In an opinion piece, Jan Ting, a professor at Temple’s Beasley School of Law, questions the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which says that all children born in this country, whether to illegal aliens or temporary tourists, are granted automatic U.S. citizenship. "So if we want to encourage more of those considering illegal immigration to the United States, all we have to do is lower the costs and increase the benefits. Conversely, if we want to discourage them, we have to increase the costs and decrease the benefits. So we cannot expect illegal immigration to diminish if we lower the costs through nonenforcement and increase the benefits through amnesty or a liberal interpretation of the 14th Amendment," Ting wrote.