Republican lawmakers in Congress who support the bill argue that undocumented immigrants are coming to this country to have babies so they can get welfare. Co-sponsor of the bill Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita, Calif., says automatic citizenship is "an incentive for people to come here and quickly have a baby. ... Since the baby is a citizen, it's harder to send the family back to where they came from."

Rep. Gary Miller of Brea, Calif., is another co-sponsor of the bill, and says of undocumented immigrants: "They come here, have babies, the children are eligible to go to school, receive food stamps and social programs. American taxpayers are paying for it."

With all due respect to the congressmen, their premise is as insulting as it is arrogant. They are assuming that the millions of people who are in this country without the proper documentation bring a child into this world for the sole purpose of getting free stuff. Of course, they don't specify if they are talking about immigrants who come from Europe, Asia, Africa or Latin America. But it's easy to guess, given that they represent communities with high numbers of Hispanics.

I must say, I do take personal issue with these types of proposals. My father was, for a good part of his adult life, living in the United States without the proper documents. My parents were both hardworking people, with high morals, and never took a penny from the government. I and my two sisters are productive members of our society who contribute quite a bit to our country.

I knew very little about the circumstances under which my father lost his legal residency, but learned more of the details in the process of researching for my book "I Am My Father's Daughter: Living a Life Without Secrets." In it I recount part of his story.

My father's immigration problems began shortly after he arrived in the United States in May of 1943. In a letter addressed to the Department of War, written about a year later, he states that his purpose for entering the country was to continue his "rigorous scientific investigation in the fields of sociology, philosophy and history."

He had landed a job with the National Schools in Los Angeles as a writer and editor of their publications on psychology. However, he was first required to register with the Army's local recruitment board.

He claims that 15 days after having registered, he was given a 1-A classification, as if he had entered the country specifically to join the U.S. Army. His efforts to be allowed to return to his country were denied, making him feel as if he had been framed. In December of that year, he went back to Mexico without the proper authorization. Ironically, while many undocumented Mexicans are accused of breaking the law when they cross the border into the United States, my father was considered a violator for crossing the border into Mexico — his own country.

In the book, I publish the letters written by my father to the Department of War, now the Department of Defense, explaining the reasoning behind his actions, and I document his lifelong struggle to regain his legal status. He did, finally, a few years before he passed away.

The new bill would not affect people like me. It would allow citizenship for children born in the U.S. who have at least one parent who is here legally. There are approximately 4 million children who fall under that category. But kids who are born to undocumented parents should not be punished for their parents' legal troubles, and all undocumented immigrants should not be accused of abusing the system. My father's story proves how every undocumented immigrant has a different set of circumstances that put him or her in that position. Stop treating them like criminal invaders, and stop going after babies. This certainly is not the way to fix our badly broken immigration system.