Birthright Citizenship

[JoeTheJuggler]

344,000 children of illegal aliens were born in 2008

Again, so what?

I'd be more interested in reducing crime, reducing highway fatalities, finding cures or prevention (vaccines, for example) for horrible diseases, providing clean drinking water for everyone, etc. than I am in something that is legal and doesn't cause any measurable harm.

In fact, if the Constitution were amended the way you would like, it would actually cause harm.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

oh? I thought we were talking about chickens, frogs, and hamsters.

No, you seem to think they are dangerous criminals or otherwise harmful. . . .but they're not.

No can you address my question? So what?

 

[Giggywig]

who can say?

Well,clearly you can't since that's what you've been asked to provide repeatedly.

 

[Thunder]

No, you seem to think they are dangerous criminals or otherwise harmful. . . .but they're not.

funny....I never said they were.

 

[Thunder]

Again, so what?

many countries do not have birthright citizenship, especially for the children of illegals.

what is your response to them?

are they racist, bigoted xenophobes?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

funny....I never said they were.

Then can you please answer my question? So what? What if there were a million babies born in the U.S. each year to non-citizen parents?

What exactly is the problem that you think is serious enough to warrant a constitutional amendment that would undoubtedly harm people?

 

[A Laughing Baby]

the moment they cross the border with out permission from the USA.

I mean when the immigration policy they're violating (which in turn, makes them "illegal") became policy. Again: it's not when you think it was.

ETA: Thunder, if you read the history of Juarez, it might give you a seizure.

 

[Thunder]

Then can you please answer my question? So what?

its unfare to the people who wait their turn.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

its unfare to the people who wait their turn.

Hey, that's a start toward showing why you think it's a problem! What would the problem be, then, with making it easier for people to become a citizen legally?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

many countries do not have birthright citizenship, especially for the children of illegals.

what is your response to them?

We are not "many countries". So are you discussing whether or not other countries should change their laws or whether or not the U.S. should change its laws.

are they racist, bigoted xenophobes?

Some countries definitely do have policies that are based on racist xenophobia. But that's irrelevant, isn't it?

Some countries also have theocracies and some have autocrats. Do you similarly think the U.S. should adopt their systems of government?

So again, can you answer my question? What is the harm? What problem is so serious as to warrant a constitutional amendment that would definitely cause harm?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

its unfare [sic] to the people who wait their turn.

Ah, so maybe the problem you'd like to address is our policies that result in prohibitively long waits (or just prohibition of immigration in general)?

And do you think we should amend our Constitution whenever things are unfair, even if we know those amendments would cause harm?

ETA: On top of all this, are you claiming the babies have unfairly chosen where to be born? The amendment you're suggesting would target them--it would strip them of citizenship.

 

[Thunder]

ETA: On top of all this, are you claiming the babies have unfairly chosen where to be born? The amendment you're suggesting would target them--it would strip them of citizenship.

No, I would not strip citizenship from anyone. I would make any amendments to the 14th non-retroactive.

 

[Thunder]

What would the problem be, then, with making it easier for people to become a citizen legally?

who is claiming the process is too difficult?

 

[A Laughing Baby]

who is claiming the process is too difficult?

Me, for one. Did you forget about that entire page where I discussed the incredible difficulty of acquiring legal status in the United States unless you are a high-skill employee being sponsored by a spouse or willing corporation? Did you even look at the flow chart I posted that details how the immigration process works?

ETA: and apart from that, if your only issue is that birthright citizenship is unfair to people who wait their turn, wouldn't a logical conclusion be to make it easy to become a legal citizen, so that birthright citizenship would become obsolete?

 

[Malerin]

Authorities have deported the legal immigrant parents of more than 88,000 U.S. citizen children in the last decade, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report, published by the UC Berkeley and UC Davis law schools, found that the majority of parents were deported for what it described as "minor criminal convictions" now classified as aggravated felonies, including nonviolent drug offenses, simple assaults and drunk driving.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/01/local/la-me-deport1-2010apr01

Just to average that out, that's 8,800 deportations a year of parents whose kids are citizens.

Deportations averaged around 200,000 a year from 1997-2007 (the date range of the 88,000 figure).

That comes out to 4% of deportations involve parents of legal kids. Do only 4% of illegals have children who are citizens? That seems awfully low. 8% of ALL babies born in the U.S. are born to illegal immigrants. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in the country and 4 million legal kids who have an illegal parent. A lot more than 4% of illegals have a child who's a legal citizen (maybe around 30%?).

So if you have a legal kid (AND you commit a crime), your odds of being deported are very small (in an average year, only 8,800 parents out of the 4 million families where there's an illegal parent and legal child are deported: much less than 1%. AND those parents were involved in the criminal justice system).

If you have a legal kid and DON'T commit a crime, your odds of being deported are probably almost non-existent.

So yeah, I think there's an incentive to come to America and have a kid here.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

That comes out to 4% of deportations involve parents of legal kids. Do only 4% of illegals have children who are citizens?

Just using the figures you're providing, I would point out that it means that 4% of deported illegals have children who are citizens. Not necessarily only 4% of all illegals.

So if you have a legal kid (AND you commit a crime), your odds of being deported are very small (in an average year, only 8,800 parents out of the 4 million families where there's an illegal parent and legal child are deported: much less than 1%. AND those parents were involved in the criminal justice system).

