grants American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.

"Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Fox News last week. "We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen."

While making this change may seem dramatic, it is not that unusual. I was born in France to legal residents but I never was a French citizen because my parents were not French residents for at least 5 years when I was born. Also, I have adult relatives born in Germany who are not still not German citizens.  I wonder if it's a coincidence that working class French and German citizens have a much higher standard of living than their American counterparts?