WSJ:
The immigration debate is reviving the explosive idea of denying citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their parents are in the country illegally.
A U.S. senator and a state lawmaker in Arizona, both central players in the battle over immigration law, separately proposed this week that “birthright” citizenship be denied to the children of illegal immigrants. They said the change would help stem the flood of illegal border crossings.
“People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Wednesday night on Fox News. “That shouldn’t be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.” Mr. Graham is a onetime partner with Democrats in crafting a proposed overhaul of immigration laws.
Immigration-rights activists say citizenship isn’t a significant driver of illegal immigration, because a child has to reach age 21 to petition for permanent legal residency for his or her parents.
Such calls to change what has been a bedrock feature of the immigration system are sure to set off contentious debate. “It’s an extreme position, and Sen. Graham knows this,” said Angela Kelley of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “He’s not one to tamper with the Constitution, so I’m surprised he would even suggest this.”In Arizona, Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of the immigration law that drew a legal challenge from the Obama administration, said he wanted to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in his state to illegal immigrants.
At issue is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted in 1868 to ensure that states not deny former slaves the full rights of citizenship. It states: “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.”
Mr. Graham, speaking on Fox, suggested that changing birthright-citizenship rules would require a constitutional amendment. “We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and have a child, that child’s not automatically a citizen,” he said.
Personally, I don’t believe such a constitutional amendment is necessary; instead, all that’s needed is a proper reading of the 14th Amendment, and then a walking back of whatever bad precedent based on previous faulty readings has taken legal hold. To wit: the clause, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” modifies the subject, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” — suggesting that all those who are born or naturalized in the United States and are subject to its jurisdiction are to be considered citizens. And yet being born in the United States illegally to non-citizens would mean that these children are foreign nationals — illegals — and while subject to our laws as visitors (as would be foreign visitors here on visas, etc.), they are also subject to the jurisdiction of their home countries. (American Indians, for instance, still under tribal jurisdiction, were not granted citizenship as a result of the 14th Amendment.)
Given that the 14th Amendment was intended to confer citizenship on emancipated slaves — whose forebears were brought here as chattel and against their will — it seems a perversion of intent to argue that the same Amendment should then be turned around and used to automatically grant citizenship on those whose forebears come here willingly — and illegally — in effect (if not intentionally) as a way to game the system and create a backdoor approach to obtaining citizenship.
To those pols and immigration-reform advocates interested in revisiting the Hart-Celler Act, my suggestion would be to do so based on the actual intent of the 14th Amendment. Because if that is successful — even only by way of influencing public perception — the onus for justifying the continuance of such policies, especially during a time of contentious border unrest, would lay with those who wish to see illegal immigration continually incentivized at a time when real unemployment in the US is at around 16%, and the deficit is spiraling out of control thanks largely to ever more social programs being “financed” by the government.
A change in state law redefining who is a citizen would likely draw a legal challenge, as did Arizona’s effort to change state immigration law.
Under Mr. Pearce’s proposal, Arizona would refuse to issue a birth certificate to any child unless at least one parent could prove legal presence in the U.S. “The 14th Amendment has been hijacked and abused,” Mr. Pearce said. “We incentivize people to break our laws.”
The U.S. is home to about 11 million illegal immigrants. There are nearly four million whose children are U.S. citizens, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls for cracking down on all immigration to the U.S., said that citizenship as a birthright isn’t automatic in many countries in the West.
“We should not allow language from 1868 to enslave our thinking…in the 21st century,” Mr. Stein said. “It is defeating the purpose of immigration control.”
Mr. Pearce was sponsor of SB1070, the law that required police to check the immigration station of anyone they stop if they suspect unlawful presence. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked that provision and others, pending further legal review. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law, has promised to appeal the injunction.
On Thursday, close to a thousand protestors chanted, drummed and participated in street blockades throughout downtown Phoenix to show their intent to resist SB1070, regardless of the judge’s decision to temporarily enjoin the most controversial portions. Many were arrested.
“We don’t want no police state! Stop the injustice, stop the hate!” hundreds chanted in front of the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who supported the law and whose deputies have made it a priority to detain illegal immigrants.
“Arpaio, listen, we’re at war!” others cried in Spanish.
Okay, then. If that’s the case, perhaps it’s time both sides began fighting. No?
(h/t Terry H)
if i had a baby on the side of the road/and wrapped that baby
up in aluminum foil/ which i refer to as solar panels
would i get a tax credit?
Aliens, persons who are citizens of another country, are subject to the jurisdiction of their home country, not that of the United States.
Exactly right. What is it that so many people don’t understand that?
