Posted on 07/26/2004 6:15:18 PM PDT by NortNork
LOS ANGELES - Lawyers for a deported Mexican woman who is eight months pregnant are seeking her return to the United States to protect the unborn baby's health. They also say under federal law the fetus is a viable human being and thus may be eligible for citizenship rights.
That argument sounds like a long shot to some on both sides of the immigration debate. But in May, a U.S. District Court judge in Kansas City, Mo., approved a stay of deportation for a pregnant Mexican woman after raising, among other concerns, the question of whether her fetus could be considered a U.S. citizen. The judge is reviewing the issue.
That Missouri decision cannot set legal precedent, but immigration attorneys say it may offer them a new angle in deportation cases.
Last week immigration officials denied a request to grant 30-year-old Maria Christina Rubio, mother of two young U.S.-born daughters, a temporary humanitarian visa to return to the United States because of complications in her pregnancy. Rubio's attorney did not immediately return calls for comment. She was deported July 16.
Her husband's attorney, Luis Carrillo, said he is considering whether to file a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement for unlawful deportation.
Carrillo said Rubio, who was hospitalized with complications in her fifth month and has suffered severe stomach pains throughout her pregnancy, needs to be back in the United States because the baby's health is at risk.
He also cited the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, in which unborn children are granted equal protection under criminal law. Carrillo said that since the fetus is 8 months and would be viable outside the womb, it should be treated as a child born in the United States.
"The child was conceived in the United States and would have been born in the United States except that the mother was deported. Through no part of his own, the unborn baby is in Mexico," Carrillo said.
Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the U.S. Constitution's definition of citizen is very clear.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States" are considered citizens under the 14th Amendment.
"It doesn't say all persons who were conceived in the United States," Kice said.
In the Missouri case, the court questioned whether the unborn child would be a U.S. citizen because its father was.
Lawyers for the U.S. Attorney's office in Missouri argued that while fetuses are protected under criminal law, the law does not restrict the government's immigration powers. Known as "Laci and Conner's Law," - the legislation was enacted after the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son washed up along the San Francisco Bay in 2003. Peterson's husband, Scott, is charged with their murder.
Rubio was deported after she went to what her husband says was to be a status conference on her residency request. Immigration officials say the pregnant Rubio was immediately deported after it was discovered her residency request had been denied two years before and that she had previously entered the country illegally and been deported.
Kice said Rubio's lawyer at the time did not attend the hearing but was reached by telephone and did not raise any concerns about her health. She also said Rubio received an exam from public health services to ensure she was fit to travel.
Alan Diamante, an advising attorney in the case, said he believes it is important to bring the fetus citizenship argument to court, although he acknowledged it may be difficult argument to win.
"You can say this argument is a stretch, but these are the types of arguments that attorneys have to make to get into court," he said. "Laws are always changing and becoming harsher, and immigrant lawyers have to be creative to be heard."
Well... this is pretty much an "either/or" question.
We can't have our cake and eat it too...
That sound you hear is the Prolife unstoppable force meeting the Immigration-reform immovable object.
In the words of Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes): "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!"
WOW! I doubt that the argument will fly, but think of the ramifications if the Federal Courts agree. Imagine a potential father filing to stop an abortion to protect the unborn baby's health.
Was this reprinted from The Onion ??
I say we let her back in and let that stand that the fetus is viable American, establishing that it is a baby and has rights...That would be a win for the anti-abortion stand.
Interesting.
the constitution doesn't concern itself with the beginning
of life; it is merely stating who is and is not a US
citizen. we do NOT kill you if you are not a US citizen.
This could be fun to watch unfold. If the court rules that the unborn child acquired full US citizenship rights just because conception took place in the US; then life begins at conception and Roe v. Wade goes out the window.
She was here illegally. GO HOME!
Please place the phrase "Where it addresses 'natural born citizens,'" in the front of my post.
Looks like the DoI needs to update the tourist visa. "This doucument does not allow the holder to have sex while in the United States"
True but it will be fun to watch the RDDB ACLU types spin on their own petards of "Immigration Rights," "Pro-Choice," and not end up killing "Roe v. Wade" in the process.
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
thanks, I think this was posted before.
"Pregnant woman wants re-entry to U.S., lawyers say fetus is citizen ^"
Dems will then claim a pregnant woman's vote counts twice.
"They also say under federal law the fetus is a viable human being ..." Not to confuse the few, but the terms human being and viable are not one and the same notion even though strung together in the article, so if the 'human being' is viable then before he or she is viable, he or she is already a human being. Would one of you defenders of abortion like to explain to this ol' country boy just when that magical attribution begins ... human being?
Not really. According to U.S. law, a child is not a U.S. citizen until it is born. It is conceivable that, even in a pro-life legal framework, children are not citizens until such time as they are born---in which case it would be reasonable to interpret the law such that pregnant women can be deported, even if you grant the fetus is a live human being worthy of equal protection. Clarification might be necessary to satisfy judges, but as the law stands now I think it's reasonable to support deportation here.
Just because you are born (or in this case conceived) here, that SHOULD not be the end all be all when it comes to citizenship. If two foreign citizens, legal or illegal, have a child here, that child should be a citizen of the county his/her parents are from. Why in God's name do we have this insane policy????
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