Birthright Citizenship Looms as Next Immigration Battle

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: NYT

Of the 50 or so women bused to this border town on a recent morning to be deported back to Mexico, Inez Vasquez stood out. Eight months pregnant, she had tried to waddle north, even carrying scissors with her in case she gave birth in the desert and had to cut the umbilical cord.
“All I want is a better life,” she said after the Border Patrol discovered her hiding in the bushes on the Arizona side of the border with her husband, her young son and her very pronounced abdomen.

The next big immigration battle looming on the horizon centers on illegal immigrants’ offspring, who are granted automatic citizenship if born on American soil. Arguing for an end to the policy, long rooted in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants like Ms. Vasquez stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to drop what are dismissively called “anchor babies.”

The reality at this stretch of the border is more complex, with hospitals reporting some immigrants arriving to give birth in America but many of them with valid visas who have crossed the border legally to take advantage of better medical care. Some are even attracted by an electronic billboard on the Mexican side that advertises the services of an American doctor and says bluntly: “Do you want to have your baby in the U.S.?”

As for women like Ms. Vasquez, who was preparing for a desert delivery, they are rare.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05babies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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14 U.S. states may target birthright citizenship
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=233578

[Lasher]

1. States can introduce all the legislation they want, but none of it will mean a thing.

The only meaningful thing these states can do is get a US constitutional amendment going - which has a snowball's chance of being ratified.

[BlueIris]

3. Glad you think so.

Sadly, I have been convinced for years that if the question comes up again, birthright citizenship will be toast.

[jberryhill]

6. United States v. Wong Kim Ark

...has a lot of other decisions premised on it.

[county worker]

2. How many of us, if born on the Mexican side of the border would not try to make it to the United

States and a better life if not for ourselves for our children?

I can not find fault in someone who does what I would do if I were in her place.


How come we can build up Iraq and Afghanistan but not help Mexico make a better home for it's people?

[felix_numinous]

4. +1000

[totodeinhere]

13. With all of it's oil revenue Mexico should be able to do it itself w/o our help. n/t

[Rage for Order]

14. That's a rather cowardly position

Rather than running away from their problems, perhaps the family referenced in the OP, and the millions like them, should stay in Mexico and fight to make their homeland a better place.

[AlphaCentauri]

16. Do Cubans and other refugees fall into that category? n/t

[mbperrin]

5. There's that pesky 14th amendment!

Dang! Why couldn't we just continue with slavery the way the founding fathers intended??!!

[Burma Jones]

7. Don't give 'em any ideas

[sarge43]

8. Rhetorical, but if a US birth place doesn't confer US citizenship, what does?

Parent's US citizenship? I, for one, have no documentation for my parent's birth place. Their birth certificates, if they ever existed, are no longer on file. Same for my husband. Our parents were born over a century ago.

Further, what if a person's parents were legal immigrates, but never became citizens?

[treestar]

9. Which is exactly why all it would do is create work for lawyers

The Society of Immigration and Nationality Law would have a blast making fees on it.

Even if these idiots got their way, they don't realize what a quagmire they would be creating.

Birthright citizenship is the most convenient way to go. It's not worth it not to have it. It won't prevent illegal immigration. And it will simply create a class of noncitizens who live here.

[sarge43]

10. A class of noncitizens is most likely the aim.

Memo to self: Self, you're never wrong when you think the worst of these bigots.

[Fool Count]

12. Well, here is one example - in Australia only children of citizens and

permanent residents acquire automatic citizenship by birth. All other children born in the country acquire Australian citizenship
automatically on their tenth birthday, provided they still reside in the country. A child born to a temporary visitor which have left
the country soon after does not become a citizen, like he or she does in the US. What in this arrangement does not seem sensible
to you?

[Mojorabbit]

18. Does the child then not have citizenship

anywhere? I am interested in the logistics. What if the country of origin of the parents do not recongnize the child because he was not born in country?

[Fool Count]

20. I don't know of any such countries that do not recognize citizenship

by descent, do you? Many (probably even most) do not guarantee automatic citizenship by birth, as US does, but every country I know of would
easily grant citizenship to its citizen's children. It is certainly true for US, Canada and Australia, no matter where those children were born.
Even if there were such a country, I don't see why should it be any concern for another country that all children born there had at least some
citizenship. Stateless people do exist, live and engage in international travel too.

[gratuitous]

11. The "next" big immigration battle?

What was the last one? Most of what I've heard in the recent past is racist rantings from a bunch of bigots, determined to maintain the Republicans' minority status and waste a lot of time and money trying to give their racism a patina of dubious legality.

[TomCADem]

15. Republicans Will Attack From The Left and Right...

By trying to revervse birthright citizenship while also funding "left" leaning groups who will attack Democrats for failing to overcome Republican opposition to immigration reform.

[AlphaCentauri]

17. Plus all those blue dogs that will vote with the republicans

there is nothing left for the DNC

[Devil_Fish]

19. So all you european fuckers, go back to your own country. Only Native Americans can stay.

Wait a minute... Wasn't this Mexico any way?