Posted on 03/16/2011 6:28:18 PM PDT by WXRGina
Mark Krikorian at the brings up some excellent and under-reported points in the illegal alien issue.
We’re all aware of the problem of millions of illegal aliens coming across our borders, many of whom are likely terrorists slipping into our country with ill-intent and who knows what else (maybe a suitcase nuke or a dirty bomb?). Yet our federal government refuses to do anything about it.
We’re all also aware of the millions of illegal aliens who have been here for years, yet our federal government is unwilling to track them down, capture them and deport them.
We are also aware that many illegal aliens have “anchor babies” while they are in our country illegally, garnering sympathy and making it more difficult to send them home even after we identify them. Many Americans are too soft-hearted and soft-headed to realize that even though the anchor baby might be an American citizen (depending on how you interpret the 14th Amendment), children should always go where their parents go, and if their parents are in our country illegally and need to be sent home, the children should, of course, go home with them (the American citizen children can always return to America when they get old enough to live on their own).
But as Krikorian points out, there are quite a few children born in America to legal aliens (tourists, students, workers on legitimate work visas, etc). A new report indicates there may be as many as 200,000 a year born in this status.
This complicates things somewhat, not so much with regard to dealing with illegal aliens (remember in these cases, the parents are here legally), but somewhere down the road when we may have to deal with a large number of people claiming already-existing American citizenship…when they may have not the slightest idea what it really means to be an American.
As Krikorian says:
The first decision policymakers face is whether they think it’s a good idea to give away United States citizenship promiscuously to any child born here to a Latvian tourist or Japanese student or a Mexican Border-Crossing Card holder, who then promptly leaves and raises the child in a foreign country.
This ultimately brings us back around to a problem we have in America which has both received a lot of attention and virtually no attention at all (no, this is not a contradiction).
First the facet of the problem that has received a lot of attention. As Krikorian alluded to, we may be inviting a recipe for chaos and disaster if we allow a large influx somewhere down the road of people who were raised entirely in a foreign country, learning foreign values, a foreign way of life, foreign priorities, and foreign allegiances…and suddenly extending to them the full rights and privileges (including residency) of a natural-born citizen.
The issue of Barack Obama’s birthplace continues to make headlines even after two years in the Oval Office. Why? Because our Constitution requires that our president must be a natural-born citizen. If Obama really was born in Kenya, this would render him ineligible to be our president according to the letter of our nation’s highest law: the U.S. Constitution. But why did the founders install that requirement in the Constitution in the first place? Because they understood the critical importance of having the man at the head of our government be someone whose values would be 100% fully American, and whose priorities and loyalties would be 100% American. While someone foreign-born might come to adopt our values fully and love America with all the passion and commitment of someone born here (I know a few naturalized citizens who do indeed love America MORE than some natural-born citizens that I know), the odds are against this when you consider the millions of immigrants coming to our country.
Which brings us to the second facet which I said has received virtually no attention. Regardless of whether he was born in Kenya or Hawaii, from the very beginning, President Barack Obama’s priorities have been completely out of whack with American values and priorities. From his predilection to bow to foreign kings, to his Apology Tour around the world apologizing for the country he heads, to his casual disregard for our national defense, to his embrace of our natural enemies, to his eagerness to undermine military readiness, to his loathing for the most fundamental institution in American society, his animosity for our national borders, his contempt for our laws, to his contempt for the suffering incurred by this nation on 911, to his programs which force socialist schemes on America that would fit better in other countries, to his longstanding embrace of Marxism, to his contempt for the energy that powers our nation, to his personal associations with foreign and domestic terrorists, to building his administration with avowed communists, Marxists and other anti-American radicals.
It’s no wonder 55% of likely voters consider Obama a socialist (something directly at odds with the U.S. Constitution and the American way of life). It is also no wonder that Dinesh D’Souza found so much evidence of anti-colonialist hostility in Obama’s background, or that he has been called the “Radical in Chief,” or even that he has been called the “Manchurian President.” His ideals, values and principles simply aren’t in alignment with American values or principles, nor are they what one would expect from an American. Why is that?
The fact remains that whether he was born in Hawaii or not, he spent a great number of his formative years being raised in foreign countries with foreign values; even his own autobiography confirms this. Having been raised in foreign countries around people who loathe the American way of life, it would be a miracle if Barack Obama’s values and principles actually did line up with American ones.
Hopefully most Americans still consider it important that our leaders hold to American values. If so, this means it is important that we not allow the “anchor baby loophole” mentioned above to be used as a tool for anti-American foreigners (who have nothing more in common with America than having been born on American soil) to come into our country, influence our public policy and political system, and God forbid rise to a position of leadership in our country.
Even closing this loophole will not totally preclude the possibility of someone with un-American or even anti-American ideals from rising to power; sadly, there are a number of natural-born people who were raised here who have still ended up loathing our way of life.
But perhaps it will help reduce those odds. People who become naturalized citizens have to go through an education course on what it means to be an American, and they have to pass a test. Then they have to swear loyalty to America–and as I said earlier, some of them love America more than some who were born here. Those who were born here never have to go through that process.
Obviously this problem of illegal aliens and anchor babies is even bigger than we realized. And of course the Left (along with a few soft-minded tools on the Right) will resist fixing any of this, but more Americans all the time are waking up to these problems. We’ll get a chance in 2012 to take some of them out of office and replace them with leaders who will put our country first.
Let’s get ready to put hand to plow and secure our nation once again.
The Hispanics mostly all vote Democrat and want fast access to our treasury.
The are here because being poor in America with our social system of $$$$ is better than starving where they came from.
Because they are so close to home, they have almost zero loyalty to the United States, something not an issue with immigrants from Europe.
