Birthrights, "anchor babies," and shameless politics.
For a parent, "because I said so" is the ipse dixit's justification. For a patriot, there are substantive explanations for the moral chasm between them and us, but they all seem to be variations on the OED's definition of "selfish": Devoted to or concerned with one's own advantage or welfare to the exclusion of regard for others. The modern state's reasons for granting or denying citizenship are a mix of "because I said so" and "because we matter and you don't."
Birthrights
Democracy is a living monument to individual rights. Except not in real life, where nationalism protects the patriot's political shenanigans from the shame of selfishness. Today's example: citizenship. For a newborn baby, yet to commit its first sin, what is the moral principle that lets the citizenship of it parents determine its rights?
"Birthright citizenship" -- by which a baby born in the US is as American as POTUS himself -- is a welcome case of legally treating children as individuals with their own rights. The rarely-mentioned fact that an "anchor baby" can't sponsor its parents' immigration until it turns 21 confirms that it is not the parents who have benefited from a "loophole." Rather, the child is itself a citizen -- who may act on that privilege (or not) upon reaching the age of majority. (Aside: but shouldn't that age be 18?)
By one conservative estimate, there are about four million U.S.-born children with at least one parent who is an unauthorized immigrant.
But if all those pregnant women without immigration papers think their babies will be anchors -- helping them stay in the country after they "swim across the river" and give birth on U.S. soil -- they're wrong. I knew that suburban legend rang a bell, and then I remembered my own post from last year:
Over the 10 years up to 2007, the U.S. deported 108,434 adults whose children were U.S. citizens, according to a Department of Homeland Security report. The exact number of citizen children left behind in these deportations is unknown, because no one in the government cared to count them... Either keeping your parents from being dumped over the border isn't a right Americans enjoy, or someone in power doesn't really think these kids are American. Or both.
Litigating exclusion
The principle of "settled law," or stare decisis, is mutable. And when it comes to anti-immigration-election-year politics, ignorance of the law is the only excuse some people need. In the case of birthright citizenship, which some Republicans say they want to eliminate by amending or reinterpreting the 14th Amendment, the principle may be worth refreshing.
In 1894, having previously traveled to China and back as a U.S. citizen, he attempted to return from another visit there. This time, however, the authorities blocked his return on the logic that, under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, he could not be a citizen because his parents were Chinese. In an 1898 decision, the Supreme Court declared that citizenship by birth was guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.
It is fashionable among anti-immigrant groups to claim that the 14th Amendment is not clear, or that the courts haven't spoken directly to this issue. (Practically, this isn't likely to change right away. But in the meantime, some suggest, maybe the U.S. should deny pregnant women visas.) I am especially incensed by those who pretend that undocumented immigrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US. Tell that to the undocumented immigrants executed here.
What is "jurisdiction," anyway? Change "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to "or subject to the jurisdiction thereof," and you'd have to let at least the people of Afghanistan and Iraq vote here as well.
On the other hand
While some people are trying to gain citizenship -- or at least access -- others become U.S. citizens involuntarily after being declared orphans and getting adopted by American parents. A recent New York Times report highlights the scrambling confusion -- followed by limbo-citizen status -- for some children adopted from Haiti and granted "humanitarian parole." (Aside from the Haiti situation, inter-country adoption has become less common, but it's too early to tell if its era has ended.)
And then there are the citizens who aren't. Being a U.S. citizen doesn't mean the CIA can't wage an undeclared war on you and blow you to smithereens with a drone -- while your lawyer sits in jail for attempting to represent you. Such political de-Americanization was immortalized in the Phil Ochs song "The Ballad of William Worthy," about the black journalist convicted of traveling without a passport on his return from Cuba -- having had his passport seized after a trip to China: "You are living in the free world and in the free world you must stay."
