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Birthright Citizenship

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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I hope you haven't counted me in that number. I'm not concerned that it would create many stateless kids, but I think that changing the status quo is a bad idea.
 
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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Why was the Fourteenth Amendment implemented in the first place?
 
Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings massive Crime) “stuff.” Don’t forget the nasty term Anchor Babies. I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!

-- President Donald J. Trump (Oct 31, 2018)
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"This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!"

Gee, I wonder which way Kavanaugh will vote on birthright citizenship?
 
Cavemonster said:
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.
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If a woman who is a Mexican National crosses the border and gives birth here, she has no residence here. If we simply say that the kid is also a Mexican National, then there is no "growing up here" because there is nowhere for them to live here. We ensure the child and mother are in good condition after birth and then send them back to Mexico, where the family then has residency, mitigating the issues you have brought up.

Now, if the parents are legal residents of the US, maybe your scenario has some validity; in that case, France has a good system. But for the majority of what happens, the parents are not legal residents.

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.
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I agree with this analysis of the issues created by current law. I do think that the system France uses for kids born to foreign nationals is a workable solution; the kid can attain citizenship at the age of majority if they meet residency requirement. But they are not citizens by virtue of birth.

So, you haven't really answered the question which relates to the basic concept that a newborn is a citizen of the country of the parents. What's wrong with that, given that there are workable solutions in many countries for these issues?
 
jimbob said:
Why was the Fourteenth Amendment implemented in the first place?
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That's a current law question. We can get to that, but first, I'd like to know if you think there is a problem with the basic idea that a child acquires the citizenship of the parents, not the land they were born on?
 
xjx388 said:
What's the basic wrong in the concept that a kid has the citizenship of his or her parents?
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It’s dependant on the vagaries of how the parents got to be citizens and opens the door to groups people with no citizenship anywhere because no one recognises their parents as citizens. It’s also completely divorced from national boundaries which is the reason citizenship matters to begin with.


I suppose it makes sense to people in places where ethnicity and citizenship are largely the same groupings, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense for an immigrant country like the US. Even where it applies there is a significant element of racism involved, in that you are defining an ethnic in-group with full citizenship rights and an out-group of those of different ethnicity who do not have the same rights as citizens.
 
One reason to not recognize them a citizens of the parent's country is the parent chose to leave that country. It seems the parent is expressing a preference.

Why is it we are supposed to be members of the local sports fans we are born locally but not country?
 
lionking said:
I find this whole debate fascinating. Australia doesn’t have birthright citizenship. One parent needs to be an Australian citizen before the baby has citizenship. If, for some reason, a law was proposed to grant birthright citizenship in Australia it would not stand a chance of being passed, and there would be widespread public opposition.
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So when did the Aboriginals become citizens or are they still not?
 
lionking said:
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But call Australia a white supremacist nation. It will be yet another of the long line of things you are wrong about.
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Not to agree with Baylor, heaven forbid, but hasn't there been a long history of only allowing white immigrants to stay in Australia?
 
theprestige said:
Birthright citizenship wasn't added to the "American experiment" until 1868.
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Originally, if you lived in US territory and were white, you were a citizen. I think most people can see how this isn’t exactly consistent with much of what the US Constitution was aiming for...
 
Ivanka, Eric and Don jr are all anchor babies. Their mom Ivana was not a citizen at the time of their births.
 
xjx388 said:
If a woman who is a Mexican National crosses the border and gives birth here, she has no residence here. If we simply say that the kid is also a Mexican National, then there is no "growing up here" because there is nowhere for them to live here. We ensure the child and mother are in good condition after birth and then send them back to Mexico, where the family then has residency, mitigating the issues you have brought up.
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Are you suggesting that the hospital act as an arm of immigration enforcement? I hope I don't have to go too in depth about why that's a dangerous idea.

Now, if the parents are legal residents of the US, maybe your scenario has some validity; in that case, France has a good system.
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If I understand the system in France correctly, do you mean that a child born in France has an opportunity to become a citizen at certain ages given certain residency requirements are met? I'll agree, this mitigates the issue somewhat. I had intended my post to convey exactly that, so I apologize if it didn't come across.

I think the one issue I can see with citizenship awarded at a certain age in systems like France and Australia, is that it leaves children until that age prone to changing laws as regimes change. One might live one's entire life until your teens thinking you would become a citizen and then a particularly xenophobic legislature may dash it away. The best legal structures can protect against such capriciousness. The US policy, being enshrined in the constitution offers a little more stability. And if the US system offered such a deferred citizenship in an amendment that would be pretty much as good as what we have (unless I'm forgetting something, which is not unlikely).

I agree with this analysis of the issues created by current law. I do think that the system France uses for kids born to foreign nationals is a workable solution; the kid can attain citizenship at the age of majority if they meet residency requirement. But they are not citizens by virtue of birth.
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I don't think a lack of jus soli is necessarily a problem, you're right. It is the particulars of countries, histories and immigration realities that make it work or not work.
 
xjx388 said:
... the basic concept that a newborn is a citizen of the country of the parents. What's wrong with that, given that there are workable solutions in many countries for these issues?
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Nothing. So the legislators need to draft a new Constitutional Amendment and it needs to be approved by 38 States.

It's called democracy in case you didn't remember.
 
Cavemonster said:
If I understand the system in France correctly, do you mean that a child born in France has an opportunity to become a citizen at certain ages given certain residency requirements are met? I'll agree, this mitigates the issue somewhat. I had intended my post to convey exactly that, so I apologize if it didn't come across.
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This only works if you plan to let them stay long enough to meet the residency requirement. I do not think this is part of the plan the US right has in mind.
 
lomiller said:
This only works if you plan to let them stay long enough to meet the residency requirement. I do not think this is part of the plan the US right has in mind.
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So long as they are providing cheap labor they don't actually seem to mind much. If they did actually care about that they would make it much more costly to employ illegal immigrants.
 
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