If you commit a crime in another country, you are still “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States”. You are liable to criminal penalties of that country for violating their laws, but you don’t lose your US citizenship.
there’s nothing explosive about that idea at all I don’t think
Let’s ignore that having a parent that is a US citizen automatically confers US citizenship…
a brown baby/ a black baby/ and a white baby crawl into a nursery
they all want to play with a green puppet called kermit
and a child shall lead them
I think we should amend the constitution just for so everyone is clear
Hush, meya.
When you are right you are right.
I hope they tap you Jeff to fill in for the next opening on the Supreme Court. Now those confirmation hearings would be anything but boring.
aside/ who is meya/ what does that mean/ some internet joke?
No doubt they learned such superior language skills in our taxpayer-funded
illegal alien daycare centerspublic schools.While the first part of that may be true – very few of the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants currently in the US have any desire to become US citizens, they’re just here for a job – the second part of that statement is a red herring: during those 21 years, for all intents and purposes, the child’s parents cannot be deported. Legally, they could be, but it almost never happens – how dare we break up the family! How dare we rip the poor child from him mother’s arms!!!
Except that the “text” doesn’t speak; it comes complete with the legislative intent. And the fact the Native Americans didn’t automatically get U.S. citizenship answers your question about exclusivity. As I already noted in the post.
j-list, they are wrong only because Obama’s mother was an American citizen and she gave birth to him in Hawaii.
I doubt Obama’s biological father is Barack Obama, Sr. It is just as likely (maybe even more so) that Frank Marshall Davis is his father. They certainly resemble each other more.
i played blackjack-mm-21 at an indian-mm native american casino one time
i learned my lesson
Except that in my formulation, the non-US parent is here illegally.
Put your brackets away.
barack obamamas momma was a fox!
what if a stork delivered me?
can i get a tax credit?
Jeff is right about Native Americans, who were tribal affiliated and on reservations, because the tribes were treated as sovreign nations.
If you are interested you should also look at the Civil Rights Act of 1866 for more context on what the later 14th Amendment was about.
You were just paying reparations!
Chinese immigrants =! American Indians
j-list/meya’s stupidity knows no limits.
the trail of tears would make my eyes water
but i have a tear duct problem
and need visine
or a beating
pdbuttons
She was also a Marxist loony, which tends to skew the “hottie quotient”. And not in a good way…
really/ who/what is meya/ help me out
Seems to me you asked that same question two years ago buttons, and got the same answer then that you’d get now.
i never talk politics with hot women
until after
I enjoy your rejection of one Obama conspiracy and replacement with another.
Your welcome. Glad to oblige. The good thing is Obama keeps ginning them out. Don’t forget that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams of My Father.
meya is a very insipid and unintelligent lefty troll who comments here under ever-changing aliases. He/she/it is easily identified by his/her/its droning repetitiveness and inability to grasp simple precepts.
thanks for the non answer answer sdferr
i can’t remember where i put my keys/ and u want me to remember 2 yrs ago?
ain’t happening
yeah, I figured
thanks mike laroche
Buttons – first, you are awesome. Second, j-list is meya, about the 30th different name is has trolled under. Third – mock and scorn, point and laugh. Tommy Herr – that is all.
Much like our very own trolls in here, these people don’t really value the idea of reasoned thinking before opening their mouths, do they?
And fuck, meya, you really are a stupid human being. Unbelievable.
US v. Wong Kim Ark is bad law. J. Fuller got it right.
You betcha!
i just hope u peeps don’t call/refer to me as meya
ban was a roll on underarm detergent
george peppard wore a turtleneck
Not really: the intent of the 14th Amendment was to grant emancipated slaves citizenship.
No. Native Americans born anywhere were not US Citizens: “During the original debate over the amendment Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan—the author of the Citizenship Clause—described the clause as excluding not only Indians but “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” He was supported by other senators, including Edgar Cowan, Reverdy Johnson, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lyman Trumbull. Howard additionally stated the word jurisdiction meant “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now” and that the United States possessed a “full and complete jurisdiction” over the person described in the amendment.”
So, what today, prevents the children of foreign ministers from being US Citizens?
i want to sail on the wong kim ark
i hear the have bowling onboard
No, pd, you’re not meya. Some days I’m not sure what you are, but you’re not her.
Heh, you get to remember answering it the next time it gets asked Mike and I get to forget that it was asked. Whoever answers it the next time will get the thanks and you’ll get to think back to your uselessness.
