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.
They're NOT citizens.
The child is a citizen, and you are treating the child differently from other citizens because of the status of their parents. This is a violation of the equal protection clause.
The child is NOT a citizen. What case are you using to pretend that children of illegals are citizens?
That’s the law as it stands. They are citizens, just like anyone else born in America.
Cite the law. The 14th Amendment says no such thing.
So your argument is that birthright citizenship, at present, does not exist?
Not to children of illegal alien invaders. I know that's not the way it's been bastardized but none of them should be citizens. They should all be kicked out.
“I know that’s not the way it’s been bastardized”
So you’re saying that the law at present declares them to be citizens. Thanks.
LOL
Why do YOU want to be citizens so badly? C'mon, tell us.
Why do I like the concept of birthright citizenship? That’s a good question. Birthright citizenship manifests the principle that all men are created equal. No distinctions are drawn between the birth of the high and the low. Slave or freeman. It’s a radical principle, and some find it too difficult to stand behind.
My family immigrated to North Dakota from England. They paid for their passage and their homestead and were permitted to settle. Some of my ancestors served in both wars for the Americans. Could they do this today? Why not? Back then they didn’t have welfare in America, and anyone who came was expected to support themselves. Today it’s a different story.
I don’t think the problem is so much immigration but rather unproductive immigraton. You are attracting the wrong sorts of immigrants from bad policies.
So, do I - for citizens. Not for invaders.
Why do you want the children of invaders to have citizenship?
That’s like asking me do I want to hear Sean Penn spouting off about how conservatives want to destroy the world and kill babies.
Do I want that? No, of course not. But the consequence of letting Sean Penn rant on means that we have true freedom of speech. Same with citizenship.
Birthright citizenship benefits Americans overall even though there are some negatives.
Is it the fault of the kid that he was born in America? No. Is it the fault of the parents that they crossed over illegally? Yes. To reduce this negative we should be focussing on making sure that invaders don’t cross the border in the first place.
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