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New GOP Immigration Plan: Change Citizenship Laws

Jill

Because it just ain’t fair that some brown babies get to be citizens simply by virtue of being born here. The plan by 92 House members would change U.S. citizenship laws, which currently afford automatic citizenship to children born here. The issue here is a section of the 14th Amendment, which reads:

“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.”

Pretty clear, right? But, sadly, no.

John C. Eastman, director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at Chapman University in Orange, told the House immigration panel in September that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” suggests that the 14th Amendment does not apply to children of undocumented immigrants because their parents are living in the United States illegally.

Ok, I call bullshit — the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” basically means that one is subject to U.S. law. Children of immigrants, even illegal immigrants, certainly are. Where’s the argument here? And what part of “All persons born” do these folks not understand?

Thankfully, others point out that the underlying (il)logic of this proposal is deeply flawed:

Because of the length of time involved, some immigration experts say that birthright citizenship is not a major incentive for the vast majority of illegal entrants.

“No, absolutely not,” said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “It’s something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child.”

Going after babies really isn’t the way to deal with illegal immigration.

32 thoughts on New GOP Immigration Plan: Change Citizenship Laws

  2. Going after babies really isn’t the way to deal with illegal immigration.

    Then what is the way to go after illegal immigration?

  5. Robert Says:

    You’re right. We should get that fence up, instead.

    Probably be more effective to raise the minimum wage and start jailing people who hire undocumented workers. When the jobs for them dry up, they’ll stop coming.

  7. Gswift, if people who hire undocumented workers aren’t honoring the law now, then what makes you think they’ll honor the higher minimum wage?

    As for jailing them, that’s a great idea. Because there’s no shortage of entrepreneurially-minded (if not quite so law-abiding) people to keep the economy humming.

  8. Robert Says:

    Gswift, if people who hire undocumented workers aren’t honoring the law now, then what makes you think they’ll honor the higher minimum wage?

    As for jailing them, that’s a great idea. Because there’s no shortage of entrepreneurially-minded (if not quite so law-abiding) people to keep the economy humming.

    They’ll obey the law if we start actually enforcing it. How about we channel all that energy we spend on pursuing marijuana into punishing white collar crime.

    Start sending people to federal pens for a few years and the enthusiasm for breaking labor laws will dry up quick.

  9. They’ll obey the law if we start actually enforcing it….Start sending people to federal pens for a few years and the enthusiasm for breaking labor laws will dry up quick.

    Replace “breaking labor laws” with “breaking anti-marijuana laws”.

    Consider your opinion of the efficacy of anti-marijuana laws, which are “actually enforced”, at least to the degree of a rather large number of people doing rather large time.

    Contemplate.

  10. I haven’t made my mind up yet about automatic birthright citizenship, but I’d note that it’s pretty rare and getting rarer…New Zealand just did away with it, for instance.

    Also, the idea that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” doesn’t include the children of non-citizens isn’t exactly far out- it’s what the author of the phrase intended:

    The debates in the Congress that approved the clause, and the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court justices who first interpreted it, confirm this understanding. Sen. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland explained during floor debate, for example, that “all this amendment provides is, that 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 us — shall be considered as citizens of the United States.” The author of the provision, Sen. Jacob Howard, announced that the clause “will not, of course, include foreigners.”

    There are problems, of course, with interpreting any clause of the Constitution based solely on legislative history, but this concept is not exactly “bullshit”, either.

  11. “It’s something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child.”

    This is also a tad disingenuous. Tamar Jacoby is smart enough to know that they incentive for an illegal alien to have a child in the US isn’t to wait 21 years to be sponsored. It’s because once you’re here with an infant child that’s an American citizen, it becomes, for all practical intents and purposes, impossible to deport you. That’s why such children are often referred to, somewhat crudely, as “anchor babies.”

  12. I favor this only if we make it retrospective. In other words, everyone whose mitochondrial DNA isn’t from haplogroups A-D or X–OUT! You can apply for citizenship later on, but given the history of genocide, don’t expect much in the way of sympathy. I hope Germany, Ireland, and England are up for a few tens of millions of refugees each.