Stop it, RTO. You’re going to hurt the poor dear.
thanks crankyd/ just trying to bring the funny
thanks jeff g
The Chinese Exclusion Act was awful. But again, it matters how you get there (in this case, doing away with something so xenophobic) — and the ruling in US v Wong Kim Ark is a case in point. Diminishing resources, a political climate based around triangulating certain ethnic demographics, and 11-20 million illegals later, the law of unintended consequences once again shows that it is PRECISELY IMPORTANT to get there by following the law, not some sense of social justice that rationalizes re-writing the law and calling it an “interpretation.”
– Before you can debate immigration you need to state the Obvious, because the Left has to skew perceptions and juggle/warp/twist words to gain any traction. They want something that’s against all common sense and standing law. Therefore the need to game the discussion.
– America is a sovereign nation.
– As such it has every right and duty to control immigration and protect its borders.
– Almost every country in the world has a quota system regarding immigration
– America has every right and practical need to do exactly the same.
– The Left, seeking political gain, needs to destroy those rights.
– We as citizens need to protect those rights.
– Arm yourself.
For what?
i heard when they pumped out mary jo kopecnes
stomach
they found traces of the wong king ark special
and as she grasped her last breath/ she said/ damn/ i’m hungry again
i denounce myself
thanks jeff g for
this site
not banning me
Teddy Kennedrunk should have been buried alive at sea.
in a body sized whiskey bottle
its only fair.
A couple of bits from Wiki, re US v Wong Kim Ark:
It doesn’t deny my specific result. Which is the point.
Actually j-list ,
Interestingly, teh Birthers are trying to argue a similar point. Some of them say that Obama could not be a “natural born citizen” even if born in hawaii, because his father was foreign and thus Obama was a british subject when born. They’re wrong.
You are the one who is dead wrong here, and some of the so called “birthers” who point out the the law at the time are actually right.
The law of the land at the time precluded Obama’s scanky commie whore of a baby momma from conferring her citizenship onto her literal little bastard.
Under that law she failed several stipulations, primarily do to her young age at the time of the little bastards birth. So that means that the Foreign Father’s legal rights had precedence over her own.
Then there is also the fact that the baby daddy, was a Foreign national, who was only here on a student visa and didn’t have the right to claim US Citizenship for his get. Couple that with the fact that the father had expressed no desire to stay in the US beyond his visa or made any effort to stay or to become a resident alien or to become a US Citizen, punches huge holes in little Barry the Bastard’s claim of being a Natural Born US Citizen.
How can he be? Dad was not a US Citizen, didn’t want to be one, and went home after the visa ran out. The Father’s age and nationality had more legal precedent under the law than the mother do to her young age, not being able to meet the minimum requirements under the law at the time.
Lets not forget that Daddy’s have rights, even Foreign daddies from Afrika.
So it doesn’t really matter where the little bastard was born or what it says on his faked COB, you can’t undo the fact that little Barry the Bastard’s Commie dad was a Kenyan and because of that had British Citizenship to boot, and that he was not a US Citizen nor desired to become one.
Then there is the whole bigamy issue too, if you believe those to star crossed America hating commies ever got married. Obama never divorced his first wife.
it’s amazing that teddy kennedys heart didn’t give out as he swam
to safety/cuz swimming is hard
but leaving people to die watery deaths is easy
So since bad law first replaced the original law with a rewriting of that law, you haven’t rewritten it again to return it to original, intended good law?
Congrats, I guess.
– Granting citizenship to anyone other than children born to legal citizens is a gift, not a right. As such it is subject to practical considerations, and can be given or withdrawn at any time by the will of the majority.
– Whether or not it is implemented under the arbitrary actions of some courtly edict does not change that simple fact.
Sory Jeff. She started it.
Which only means that there has to be an Indian Tribal Jurisdiction for any given Indian to be subject to. Example: Prior to 1924 a Sioux living in downtown Philadelphia was no subject to the jurisdiction of the US, there being a functioning Souix tribal government. A Tsetsaut in the same circumstances would be a US Citizen as there has not been a Tsetsaut governmetn since the ealry 1800’s. Part of the idea here is that every individual is subject to some jurisdiction but sui soilis only applies narrowly.
i tried to give a boiler girl a ride home once
i told her i was this like olympic swimmer/ just missed the cut/ to impress her
she declined
some boiler girls are smarter than others/ and dry
– So then by your pov j-list, it’s therefore true that once the first Muslim set foot in the US it is now their property.
muslims feet don’t bother me
it’s the thick vests
“We”? I’m providing context for my opinions. You don’t have to like it.
– Apparently Bumbblefuck himself agrees that he’s a British citizen.
– His actions since he took office shows he doesn’t believe he’s subject to any American laws, nor does he think the Constitution is worth the paper it was written on.
Can I just weigh in on some things?
1. Love TrollHammer
2. It’s Friday…..
“It’s not really a question of like though.”