I don't think this is a valid conclusion. Though I agree in general your odds of being deported are very small anyway, but I don't know if having a citizen child has any effect. At least nothing you've said makes that connection.

If you have a legal kid and DON'T commit a crime, your odds of being deported are probably almost non-existent.

And if you're an illegal who doesn't commit a crime and doesn't have a citizen child, your odds of being deported are also almost non-existent. Enforcement efforts are aimed primarily at criminal illegals.

So yeah, I think there's an incentive to come to America and have a kid here.

Again, I don't think anything you've said supports this conclusion. Even so, so what? Does that mean we should repeal the 14th Amendment?

I like to point out that the vast majority of rapists are males. It's very nearly 100%. Should we then criminalize having a Y chromosome? This is roughly analogous to the connection between illegal immigrants and crime.

 

[Random]

That comes out to 4% of deportations involve parents of legal kids. Do only 4% of illegals have children who are citizens? That seems awfully low. 8% of ALL babies born in the U.S. are born to illegal immigrants. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in the country and 4 million legal kids who have an illegal parent. A lot more than 4% of illegals have a child who's a legal citizen (maybe around 30%?).

So if you have a legal kid (AND you commit a crime), your odds of being deported are very small (in an average year, only 8,800 parents out of the 4 million families where there's an illegal parent and legal child are deported: much less than 1%. AND those parents were involved in the criminal justice system).

It could just mean that immigrants with children are less likely to commit crimes that would attract the attention of deportation authorities.

 

[Malerin]

That comes out to 4% of deportations involve parents of legal kids. Do only 4% of illegals have children who are citizens?

Just using the figures you're providing, I would point out that it means that 4% of deported illegals have children who are citizens. Not necessarily only 4% of all illegals.

If there are 12 million illegals in the country, and 4 million legal kids with an illegal parent, the percentage of illegal immigrants with legal children is much higher than 4%. Unless you think the average is being skewed by illegal immigrant families with 800 legal kids or something.

So if you have a legal kid (AND you commit a crime), your odds of being deported are very small (in an average year, only 8,800 parents out of the 4 million families where there's an illegal parent and legal child are deported: much less than 1%. AND those parents were involved in the criminal justice system).

I don't think this is a valid conclusion. Though I agree in general your odds of being deported are very small anyway, but I don't know if having a citizen child has any effect. At least nothing you've said makes that connection.

Not counting any other factors, an illegal's odds of being deported during one of the years of the study are approx. 200,000 out of approx. 12 million. About 1.5%.

If you're one of the 4 million illegal parents of a legal child (and the actual number is, of course, higher- I'm assuming one illegal parent per legal child), your odds are 8,800 out of 4 million: .2%

Prima facia, illegal immigrants with legal children have a much smaller chance of being deported.

If you have a legal kid and DON'T commit a crime, your odds of being deported are probably almost non-existent.

And if you're an illegal who doesn't commit a crime and doesn't have a citizen child, your odds of being deported are also almost non-existent. Enforcement efforts are aimed primarily at criminal illegals.

Source?

Anyway, the study highlighted that: the 88,000 parents that were deported during the 10 year period had broken laws. If you're a parent of a legal citizen who hasn't broken any laws, your odds of being deported are likely much less than a non-parent who hasn't broken any laws. Illegals who obey the law still get deported.

So yeah, I think there's an incentive to come to America and have a kid here.

Again, I don't think anything you've said supports this conclusion. Even so, so what? Does that mean we should repeal the 14th Amendment?

The statistics support it: your odds of deportation are much lower if you have a legal citizen child.

I like to point out that the vast majority of rapists are males. It's very nearly 100%. Should we then criminalize having a Y chromosome? This is roughly analogous to the connection between illegal immigrants and crime.

I wasn't making a connection between illegal immigrants and crime. I'm showing that having a legal child, for whatever reason, makes one much less likely to be deported. Probably because INS is not made up of robots, but actual people who are generally sympathetic and reluctant to break up families.

 

[Malerin]

It could just mean that immigrants with children are less likely to commit crimes that would attract the attention of deportation authorities.

Not if they're anything like America's prison population:
Sixty-three percent of federal prisoners and 55 percent of state prisoners are parents of children under age 18 (Incarcerated Parents and Their Children, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, 2000).
http://www.demossnewspond.com/pf/additional/statistics_concerning_children_of_prisoners

Prisoners who are parents are the rule, not the exception.

 

[sol invictus]

it rewards illegal behavior.

This is the only actual argument you've presented in the entire thread. Unfortunately for you, there's a giant gaping hole in it.

The thing that rewards illegal immigration isn't the 14th amendment, it's the US economy. Large sections of our economy (agriculture, for example) would not function without massive numbers of cheap laborers. There is a strong demand for illegal immigrants, and it's the salaries those jobs provide that reward illegal immigration. Those jobs are the only reason for illegal immigration in the first place. Birthright citizenship is a footnote to that - if we changed the 14th amendment as you want, do you really think it would have an effect on the numbers of illegal immigrants in the US?

If you want an example, take the United Arab Emirates. It's essentially impossible by any means to get citizenship there, and yet something close to 90% of the population are immigrant laborers. Why? Because they can earn money working there.