Posted on 01/26/2008 9:07:56 AM PST by MotleyGirl70
About every six months the population of the U.S. increases about as much as the population of Tallahassee. Who are these hundreds of thousands of new citizens? They are newborns, children of illegal aliens born in the United States - birthright citizens, "anchor babies" - not illegal aliens. This quirky legal right then allows the mother's parents and siblings to remain, and later a whole bunch of their relatives to immigrate legally. This why they are also known as "Jackpot babies."
Just consider Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the second busiest maternity ward in the U.S. In 2006, 70 percent of the women giving birth in Parkland were illegal immigrants. That added up to 11,200 babies for which Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million to deliver these babies, the feds another $9.5 million and Dallas taxpayers tossed in $31.3 million. The average illegal patient is 25 years old and giving birth to her second anchor baby. We could also talk about California, but you get the point.
By law, illegal immigrants cannot be denied medical care based on their inability to pay or their immigration status. These women also receive free prenatal care, medication, car seats, bottles, diapers and formula.
The U.S. and a few other countries offer citizenship to anyone born on their soil. The United Kingdom and Australia abandoned this practice in the 1980s after being abused by immigrants for many years.
Why do we allow this to continue? The 14{+t}{+h} Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the states wherein they reside...
It was added to our Constitution right after the Civil War as part of a package of reforms to prevent any more injustices to African Americans, such as states denying citizenship to native born blacks. The drafters of the "Citizenship clause" made it clear from their debate, that the clause "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant that the status of the parents of a child born within the territory of the U.S. determines whether of not that child is eligible for U.S. citizenship.
There have been surprisingly few Supreme Court opinions construing this clause - the results being a mixed bag of decisions. The lawyer in me wants to go into detail, but let me be mercifully brief: The latest case involved a terrorist who happened to be born in Louisiana, when his father, a native of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, was working as an engineer for Exxon. He returned to Saudi Arabia as an infant, took up with al Qaeda as an adult, was captured during a battle in Afghanistan and wound up imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay.
The Supreme Court held that this Saudi, being Louisiana born, had a due process right as a citizen to challenge his detention as an enemy combatant. This ruling simply does not comform with any of the text or history surrounding the adoption of the Citizenship Clause. Just being born in the U.S. doesn't cut it, because such an interpretation renders the "subject to the jurisdiction" clause entirely redundant. It is a well settled doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts - most certainly the Constitution - are not to be interpreted to make some words altogether redundant. In other words why didn't the drafters just say, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States?" (Imagine two terrorists - man and wife jihadis - slipping past border guards into a U.S. city to set up a terrorist cell. The wife then gives birth to a child. Should this budding young terrorist be an instant American citizen?)
Help could be on the way, but don't hold your breath. In 2007, U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., introduced H.R. 1940, The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, which would end automatic citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to illegal aliens. For those Americans who look to Europe - the cradle of our American civilization - for guidance, Ireland, in 2004 voted to end automatic citizenship. That was the last member of the European Union to allow pregnant foreigners to gain residence and welfare benefits as a result of just being born there.
The political fallout of this bill could be enormous.
Patriotism is when the love of your own people comes first. Politics, for Democrats, is thinking of the next election, and not what is best for the next generation of Americans. With that in mind, illegal aliens and their progeny will continue to be one more group on the list of Democrat constituencies.
If our Politicians wanted to do anything about it, they would. It’s obvious they aren’t going to address the problem and the American people will suffer for it. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one out. They could settle this question in a couple of days if they wanted to. Reading the 14th Ammendment, it doesn’t have anything to do with people being born here but they try and make it sound like it does.
This MUST be STOPPED!
The author knows nothing about immigration law and makes a dirt common mistake.
He is confusing BIRTHRIGHT citizenship with an “anchor baby”
In 1996 the Republican congress did away with the “anchor baby”
The concept of anchor baby is that custody follows the american citizen. Hence the “anchor”.
Under CURRENT LAW, cutody follows the parents of the minor thus a birth right citizen goes with the deported parents.
JUST TO ADD TO THE MIX, under the current law those born of that citizen are only US citizens IF that illegal alien offspring has lived in the USA for ten years.
The author should actually study law before looking like a MSM journalist.