(Aside: In the category of arbitrary citizenship rules, maybe for comparison, consider Israel. Because its national identity is religiously-defined, "essentially, all Jews everywhere are Israeli citizens by right." Unlike in some religions, children of Jewish parents [mothers] are assumed to be Jews, too. But, like in other religions, people can also convert to Judaism, and after ironing out a few details, those who have converted may also claim their right to Israeli citizenship. In fact, Jewish-American parents who adopt children may convert them to Judaism, and then, I suppose, move them to Israel as citizens -- giving them two new citizenships and one birthright religion before they're old enough to speak for themselves. [So, what if the whole world converted to Judaism?] This automatic citizenship for some comes at the expense of those denied access to what is now Israel, including of course some people who were born there.)
There is no way -- and no reason -- to avoid the underlying tension of citizenship politics, which is the mind-bending level of global economic inequality, largely expressed as between-country disparities. This creates the unbearable pressure that builds along the borders between rich and poor, and fuels the politics around them. That background reality urges me toward an ends-justifies-the-means attitude regarding citizenship, in which I simply root for the policies that favor more open borders in order to increase access by the poor to a better life.
I read somewhere that, "Height variations within a population are largely genetic, but height variations between populations are mostly environmental." Metaphorically, opportunity and the myth of meritocracy work similarly. Within some populations (say, countries), those who work hard or have better raw material may out-compete their peers and rise to the top (call that genetic). But the inequality between countries is essentially insurmountable by individual effort or ability (call that environmental).
Such are the accidents of birth -- and the selfishness of the politics that covets citizenship.
Cross posted from the Family Inequality blog.
Nah, that wouldn't work.
It doesn't fit with the "I've got mine, Jack" xenophobic mentality.
Nevermind.
Number two, when Wong Kim Ark was born, his parents had been admitted legally. They were here with the approval of this country.
diverging interpretations. It allowed citizenship to children born
here to "foreigners who have a permanent domicile and residence
in the U.S." and are conducting business here. That describes
LEGAL immigrants not illegals. It was NOT unconditional birthright citizenship. However, over time, the original intent of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "permanent domicile" faded.
The implication that anyone believing in the original intent is
bigoted is offensive. The important part is that it would not take
a Constitutional amendment to retro-interpret. Either Congressional action or court ruling would suffice.
Those claiming lax immigration policies and birthright citizenship
are somehow the moral high ground and inherent values of this
country are TOTALLY ignoring history. In the past we even required a job, a sponsor, good health, and self sufficiency to enter legally. Quel horreur!
Letting illegals dictate immigration policy and participation in vast social welfare programs is not humane, it is abject stupidity that
will leave this country eternally bankrupt.
"As a Senator, Howard is credited with working closely with Abraham Lincoln in drafting and passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery. In the Senate, he also served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
During debate over the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, he argued for including the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Howard said:
[The 14th amendment] 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 person."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_M._Howard
Because it is the Court, and not Congress, that interrupts and applies the Constitution; one person’s Constitutional vindications is another’s reason to opine judicial activism.
This insistent on Senator Howard’s promotion of his personal Fourteenth Amendment aspirations is a fallacy constructed to distort the foundation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Importing poverty by the bucketful will only send wages down to the basement and increase the divide between rich and poor. Note: none of the Western industrialized nations with large social welfare programs, such as universal healthcare, have birthright citizenship. Only the United States, where we are more than happy to let our poor fall by the wayside as they make way for more illegals to take what few jobs there are.
If you're such an advocate, sponsor several them. BUT DON'T BILL ME!
I can say the same thing about my great-grandmother that I can safely say about most undocumented immigrants then or today: They work harder than I do, for less money.
We owe it to our Children to not engage in the relentless destruction of our green space, sacrificed on the alter of population growth, driven by more and more people inhabiting our core cities, expanding them across our richest farmlands. Even our environmental groups admit 50% of our urban sprawl is due to population growth. We have tried to not engage in the destructive practices of other countries that overpopulate their lands with no thought to tomorrow. Because we chose a different course we are now on the hit list of countries whose sovereignty is disrespected because we are “better offâ€. No good deed goes unpunished.
Just because somebody can illegally enter the USA to have a child does not make them “under the jurisdiction†of the USA any more than a burglar in your house is under your jurisdiction. If said burglar were under your jurisdiction you would just order him/her out making burglary impossible.
