The Falsehood of Birthright Citizenship

[Don Ro]

'Came across this recently.
Our elected "officials" know this to be the case, to be true, right, just, and proper.
But those same "officials" who are on the take are averse to doing what's right for the sake of our Nation, our country, our language, our culture, the very future of those of us who have fought for, died for, and have built this country - the taxpaying, voting citizens of America.
Wake up!...we are being betrayed by those whom we elected as they violate their oath of office on a daily basis by not upholding the law - some of the very laws that they passed themselves.
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Currently, the United States grants automatic citizenship to children born in the United States, regardless of whether a particular child’s parents are United States citizens, legal permanent residents, temporary visitors, nonimmigrants, or illegal aliens. (A slight exception to the automatic grant of birthright citizenship is that children born in the United States to foreign diplomats are not automatically granted United States citizenship.)

Shockingly, between 300,000 and 350,000 children per year are born in the United States to illegal-alien mothers, and these children are granted automatic citizenship upon birth. Some pundits argue that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment demands that the children of illegal aliens and of nonimmigrants legally present in the United States be granted automatic citizenship; these pundits are simply wrong.

Neither the Constitution nor any subsequent Supreme Court decision compels birthright citizenship to be conferred upon children of illegal aliens or of non-immigrants born in the United States.

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment declares, “All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”. The Citizenship Clause establishes a two-prong test for Birthright Citizenship: (1) Birth in the United States and (2) Subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The framers of the Citizenship Clause did not draft it on a “blank slate,” but rather “adopted [it] against a legal and ideological background.”

After the Civil War, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which read, “All persons born in the US and not subject to the jurisdiction to any foreign power, excluding Indians, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” Just two years later Congress drafted the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, intending to constitutionalize the definition provided in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Senators Trumbell and Howard, the “chief architects” of the Fourteenth amendment, intended for a person to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only if the person did not owe allegiance “to anyone else” (Senator Trumbell). The framers included the Jurisdictional prong of the Citizenship Clause to narrow the scope of birthright citizenship. A proper interpretation of the Citizenship Clause leads to the conclusion that political membership, and thus citizenship, can only result from free individual choices.

As previously indicated, a child born in the United States to a foreign diplomat is not a United States citizen. Since the foreign diplomat is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, the diplomat’s child, who inherits his parent’s status, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Because the child is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, he is not granted United States citizenship upon birth.

Likewise, Congress must declare that the child of an illegal alien inherits the status of his parent; thus, the child, like his parent should be deemed to be an illegal alien. Otherwise, immigration law creates a perverse incentive for people to sneak into our country and give birth. Illegal aliens are “individuals whose presence in the jurisdiction of the US is prohibited by law. They are manifestly individuals . . . whom society has explicitly . . . denied membership.”

By automatically granting citizenship to the child of an illegal entrant, Congress rewards illegal entrants for violating American law. Congress should not incent illegal aliens to violate the law of the United States. American citizenship confers valuable rights upon a person and the modern welfare state, characterized by “expanded entitlements conferred upon citizen children and their families,” compounds the attractiveness of American citizenship.

Further, the child of a nonimmigrant or of a temporary visitor should not be granted birthright citizenship. An alien present in the United States on a nonimmigrant visa necessarily owes loyalty and allegiance to a foreign nation. Congress must demand that the child of a nonimmigrant inherits the status of his parent and is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore is not a United States citizen upon birth. The Constitution does not contradict the principle that a child born in the United States to a person who is neither a citizen nor a legal permanent resident should inherit the status of his parent.

[alf]

Our Supreme Court has no opinion on this?

[Don Ro]

From:

http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/birthrightcitizenship.htm
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"It would be difficult to argue that illegal aliens and temporary visitors are "not subject to a foreign power" or that they do not "owe allegiance to anybody" but the United States. The Supreme Court, however, has never decided the issue. The closest it has come is a case involving the U.S.-born child of lawful permanent residents in which, of course, it held the child to be a U.S. citizen. In the absence of a ruling by the Supreme Court, it will remain up to Congress to clarify the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment or to accept the status quo."
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The rest of it:
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"Anchor Babies"

Some 380,000 children are born in the United States each year to illegal-alien mothers, according to U.S. Census data.