    Alternately, we could give up on this silly illegal immigration nonsense, admit that the US is founded on and by immigrants, mostly illegal, and just allow anyone who manages to get here to stay. If they don’t come to the negative attention of the government after, say, 5 years, give them citizenship. If they do, allow them to apply anyway (hate to have someone lose their opportunity to get citizenship because they got a traffic ticket or something), but make it a reviewed rather than an automatic process.

  13. Going after babies really isn’t the way to deal with illegal immigration.

    Oh, come on! We deny the little kids citizenship, and when they grow up we send them back to… well, they don’t have citizenship in any other country and they usually speak English as their first language, but that’s not our problem.

  14. Alternately, we could give up on this silly illegal immigration nonsense, admit that the US is founded on and by immigrants, mostly illegal, and just allow anyone who manages to get here to stay.

    No one is “denying” that immigration has been vital to the development of America, although I’d like to see some stats to back up the claim that those immigrants were “mostly illegal.”

    If they don’t come to the negative attention of the government after, say, 5 years, give them citizenship.

    That’s an interesting way of doing things. You do realize that your scheme would confer full citizenship rights on every foreign Al Qaeda agent who manages to come here and evade the authorities for five years, right?

  15. You do realize that your scheme would confer full citizenship rights on every foreign Al Qaeda agent who manages to come here and evade the authorities for five years, right?

    We’ve got a system in place for dealing with citizens who break the law: put them in jail. If they never break the law, don’t worry about them. They’re ex-al Qaeda agents seduced by the decadent west. Which is probably as good an outcome as any.

  16. We’ve got a system in place for dealing with citizens who break the law: put them in jail.

    I think you’re being too hasty. Let’s reserve the rights of citizenship for nice people only. This would solve so many problems, because we woudn’t have to worry about all those unpleasant people who invoke their right to counsel or get all high and mighty about cruel and unusual punishment. The beauty part is, if you oppose this measure you’re obviously not a nice person – there’s your litmus test right there!

  17. Sen. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland explained during floor debate, for example, that “all this amendment provides is, that 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 us — shall be considered as citizens of the United States.” The author of the provision, Sen. Jacob Howard, announced that the clause “will not, of course, include foreigners.”

    How does this get you around birthright citizenship? The Amendment itself does not exclude foreigners, it only includes those subject to the jurisdiction of the US. How would someone born in the US NOT be subject to the jurisdiction of the US?

  18. Generally, I think Al-Qaeda agents would avoid breaking the law to avoid unwanted attention until they, say, commandeered planes into buildings, which is clearly illegal. So we should arrest them after they do so? Okay.

    I’m far from one to give up rights in favor of national security, but letting in anyone who manages to get in is just dumb, for reasons far beyond the scope of a tiny comment section, as well as beyond national security. Nor am I even referring to a simplistic “dey took er jobs” argument.

  19. letting in anyone who manages to get in is just dumb, for reasons far beyond the scope of a tiny comment section

    Fine, I’ll just take it as true because someone with a male screenname said so without giving the slightest bit of evidence.

  20. # Robert Says:

    Replace “breaking labor laws” with “breaking anti-marijuana laws”.

    Consider your opinion of the efficacy of anti-marijuana laws, which are “actually enforced”, at least to the degree of a rather large number of people doing rather large time.

    They’re just not analagous. Enforcement actually does work with labor laws. Regualtions that are enforced like minimum wage,, smoking bans in CA, etc. are largely followed because the business knows full well that ignoring those rules will get them shut down.

  26. Fine, I’ll just take it as true because someone with a male screenname said so without giving the slightest bit of evidence.

    1. I didn’t disparage your comment on the basis of your “female screenname,” nor did I assert my authority on the basis of my sex, so I see no reason to bring that up. It has nothing to do with anything.

    2. There is a national security argument to be made, one that for once is not entirely frivolous, which I brought up before, which you ignored.

    3. There would be an increased demand on government services by people who don’t pay taxes (because if they’re not forced to be documented, why would they go through the trouble of doing so, if doesn’t result in deportation?). You’re probably going to say rich people don’t pay taxes either, which while true to an extent, doesn’t mitigate the former. Rich people should pay their fair share too, so I’m not excusing them, or tax cuts that favor them, either.

