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Birthright Citizenship

Thermal said:
Nope. We have citizens without states now, though not many.
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In some places there are lots, but it’s only a problem in countries that do not have birthright citizenship, and your position is that you’d like the US to become one of these countries. Your justification that “it happens in other places so it’s ok if it becomes a problem here” just doesn’t cut it.
Thermal said:
No, but you asked me how to justify a theoretical problem
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How can it be a “theoretical” problem when you have already argued that it happens elsewhere in the world?
 
I'm honestly surprised at how many Americans are supportive of ending birthright citizenship. I've always considered it to be a fundamental and practically sacred aspect of the American experiment, second only to free speech and freedom of religion.
 
rdwight said:
While I disagree with the 'little cost to it' portion, I wholeheartedly agree that simple removal would not be an avenue to take. Set timelines guaranteeing citizenship would have to be part of the equation to really make any sense. It would ease strain on social services costs by delaying immediate use, possibly deterring some irresponsible child bearing decisions.
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As others have pointed out, even if you take away birthright citizenship you end up with a patch work of regulations that convey citizenship to most of this people born here if they stick around long enough. Thus, you have to set up an entire government agency that determines who is and who isn't a citizen. I think the cost of implementing such a system, without using a national ID that would trigger the number of the beast fanatics, would be much more than the cost of simply allowing birth right citizenship.

And the change over would be a **** show for at least 20 years.

Starting from scratch, I think you could do something better than what we have. Starting where we are, I don't think there is enough value in changing to justify the cost. There are other ways to deal with illegal immigration.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm honestly surprised at how many Americans are supportive of ending birthright citizenship. I've always considered it to be a fundamental and practically sacred aspect of the American experiment, second only to free speech and freedom of religion.
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Agreed, but you can take that to the "Things you were wrong about" thread, old man. You'll be shocked to hear who is president.
 
BobTheCoward said:
My problem with citizenship is a matter of values. I can't stand that something so valuable desired by millions is given away and squandered on people like the Trump family.

Not only do I think citizenship should be an affirmative step by everyone, I think it should only come with negatives. Give everyone in the borders right to vote and benefits. Make citizens pay taxes and do jury duty.
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Deciding who has citizenship determines who gets to vote and run for office, and those are the only two special citizenship rights in the Constitution. Using citizenship to also decide who is eligible for public assistance or other benefits -- the main bugaboo, as I understand it -- and then setting criteria for that to avoid giving money to people you don't think deserve it is to also say that those people are not allowed to participate in government, even those who are productive members of society. This seems like a pretty clear violation of the liberal political philosophy, and I haven't yet seen any overriding moral reason for why it is nonetheless justified, or why we should abandon our philosophy of government just to save some money.
 
Let's keep it simple and talk about the concept outside of current law:

What's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his or her parents?
 
xjx388 said:
Let's keep it simple and talk about the concept outside of current law:

What's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his or her parents?
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Wouldn't that question be "what's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his country of birth?"?
 
LSSBB said:
Are you speaking of that citizenship being exclusive of any other citizenship?
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The kid's? Mexican National parents = the kid is a Mexican National.

Just focus on the basic concept at first.
 
WilliamSeger said:
Deciding who has citizenship determines who gets to vote and run for office, and those are the only two special citizenship rights in the Constitution. Using citizenship to also decide who is eligible for public assistance or other benefits -- the main bugaboo, as I understand it -- and then setting criteria for that to avoid giving money to people you don't think deserve it is to also say that those people are not allowed to participate in government, even those who are productive members of society. This seems like a pretty clear violation of the liberal political philosophy, and I haven't yet seen any overriding moral reason for why it is nonetheless justified, or why we should abandon our philosophy of government just to save some money.
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Both voting and running for office should be taken away from citizens specifically and given to everyone in the border. Citizenship should only be for paying taxes,conscription, and jury duty.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm honestly surprised at how many Americans are supportive of ending birthright citizenship. I've always considered it to be a fundamental and practically sacred aspect of the American experiment, second only to free speech and freedom of religion.
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Birthright citizenship wasn't added to the "American experiment" until 1868.
 
xjx388 said:
Let's keep it simple and talk about the concept outside of current law:

What's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his or her parents?
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I'll reiterate more or less what I said before.

If a child's parents have citizenship in country A but that child is born and grows up in country B and that child is a citizen of country Y, there are a lot of practical issues for both the child and the countries involved.

The child may have never even visited country A, may not even speak the language or not very well, may know little of the culture of country A. Meanwhile they will have been educated for 18 years or so in country B. Country B will have invested a great deal of both money and social capital in raising this child who, not being a citizen won't be able to fully participate and bring that value back to country B. If they end up deported back to country A, they're not a great resource there either. With no experience of the culture and possibly a weaker grasp of even the language, they may not be a very useful resource there.

From the perspective of the individual, their experience, actions and potential may be no different from the millions of citizens, but because of their parents, they would be on shaky ground in the place they have always known as home.

This may be less of an issue if the country B in this scenario offers a road to citizenship for these people who've lived their whole lives there. Even something more halfassed like DACA mitigates the harm to an extent. But given the fickleness of changing regimes, a lack of citizenship puts a resident into a difficult place.
 
Belz... said:
Wouldn't that question be "what's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his country of birth?"?
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Not the question I'm asking, no.

But to answer yours, the basic wrong is that it opens up an avenue for giving citizenship rights and benefits to people who would not otherwise have claim to them.
 
xjx388 said:
Let's keep it simple and talk about the concept outside of current law:

What's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his or her parents?
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What if the parents aren't resident of the place they're citizens of? The child would end up citizen of somewhere they've never been to.
 
lomiller said:
It does happen. In Europe local provisions allowing for citizenship and EU provisions regarding free movement address most but not all of the issue. In other places it results in terrible suffering and even genocide. Again, the fact that it happens now doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.


Eh? What does dual citizenship have to do with it? If the US no longer recognises children born in the US as citizens, but their parents country says they weren’t born here so they are not citizens where are you going to deport them to?
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I guess I misread your point in that later paragraph.

I'd have to know what numbers of persons would be stateless but for birthright citizenship in the US. I suspect it's very few, and could be fixed by limited birthright citizenship.

None of this should suggest that I'm opposed to the current law, of course.
 
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