Citizenship From Birth

[DEDixon 39]

"one day, it will be brown against brown because brown will be taking from brown, right now, brown is taking from white (this is how they see it) so no biggie to brown."

i should qualify this. from the way mexico treats illegal hispanics in mexico, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the same will take place in america. it might take a few more generations for it to happen, but it isn't impossible. consider that 4th and 5th generation hispanics in america will feel america is theirs even if their grandparents or great grandparents were illegals. evolution, i guess.

[Heracles 417]

Comparing health care of different countries to the U.S. health care system is not anecdotal. Describing to you what my cousin's experience with a doctor in Canada vs. the U.S. is anecdotal. Hopefully, you understand the difference.

That's the problem with public discourse today. People will rely more heavily on news media for 'expert opinion and analysis' over actual expert opinion and analysis. Anyone can be put on news program and labeled an expert.

Nice try but I am discussing immigration systems of countries that are renowned for their immigration and their polices regarding citizenship by birth, then comparing it to what you endorse. I guess the fact the all of them pretty-much have the same stance regarding it, which is the opposite to your stance, means nothing to you. That's when you get all flag waving on me.

Nevertheless, why is personal experience not valid? Rather, it's you who constantly relies on opinion pieces written by a range of people [including lawyers] and accept it as fact. It's why when asked direct questions about something or to explain specifics, you fail to answer. Like how the same people whose kids rely on free lunch and can not afford the $2 fee, will somehow produce money to pay thousand in fines.

then comparing US immigration/citizenship policy/system to Canada or the UK is not be anecdotal. get it?

if you can do it with health care, others can do it with immigration. when HC was an issue, you constantly referred to what other countries were doing. however with immigration, you don't want to know or talk about what other countries are doing because it doesn't support your position. instead you have switched to scholars and experts that support your position.

Bingo. Also know as an extremist.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Heracles

[Obama 2012 1,714]

You're nothing but a hack pretending to know more about the Constitution than the real scholars who've dedicated their lives to it. I suppose Sen. Cowan's statements were 'taken out of context.'

Ummm, Cowan was very much against foreigners and aliens being given citizenship, just as Senator Howard was against then gaining citizenship.....

So I don't know what you're getting at...

[Heracles 417]

the US is on its way to becoming a 3rd world country, it is just a matter of time. i suggest that as the US spirals downhill, legal hispanics will be fighting for their survival since the US won't be able to fund as many welfare programs and will turn against illegal immigrants. when it comes to their own survival, the tables will turn, but by then the USA will have greatly changed.

Such valid concerns, many also shared by most other first world countries, go unheard and are responded with racism / anti-immigration allegations. In order to maintain their quality of life, Australia is considering cutting their immigration quota in half.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Heracles

[peejay 327]

the US is on its way to becoming a 3rd world country, it is just a matter of time. i suggest that as the US spirals downhill, legal hispanics will be fighting for their survival since the US won't be able to fund as many welfare programs and will turn against illegal immigrants. when it comes to their own survival, the tables will turn, but by then the USA will have greatly changed.

one day, it will be brown against brown because brown will be taking from brown, right now, brown is taking from white (this is how they see it) so no biggie to brown.

I saw a news clip a while back of an interview of an amnestied illegal alien from 1986 whining that the pickings in California are much slimmer than when she jumped the border back then. Ah...the good old days!

The 1986 mass blanket illegal alien amnesty will go down in history as the second nail in America's coffin. The first being the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 also known as the Hart-Celler Act which reopened mass immigration that had been closed in 1924 by the Immigration Act of 1924 also known as the Johnson–Reed Act.

The fact is that illegal immigration and immigration in general is being fed through a combination of 7 illegal alien amnesties and an immigration system that is primarily family based and ended up favoring nearby poverty stricken Latin America along with an overwhelmed and incompetent immigration enforcement system. Why wait in a controlled line when you can just jump the border and go live in an established immigrant community with little fear of the law?

It is a race to the toilet with idiotic politicians and white guilt supplying the toilet paper.

Here we are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression along with mass unemployment. But the loons running the country are hesitant to implement employment verification, control the border, or even consider reducing immigration. Enforcing existing immigration law is now out of the question. In fact, they only talk about legalizing illegal aliens, giving them legal work authorization, and increasing immigration to accommodate their families.

That tells me that immigration is out of control and is no longer serving the national interest. Something along the lines of slashing immigration in the national interest as was done in 1924 is getting further and further from reality as the tail wags the dog in the present climate of lunacy.

[Heracles 417]

and ended up favoring nearby poverty stricken Latin America along with an overwhelmed and incompetent immigration enforcement system.

Which is the second largest problem I see. The overall immigration is being dominated by one region. ICE agents are also not allow to question anyone that has not been convicted of a felony. So the people who cry murder about Arizona, evidently also have a problem with any customs agents asking for someone's status. Which shows it's not really about Arizona being unconstitutional after all, it's about ensuring illegal aliens continue to roam freely.

Yet point any of this out, even as an immigrant and you are either racist or anti-brown. Isn't the opposite of racism equality? Perhaps someone can explain how one region dominating an immigration system is equal - not racist - in any way.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Heracles

[slim 1,514]

I just don't understand what's so hard about "No papers? Get on the bus."

It seems to me all that money spent on "fighting" illegal immigration could establish a 24/7 one-way route back across the border.