Of course. For the nuance
Indian Citizen Act of 1924.
So cite that dissent if you wish. I don’t care. I happen to believe — consonant with many of my other positions here — that the ruling in Wong was wrong and represents bad law. The dissent echoes some of my reasoning — as does the other bit I cited, which deals with the brackets you keep wanting to place around “illegal.” So I put it here for others to read. They can then make up their own minds.
Has meya ever been honest, under any name?
No. Easiest question I’ll read all day.
So, JD, what happened with that idiot that demanded that you leave your personal property when he bought your house?
i like the judge who looked at my wifes restraining order
and made it 200 feet instead of 300 feet
cuz 300 hundred feet is a football field
and thats where i met her
she was passed out but she had a certain sly grin on her face
well
onced u wiped off the dirt
Spiny – my possessions remain my possessions.
Oh goody!
Hush, meya. You would not know honesty if it squirmed out your squeakhole and left a giant mushroom bruise on your forehead.
Meya is an uppity xenophobic nativist that wears her mendoucheity and douchenozzlery as a badge of honor.
The joys of selective and partial quoting. You did’t even supply an elipsis.
Note that he describes what happens after Naturalization, not by virtue of what soil they stand upon or were born upon.
Further context, this is from the Dredd Scott decision, predating the 14th Amendment by 11 years. Is it your position that the 14th Amendment is not necessary to arrive at birthright citizenship in American law?
There you go. Which is why I supplied the reasoning from the dissent as part of the context for my own reasoning.
Also, the parents in the Wong case weren’t illegals. Which goes toward “this ‘bracket’ point” you continue to ignore — my helpful bolding of that bit notwithstanding.
You forgot nativist, meya, you lying twit.
Who cares how many lines? They were here legally. And that is different from being here illegally. And my argument goes to those who are here illegally. Even though you keep trying to bracket that bit.
I likened them to being under jurisdiction of US laws, as would be foreign visitors here on visas, etc., and yet foreign visitors here on visas and under the jurisdiction of our laws while here aren’t US citizens simply because they are under our jurisdiction while they are here visiting.
So when you write
you seem to be getting it. Under US jurisdiction, just not in the way the 14th Amendment spoke of jurisdiction. As evidenced by the exclusion of Native Americans with active tribal affiliation.
Should Mexicans, for instance, wish to become citizens, we allow them to do so — adopting US citizenship and renouncing Mexican citizenship. But there is a legal process for this. Saying that, in effect, the same thing happens because you managed to sneak across the border and give birth is to make a travesty of immigration laws.
Which of course is the end game for those looking for their next grievance group to build up and then exploit for political power.
Then why did they have to pass the Snyder Act 22 years after the 14th?
You forgot nativist and reconquista, you uppity twat.
Undocumented, foreign visitors, anything but illegal. Must not say illegal.
vietnam boat people salivate over my new outborred motor that i bought with profits from the casino
i promise not to drive/split ur tub in half with my mighty boat/ but im a crazy drunk injun/ i might
unless u give me more beads
“….he would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people.”
– Which rights and privileges are in total the Geneva accords. Period.
– This little ensemble is one of the Lefturds favorite empty phrases they use at every oppotunity that looks so important and meaningful until you trake it aside and actually see what it means. Next to nothing.
– Weak and totally misleading, like all their arguments.
– Next.
maya’s no prosecutor. That’s for sure.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242177/birthright-citizenship-mark-krikorian
Okay. So “j-list” is just another troll looking to try to play word games. Not interested. RD’s going to have to think up yet another name to post under.
I agree Lindsay is not likely serious; I disagree that a re-examination of Hart-Celler, Wong, and the 14th Amendment are NOT ways to “get serious about controlling our borders.”
In fact, re-embracing the rule of law as the Constitution (and the Amendments) intended those laws to function is a very good and very BIG step toward curing the disease rather than merely applying the latest BandAid.
But then, nobody much cares what I think — to the delight of James Wolcott and probably more than a handful of those on the right.
jd don’t let anyone give birth in a house your selling. closing will be more difficult.
your=you’re
OK, who wants to find out where America lands on the rankings of countries that allow birthright citizenship?
Psssst: We’re number one. It’s a small list.
So, you’re saying that J. Ginsberg wouldn’t be able to find that good idea?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gcA1weZu7DW8Wq-AyV4X3nEy0mygD9H9J8LO2
– What I’d say the bottom line is, if our elected officials refuse to do their jobs and protect our borders it may be time to take matters into our own hands.
– The courts seem to be cowed by the fucking Left.
But then, nobody much cares what I think —
Of course not. What you think doesn’t work to the Democrats advantage. Silly Hebrew. Votes are for dems!