In the mean time, poeple from south of the border were always allowed to come and go, especially to provide cheap labor. Their presence here has become a problem because the number of brown babies is beginning to outnumer the number of white babies.
Five times between 1850 and 1914 large waves of immigrants came to the USA. And each wave resulted in high unemployment and economic recession. Unemployment of 30% in California resulted in the ridiculous Chinese Exclusion Act. Ellis Island was opened against a backdrop of unemployment exceeding 50% in the states of Maine, Kansas, and Michigan. Unemployment reached 32% for unskilled labor in 1910 thanks to uncontrolled immigration. By comparison unemployment peaked at only 25% in the Great Depression.
The lazy scholar looks at the Know-Nothings and sees only racism, not realizing that most people then were demanding immigration be reduced due to a lack of jobs. And most moved on to become Abolitionists, fighting slavery. Where is the racism in that?
That is why we now control immigration. Since that control began we have not had a single immigration driven economic recession. Until now that is. Even at the lowest level of unemployment this decade we had 12 million mostly low income Americans looking for jobs, 20% youth unemployment, and increasing numbers of workers at below poverty level wages, all courtesy of a labor oversupply of 7 million working Illegal Immigrants. And today, our unemployment rate is 50% higher than it should be thanks to the prescience of 7.5 million working Illegal Immigrants while 21 million Americans go unemployed.
As a result, each and every child that is born too Illegal Immigrants here is the USA is also automatically the Citizen of the country from which their Mother and in many cases Father came. Therefore, you cannot say that a child not given jus soli Citizenship in the USA automatically means that the Child is destined to be abandoned in America. The Child is fully entitled to exercise their jus sanguinis citizenship in their Parent’s home country and move to live with their parents if their parents are forced to leave the USA due to their illegal status. And to automatically assume that the Child would always be better off in the USA is simply national arrogance.
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What incredible nonsense. If you live in a democratic nations such as are in Latin America, you can change the government, and make it work for the people. You can make gobbly gook out that.. but you have a responsibility to fix the problem if you don't like it. NOT.. NOT run off to the United States and collect welfare through the 'accident' of the birth of an Anchor Baby.
The United States got to where it was because it followed a very serious economic policy, and did very serious things politically. Latin American were the grasshopper nations. Latin Americans were the Grasshoppers who are now looking at winter and demand we open our border and let them in.
and the selfishness of the politics that covets citizenship
If the people of a nation do not make the hard choices and promote freedom, and promote clean governments, and promote equality, they have exactly the troubles they created for themselves. Mexico is the 12th largest economy in the world.. the 4th largest in the Americas and they are pounding at the door demanding we let their poor people come up here. The law says no!
Detain the illegal aliens and deport them, and with their children. That is the law.. that is what should have been done for the last 15 years.
and start providing federal aid directly to each family.
There, you made the point. Illegals are under the jurisdiction of their home country until they become legal. Period. And no, we shouldn't be executing foreign nationals, unless we determine that their crime is an act of war. Which we might want to consider.
The 14th was written for slaves and their children. The way it's currently being "interpreted" is an abuse, and not the original intention of the language amendment. Just read a little about what the authors meant: they were very clear.
To say otherwise would play a dangerous game with when the government is expected to extend rights to people living here. All it would take is someone quietly passing a law which allows people convicted of certain crimes to have their citizenship removed, and suddenly the government can pick and choose when and where it wants to extend Constitutional rights via trumped-up charges.
The company got what they deserved (a big fine) for first knowingly hiring a Illegal Immigrant, then calling Immigration Enforcement on her when she tried to unionize.
By the way, the reason for the 2nd amendment, at the time the Bill of Rights were ratified is completely diffeent then the reason that 2nd amendment cases get upheld today. Selah (Pause and think on that).
Those who want the Constitution to be a "living breathing document" are the first and loudest to scream if the Constitution were to live and breathe in a way that does not suit their preconceived notions.