[Ban Hammer 12,876]

Anecdotal situations can be made to justify just about anything. Taking away the Birthright Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment makes absolutely no sense, ethically or policy wise. It's part of what makes America, America.

dismissing it as irrelevant is silly.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

then comparing US immigration/citizenship policy/system to Canada or the UK is not be anecdotal. get it?

if you can do it with health care, others can do it with immigration. when HC was an issue, you constantly referred to what other countries were doing. however with immigration, you don't want to know or talk about what other countries are doing because it doesn't support your position. instead you have switched to scholars and experts that support your position.

I love it when people jump in the middle of a conversation without following what has transpired. Go back and read what BY said. He referred to Big Dog's story of a woman he knows who has come to the U.S. just to have a child here. Such stories like that are called anecdotal when using them to further an argument. BY is notorious for being persuaded by anecdotal evidence rather than actual statistical data. While I don't agree with Big Dog's argument that perhaps we should change the Birthright Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, I know from his posts that he's well aware that the story he gave was merely anecdotal. I'm not sure BY, however, knows the difference.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

dismissing it as irrelevant is silly.

Fallacies

Anecdotal Evidence

If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand stories, you are committing the fallacy of overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.

Example:

Yeah, I’ve read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he’s never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can’t really hurt you.

[peejay 327]

I just don't understand what's so hard about "No papers? Get on the bus."

It seems to me all that money spent on "fighting" illegal immigration could establish a 24/7 one-way route back across the border.

I've lived in a US border state all of my life...which is considerably more years than many of 20 and 30-something experts that inhabit VJ. I used to see illegal alien roundups frequently in Houston. I remember seeing a paint and body shop near my house being raided and scores of illegal aliens arrested as far back as the 1960's. I used to drive to and from work offshore down Highway 59 in south Texas in the early 1980's and personally witnessed full INS buses rolling full south with illegal aliens and returning empty rolling north. Now all I see is more and more illegal aliens in Houston. The 1986 amnesty has set the tone and it has been downhill to the toilet tube ever since.

The standards I grew up with have eroded and I don't see any upside in the present climate lunacy that has gripped the immigration debate.

I do know one thing from witnessing it first hand...amnesty is not the solution...it is the problem.

[Ban Hammer 12,876]

Fallacies

Anecdotal Evidence

If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand stories, you are committing the fallacy of overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.

Example:

Yeah, I’ve read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he’s never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can’t really hurt you.

not even in the same league.

I do know one thing from witnessing it first hand...amnesty is not the solution...it is the problem.

[evli1966 88]

from your Human Events article:

from James C. Ho, Constitutional Scholar:

http://www.immigrati...ght-citizenship

A Birthright? Maybe Not

By George Will

WASHINGTON -- A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.

To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.

A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, "can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Therefore, "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."

Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.

If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." (Emphasis added.) The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. Indeed, today's regulations issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice stipulate:

"A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States, as a matter of international law, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. That person is not a United States citizen under the 14th Amendment."

Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois was, Graglia writes, one of two "principal authors of the citizenship clauses in 1866 act and the 14th Amendment." He said that "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant subject to its "complete" jurisdiction, meaning "not owing allegiance to anybody else." Hence children whose Indian parents had tribal allegiances were excluded from birthright citizenship.

Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent." Graglia says this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States." So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."

Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is "not only without the government's consent but in violation of its law."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/28/a_birthright_maybe_not_104954.html

Steve not all scholars support your view there are some with more realistic view of the constituiton and its meaning as it is written and when it was written. None of the scholars you have posted bring to bear there were no immigration laws at that time. With the estblishment of the need for immigration control it makes most of the arguements they have been supporting mute.

[Heracles 417]

I love it when people jump in the middle of a conversation without following what has transpired. Go back and read what BY said. He referred to Big Dog's story of a woman he knows who has come to the U.S. just to have a child here. Such stories like that are called anecdotal when using them to further an argument. BY is notorious for being persuaded by anecdotal evidence rather than actual statistical data. While I don't agree with Big Dog's argument that perhaps we should change the Birthright Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, I know from his posts that he's well aware that the story he gave was merely anecdotal. I'm not sure BY, however, knows the difference.

Actually, that was one real life personal example from a poster.

I was specifically referring to which countries still have an open-house policy left regarding citizenship. For most, you now have to earn it legitimately, which to you is apparently draconian. In reality, it's simply common sense legislation in an era of jet travel.

Edited August 9, 2010 by Heracles

[Atencio 43]

Steve not all scholars support your view there are some with more realistic view of the constituiton and its meaning as it is written and when it was written. None of the scholars you have posted bring to bear there were no immigration laws at that time. With the estblishment of the need for immigration control it makes most of the arguements they have been supporting mute.

Not that I disagree with the writer of that article but the Supreme Court has all ready gave an opinion on the 14th amendment in other cases.

U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, 1898. Opinion that despite parents born in China, since Ark was born in the United States he is a citizen.

In 1982, Plyer v. Doe. Opinion of the Court.

The Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory. That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter.” What this means is that the 14th amendment does not care about legal status.

I really can't see the Supreme Court reversing two prior opinions nor seeing the Constitution changed. Good luck though. As for me I would rather leave the law the way it is and just tighten the borders. Fix the problem proactively not in a reactionary fashion. If a woman gets in to the U.S. illegally she will have the baby in the U.S. and we will pay for it per EMTALA laws.