Info is available on http://www.uscis.gov under citizenship or obtaining a proof of citizenship certificate.
takes all of 2 minuts to look up.
See this article for precedents regarding denial of birthright citizenship for “Anchor Babies”:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={62ABC9F7-4274-4E09-87A4-5BDC94D65700}
“The Fourteenth Amendment Mess”
By Robert Locke
FrontPageMagazine.com | 9/9/2002
“The key to undoing the current misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is this odd phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The whole problem is caused by the fact that the meaning of this phrase, which was clear to anyone versed in legal language in 1868, has slipped with changes in usage. Fortunately, there is a large group of court precedents that make clear what the phrase actually means:
The Fourteenth Amendment excludes the children of aliens. (The Slaughterhouse Cases (83 U.S. 36 (1873))
The Fourteenth Amendment draws a distinction between the children of aliens and children of citizens. (Minor v. Happersett (88 U.S. 162 (1874))
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” requires “direct and immediate allegiance” to the United States, not just physical presence. (Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884))
There is no automatic birthright citizenship in a particular case. (Wong Kim Ark Case, 169 U.S. 649 (1898))
The Supreme Court has never confirmed birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens, temporary workers, and tourists. (Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211 n.10 (1982))
There are other cases referring to minor details of the question.
In essence, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant, at the time the amendment was written, a person having a reciprocal relationship of allegiance and protection with the United States government. It was thus understood not to apply to persons whose presence in this country is transitory or illegal. For details of the evolution of this phrase and its interpretation by the courts, see this page on FILE’s web site. The key question that those who favor the contemporary misinterpretation of this phrase cannot answer is, why is the phrase there, if it means nothing, which is what their interpretation implies. Logic implies that it would only have been inserted if it modified the meaning of the amendment, which it does: by limiting the scope of persons to which it applies. The debate — adequately settled, in my view, by the precedents named above — can at most be over who is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” not over whether this phrase means anything.
That the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant automatic birthright citizenship is also made clear by the fact that it took an act of Congress in 1922 to give American Indians birthright citizenship, which would obviously not have been necessary if they had it automatically just by being born here. The courts have also long recognized an exception for the children of foreign diplomats, which exception would be unconstitutional if the Fourteenth Amendment granted automatic birthright citizenship to everyone.”
see post four.
Anchor babies are not birthright citizens.
those are two 100% different concepts.
please do not confuse the two because it clouds the debate.
a birth right citzen minor is deported with the illegal alien parents.
It is a very important distiction before the immigration service and courts.
The author neglects government schooling. In my state it is about $13,000 to $15,000 a year per government school kid.
actually it is when the parents are actually caught.
Keep in mind what happened post-1996 was that immigration lawyers shifted to a “undo hardship” to claim anchor status.
Usually it was a special medical or educational need for the minor that was not available in the old country. Usually the immigration prosecutor just showed the US foreign aid or schools proving the contrary. (adhd, therapy etc.)
This is why the Dream Act Amnesty was so vital. It created anchor babies by mere attendance at a public school. It put custody in the hands of the public school attendee. (children shall lead concept)
Enforcement is just not publicised unless a lawyer is doing it as a PR stunt or desperation measure.
As for those thousands of illegal babies being born at Parkland Hospital and elsewhere, are all those families remaining in the US?
Any GOP candidate who would come out and state that he will make it a priority to amend the constitution to stop this insane law would, IMO, automatically leap to the top of the pile and win the nomination.
This is an antiquated law that must go. Are any of the candidates talking about it?
Mexico has argued that the US doesn’t have jurisdiction. But, of course that is WRT criminals. They want it all ways.
What kind of HTML is this? Such a deep essay, too bad to have a fatal distraction right on the critical point.
The Constitution would have to be amended and there is not way that such an amendment would garner the needed number or votes in the Senate or the number of states.
Absolutely must be stopped. Incredible and wrong!
But is free to re-enter the US upon reaching the age of 18, at which point s/he has all the rights of a citizen to bring in relatives.
No constitutional amendment is required since all the decisions relating to this are in common law. Get a court decision.
Did you read the article?
The amendment is fine it is being improperly interpreted.
Illegal aliens are NOT “subject to the jurisdictions thereof”
Just being in the country is not enough.
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