Gads! Right off the bat, in the first sentecne, I messed up the first important link of Mark Krikorkian’s National Review column: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262251/theres-more-birthright-citizenship-you-think-mark-krikorian
Sorry about that! At least I got the other 26 links in there (I think!).
Send em to Utah. The idiots there recently gave em amnesty. Send all illegal to UT to ****ing bankrupt the state.
I think the most central problem is that too many people believe what they hear and don’t try too find out if what they heard is really true. The Leftists/Progressives, just like muslims, believe that it is perfectly fine to lie through your teeth if it advances your agenda. Obama along with his media minions displayed an A+ job at that. The duped people are oh so surprised to find out that Barry isn’t that sweet, moderate, “the planet will heal if you elect me” man so aptly displayed in his early speeches. Then C-span made the mistake of playing some of Michelle’s speeches that showed the evil underbelly where the truth really lay. I watched those speeches and read everything I could get my hands on about the real Barry in the pre-election sleepwalk — I tried to tell friends they were being tricked - no one would listen. Now I have to pay for their laziness and indolence and stupidity - that’s really why American is going down the chute. We cared too little too late as a Nation.
Most people in our country are sadly brain dead. March Madness is way more important. What shall we do? I have the answers as do most Freepers. The solution is easy. Do we have the will to implement them is the question. Time is short.
“even though the anchor baby might be an American citizen (depending on how you interpret the 14th Amendment)”
And depending on how you interpret the amendment, slavery is illegal in America too.
Like it or not, the law has been set that declares that everyone who is born in America is an American citizen. No exceptions.
Yeah, and like it or not, we need an amendment to abolish the “anchor baby” clause.
We are no longer “nation building” the population of a scarcely populated United States.
I disagree. The end result of removing birthright citizenship will be to cripple Americans.
Just think, no birthright citizenship, why are you considered to be an American? Your residency? Because you have connections with the right people?
I think it's pretty reasonable to say that if you are born on US soil, but your mother or father was not here legally at the time, then you do not have birthright US Citizenship. We already have a special rule in place so that Diplomat's children do not automatically have US Citizenship by birth. The biggest problem is that in some circumstances some people would not be able to find proof of their parent's immigration status at the time of their birth. Our citizenship laws for birth abroad have been pretty complicated over the years.
re: “the law has been set that declares that everyone who is born in America is an American citizen. No exceptions.”
That was not the understanding of Senator Jacob Howard, author of the relevant clause of the 14th amendment. Before adoption of the 14th, Senator Howard explained the wording of the amendment to Congress in this way:
“Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
Congress apparently accepted that explanation, and adopted the 14th with the words above written into the Congressional record. So, foreigners and aliens, as well as other groups were specifically excluded from birthright citizenship by the author of the 14th himself.
“I think it’s pretty reasonable to say that if you are born on US soil, but your mother or father was not here legally at the time, then you do not have birthright US Citizenship”
Unfortunately that’s not how it’s ever worked, and there’s several good reasons why not.
How do you define an alien, who for example, who resided in the state of Mexico prior to the annexation? Are they Mexican? Are they American? What about their children?
How does someone immigrate legally, if their parents were brought over in a slave ship? If they don’t know who their parents are, (as an orphan)?
By eliminating birthright citizenship, you are opening up a rather large can of worms. What’s to stop the federal government from rescinding citizenship from anyone? What if you were conceived by donor insemination?
This is why citizenship is tied to the child not to the family. It’s also part of the essential rights to all citizens in America that they will be treated the same, irrespective of their parents. A child is not responsible for the actions of his or her parents.
The problem with the system as is, is that those who are in the country are not deported. Birthright citizenship does nothing to change anything. If you take away birthright citizenship, what’s to stop someone from coming over anyways?
The problem with birthright citizenship is that the state has tied benefits to the child. Get rid of the benefits and you tackle the root problem. That’s the way it worked in the 19th century, when there was no welfare or entitlements for anyone, and an immigrant who came to America had to work to provide for themselves.
They also had an open door immigration policy where anyone who was willing to pay the fee could come into America. The problem isn’t immigration but welfare.
They also didn’t have welfare back then either. Why are we not dealing with the root cause of all the problems?
Ping!
You're just wrong.
In what way do you, or did you, benefit from your fallacious belief in what the authors of the Amendment intended.
It will do no such thing. This would only apply to non-citizens, not citizens or naturalized citizens.
Citizenship laws are not retroactive. No need to worry about territories and slave ships. We already have paths to citizenship for people who are trafficked here, by the way. The Citizenship are already very complex because they have to deal with Citizenship for people born abroad - that is quite complicated. Citizenship already is tied to the family, not just the child, when the child is born abroad. Somehow, people deal with it.
The feds do not rescind citizenship for any reason except that the citizenship was gained by fraud.
Ireland got rid of automatic birthright citizenship fairly recently. It’s already been done.
“The feds do not rescind citizenship for any reason except that the citizenship was gained by fraud.”
Do you trust this government to resolve these issues? I sure don’t. And I don’t want them to be able to exclude people from citizenship.
As for Ireland, there are many places in Europe. If this policy were any good, we should expect to see Europe doing better than America, which is not what we see.
The problem isn’t birthright citizenship, its’ welfare. So long as the government continues to provide welfare, you’ll see people immigrate to the United States to receive these benefits.
We've been watching TV series like Border Wars and a couple of others, the names of which I can't remember off the top of my head. Every time they chase down some illegals in the desert, or a vehicle with 20+ illegals in it, all of the illegals questioned say that they are coming across the border "because there is no work in my country and I need to work to take care of my family". It almost never fails. What are the odds that they all say the same thing, in almost exactly the same words?
How is it fallacious when a huge part of the 14th is the equal protection clause. You can’t treat one group of citizens different from other citizens just because of the status of their parents.
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