The children born in the United States to illegal-alien mothers are often referred to as "anchor babies." Under current practice, these children are U.S. citizens at birth, simply because they were born on U.S. soil. They are called anchor babies because, as U.S. citizens, they become eligible to sponsor for legal immigration most of their relatives, including their illegal-alien mothers, when they turn 21 years of age, thus becoming the U.S. "anchor" for an extended immigrant family.
While there is no formal policy that forbids DHS from deporting the illegal-alien parents of children born in the U.S., they rarely are actually deported. In some cases, immigration judges make exceptions for the parents on the basis of their U.S.-born children and grant the parents legal status. In many cases, though, immigration officials choose not to initiate removal proceedings against illegal aliens with U.S.-born children, so they simply remain here illegally.

Thus, the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens not only represent additional U.S. population growth, but act as 'anchors' to eventually pull a large number of extended family members into the country legally. In fact, an entire industry has built up around the U.S. system of birthright citizenship. Thousands of pregnant women who are about to deliver come to the United States each year from countries as far away as South Korea and as near as Mexico so that they can give birth on U.S. soil. Some come legally as temporary visitors; others enter illegally. Once the child is born, they get a U.S. birth certificate and passport for the child, and their future link to this country is established and irreversible.

Fourteenth Amendment Debate

Birthright citizenship is based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was originally enacted to ensure civil rights for the newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

A serious and scholarly debate has been on-going for years about whether illegal aliens (and temporary visitors) are, in fact, "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. Some scholars insist that the phrase has no real meaning of its own, but rather is essentially another way of saying "born in the United States." They believe the Fourteenth Amendment requires that any child born on U.S. soil be granted U.S. citizenship. Other scholars look to the legal traditions observed by most courts, including the presumption that all words used in a legislation are intended to have meaning (i.e., not simply be restatements) and that, if the meaning of a word or phrase is unclear or ambiguous, the congressional debate over the legislation may indicate the authors' intent. These scholars therefore presume that "subject to the jurisdiction" means something different from "born in the United States," so they have looked to the original Senate debate over the Fourteenth Amendment to determine its meaning. They conclude that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment did NOT want to grant citizenship to every person who happened to be born on U.S. soil.

The jurisdiction requirement was added to the original draft of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Senate after a lengthy and acrimonious debate. In fact, Senator Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan proposed the addition of the phrase specifically because he wanted to make clear that the simple accident of birth in the United States was not sufficient to justify citizenship. Sen. Howard noted that the jurisdiction requirement is "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already." Sen. Howard said that "this will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

Sen. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, who was the only Democrat to participate in the Senate debate, was even more explicit about the meaning of the jurisdiction requirement: "All persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power -- for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before -- shall be considered as citizens of the United States." Sen. Johnson's reading of the jurisdiction requirement also is consistent with our naturalization requirements. Since at least 1795, federal laws governing naturalization have required aliens to renounce all allegiance to any foreign power and to support the U.S. Constitution. Such allegiance was never assumed simply because the alien was residing in the United States; instead an affirmative oath was required.

In light of these and other statements made during the Senate debate over the Fourteenth Amendment, it appears clear that the authors intended only to grant citizenship to persons born here who were also "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. They understood that phrase to have the same meaning as the phrase "and not subject to any foreign Power," included in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which these same Senators had earlier drafted. And by "subject to the jurisdiction," they meant "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in every sense," and "not owing allegiance to anybody else."

[fastpat]

Very good posts, Mr. Ro.

[widebody911]

I've noticed a similar trend with H1's - seems every Indian programmer chick here gets knocked up within a few months.

[Don Ro]

In upper right corner on...

http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/birthrightcitizenship.htm

Click on:
"Current bill dealing with birthright citizenship:
H.R. 698 - The Citizenship Reform Act of 2005"

From: The Library of Congress > Bills, Resolutions > Search Results

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.00698:

Current bill dealing with birthright citizenship:
H.R. 698 - The Citizenship Reform Act of 2005
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H.R.698
Title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny citizenship at birth to children born in the United States of parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.
Sponsor: Rep Deal, Nathan [GA-10] (introduced 2/9/2005) Cosponsors (84)

Latest Major Action: 3/2/2005 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims.
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Go here to see the names of the 84 sponsors...in case you'd care to see who to vote for this November and to whom you may want to send a * FREE* fax via the NumbersUSA site:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00698:@@@P
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Join NumbersUSA!!! Join us, help us fight this war with our gov't.
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http://www.numbersusa.com