The 14th Amendment and "Anchor Babies": should it be changed/repealed?

Do you mean just Citizen or legal resident, as well? And what if one parent is a citizen and the other is a legal resident? Should this law be retro-active, or are you willing to grandfather in those people who have already been born here?

 

For the people who think Obama shouldn't be president because they think he wasn't born in the US--changing Hawaii's status from state to territory still doesn't take away the citizenship by birth right. People are US citizens by birth if they are born in a US state, a US territory or a US possession.

 

Seriously....stripping Hawaii of statehood just so that you can say Obama wasn't born in the United States? I don't care if only one-fifth of one person in this country supports that, that's still too many people.

And wasn't it not too long ago that people were discussing whether the "must be born in U.S." requirement should be amended, having in mind a potential Arnold Schwarzenegger presidential bid? If he were to be allowed to run and did so, I can guarantee you that there'd be almost no one who would complain about his place of birth despite the fact that he actually was born outside the States.

 

I've never heard of anyone ever talk about changing the status of Hawaii.

 

Okay, good.

 

There is, however, a critical distinction between the two cases.

In the case of a potential Arnold run, the proposal was to actually amend the Constitution to make it possible. At that point, there would be no possible legal objection to his eligibility. In the case of Obama (according to those who are making the fuss), they question his eligibility under the current legal standard.

I'm not saying that they are right, but that the comparison between the two cases does not represent hypocrisy.

Kimball Kinnison

 

In a legal sense, no.....but in terms of intent - yes. Conservatives were tripping all over themselves to vote in a "foreigner", and now they are tripping all over themselves to label an American citizen as a foreigner, all for political gain.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't see that.

It would be one thing if they were calling to vote Arnold in regardless of his citizenship status (natural born v. naturalized), but the complaints I've heard from "birthers" are over the fact that they see Obama as not meeting the legal qualifications to be President (or at least not seeing acceptable evidence that he meets those qualifications).

Kimball Kinnison

 

It's about mindset, KK, that's all. I personally think it's funny that Republicans at one time (I don't think they believe it now after 8 years) were suggesting and dropping hints that "it would be great" to amend the constitution so as to allow Arnold to run for the big chair, and that many of those same Republicans today are bending over backwards (as MeBeJedi put it) to vilify an American citizen for his father's nationality/citizenship.

 

I don't even remember that having much support back when that was getting said at all. Though I do think Kimball's point is valid in that there's a difference between advocating a rules change versus complaining someone has violated the current rules. I think the mindset against Obama is, in large part, partisan. The more hard core birthers.... that just gets psychologically messy, but in large part it's that attempt to get the other side out on a technicality. But it doesn't change that arguing for changing the rules doesn't counteract complaining if someone doesn't follow the current rules.


On the question at hand, I do like the general idea of amending the 14th Amendment, but I think it has to be done so with great caution. I have no issue with the children of illegal immigrants not getting citizenship. And by the plural there, I mean that both parents are here illegally. I'd also say that being born here while one's parents are only traveling in the U.S. would also be something that shouldn't really be allowed, but the converse is I think anyone that's certainly here as a legal resident, not just as a citizen, should then have it mean that their kids get citizenship by birthright. There's a line somewhere between legal resident and illegal immigrant however I'm a bit uncertain as to where I'm comfortable drawing that line.

 

What does that have to do with anything? I never said that I thought that Obama was ineligible to hold office due to his birth. The closest I've come to that is a comment when the issue first came up during the election that if he wasn't documented as a natural born citizen, then he would be constitutionally ineligible. That's merely a statement of constitutional fact.

I was simply pointing out that there is no contradiction between someone opposing Obama's presidency because they think that he isn't a natural born citizen (because they claim they haven't seen adequate evidence), and someone supporting changing the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become President. That's it. There's no need to read anything more into my statements than that.

So there you are.

Kimball Kinnison

P.S. You might want to watch where you type your post in the future when you use the quote feature. The way you posted was literally putting words into my mouth.

 

Given the true count of how many babies are born in the US by illegal immigrants, I'm inclined to believe amending or repealing the 14th amendment is irrelevant to the cause of curbing illegal immigration.

Additionally, all stats point toward a reduction in illegal immigration over the past year. Since we now know that AZ's SB1070 law had some profits attached to it, I'm hard-pressed to find any rational reason for calling illegal immigration so overwhelming that any constitutional amendment is required to fix it.

 

KK,

Sorry about that. I didn't mean to imply that you said you had a problem with the evidence or that you agreed with those people. Just that the state of Hawaii had given out numerous copies of the birth certificate and the birthers were still questioning Obama's citizenship.

That's all.

 

I'm slightly confused here, as I never said in my statement that the goal was "curb illegal immigration", as my point was more that I believe that the point of citizenship was that it should be extended to the children of all those that are residing in the United States legally. I didn't really address curbing illegal immigration at all in there, I don't think.

 

I'm curious: does anyone opposed to the so-called Anchor Babies have actual numbers regarding them?

 

3.5

 

Who needs numbers when you can just listen to Fox News? Fox says that our country is being overrun by illegal immigrants and anchor babies, so it must be true. Anyone who says otherwise or brings up facts which are contrary to the truth is just a pathetic unpatriotic liberal!

 

No need to repeat yourself three times over!

 

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/08/12/20100812illegal-immigrants-us-births-rising.html
This cites Pew Hispanic Center as saying its 340,000 in 2008.

 

True; however, this fervor around amending or repealing (depending on the group) the 14th Amendment has gained a following because of accusations of visitors coming here and having children on US soil so that they are born citizens, thus giving the parents and other family a stronger position in acquiring citizenship themselves.

Without the anchor baby threat, the 14th amendment shakers would be very few and far between.

 

To be specific:

What the study does not identify is how many of those illegal immigrant parents were granted citizenship because of their child being a citizen. Regardless of how one attempts to seek residency/citizenship, there is a lengthy process. Having a child here is not a guarantee that you yourself will be given citizenship.

 

That's darn annoying that they don't differentiate between both parents being here illegally and just one being here illegally.
I would also point out that there's a lot of government services that are given to citizens only that a child born here can receive, so there are financial considerations in that sense and not just the question of obtaining citizenship. There is also that people then oppose the deportation of illegal immigrants because their children are citizens, which leads to it complicating addressing the illegal immigration problem.

 

I've already made this suggestion earlier, but it really hadn't made much headway.

When I suggest that anchor babies not be a means for illegal immigrants to escape deportation, I don't exactly mean simply separating the parents and sending them back to their home country. There is only a particular capacity that the US orphanage system can provide for, which shouldn't be overtaxed because of anchor babies. If any illegal immigrant parents are to be deported, they should be responsible for either providing for the child in America, or for taking the child with them back to their home country. If there are not enough facilities to provide for all these anchor babies, they should not go over their normal capacity... and also grant first priority to US citizens, as to not make it impossible for Americans to put up their children for adoption.

When the child comes of age to take care of her/himself, s/he would have the option of coming back into the US as a full citizen. And when it comes to families where there's only a single illegal immigrant parent, this gets difficult. Under these circumstances, it may prove better for that person be allowed to pursue citizenship, rather than deport him/her and leave the single American parent to care for the child on their own.