    4. Exactly how many people should we let in? Is overpopulation simply not of concern to you? I realize it’s consistently waved around for the wrong reasons, but unmitigated immigration seems to at least raise the specter of the issue. Still, more practically, exactly when would you shut off the floodgates? Unchecked immigration very obviously is a prodigious burden that I’m not sure the government could endure.

    5. On top of that, where exactly would the manpower come from to personally review every application in a way that anywhere approaches expediency?

    6. It begs to be abused by trafficking of all forms.

  28. I wasn’t saying we should eject them all; rather, I was specifically arguing against unmitigated immigration. I see little good that could come from that. It makes more sense to me to more tightly enforce immigration and provide better quality services to immigrants than to let a lot more in and have lesser quality services for them.
    I’m not saying the services now are great, but they could be better, and improving them while enforcing current as opposed to letting those programs decay and ruling out the possibility of new programs due to lack of resources in favor of unchecked immigration seems silly.

  29. How would someone born in the US NOT be subject to the jurisdiction of the US?

    Diplomatic Immunity is the only thing I can think of. That doesn’t exactly help their argument however.

  30. Matt:
    1. If only that were true. I withdraw and apologize for any implication that you acted with conscious sexism however.
    2. I responded before to the national security argument. Basically, I don’t see the point of keeping people out on the basis of national security . If someone does something dangerous to the country or the populace, that act is illegal, whatever their citizenship. And they should be held accountable for it, whatever their citizenship. Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta both committed terrorist acts. If Atta had survived, one hopes he would have been tried as fairly as McVeigh. If anything, I would expect that making obtaining citizenship easier would encourage people to live in the US more openly, think better of the country, and be less likely to commit crimes. (Of course, McVeigh’s citizenship didn’t stop him from an act of terrorism, so maybe I’m wrong.)
    3. So set up some incentive for becoming registered. For example, you can’t apply for citizenship until you’ve been a registered resident for 5 or more years. Not paying your taxes would certainly qualify as an act demanding the negative attention of the government, so that would give an incentive to pay taxes.
    4. If this were Denmark or Switzerland or even Germany, I’d see the point. But the US is big and empty. According to the wikepedia, the US is the 140th most densly populated country in the world. If the country’s population density doubled, it would become the 99th most densly populate. We can afford a little immigration.
    5. Umm…the 5% of the population that’s unemployed? In answer to the follow up question of where the money is going to come from, I’d suggest taking some money away from the military. Withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible and use the $100 billion or so saved from that.
    6. Not as much as the current system. People with legal status don’t have to be afraid of the government. That makes them more likely to report illegal activities, abuse, etc. And if they think they have a chance of staying legally they’re less likely to resort to trafficing in drugs or people in order to live here.

    I think that you’re making an underlying assumption that is probably not true: that assumption being that the entire world would, if it could, live in the US and that US immigration law is the only thing keeping them out. I remember reading once that about 20% of Mexicans would move to the US if they could without any particular effort. That’s a large percentage, but that leaves 80% with absolutely no interest in moving to the US. I think that there’s a net migration to Canada from the US at this point. So that takes care of the borders. It’s not so easy to get to the US from the rest of the world. For that matter, crossing the deserts of Northern Mexico/Southwestern US is no joke. So the only people who get here are the ones who are clever, resourceful, and determined enough to do so. These are exactly the people I would think that we would want for this country. We should be welcoming them, not making their lives harder.

  31. It makes more sense to me to more tightly enforce immigration and provide better quality services to immigrants than to let a lot more in and have lesser quality services for them.

    This would be a better argument if the services available to immigrants or asylum seekers were not completely abysmal and if there were any correlation between decreased immigration and increased services for those immigrants who are allowed in. I don’t know of any evidence of such a correlation.

  32. Nothing to do with race, everything to do with enforcing the laws.
    We do not want any more illegal lawbreakers. One difference with the present administration is they are actually enforcing laws instead of just talking about it. Gun laws: Reno: 7 in 4 years. Bush: over 1,000 and counting prosecuted for falsely attempting to purchase a gun. No problem with legal immigration–up the number to 1 million a year, but do it legally, and learn English.

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