Posted on 05/30/2006 8:53:57 PM PDT by nj26
The Senate passed legislation last week that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Post or the New York Times. Yet the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades from about 20 million (under present law) to about 40 million.
One job of journalism is to inform the public about what our political leaders are doing. In this case, we failed. The Senate bill's sponsors didn't publicize its full impact on legal immigration, and we didn't fill the void. It's safe to say that few Americans know what the bill would do because no one has told them. Indeed, I suspect that many senators who voted for the legislation don't have a clue as to the potential overall increase in immigration.
Democracy doesn't work well without good information. It is interesting to contrast these immigration projections with a recent survey done by the Pew Research Center. The poll asked whether the present level of legal immigration should be changed. The response: 40 percent favored a decrease, 37 percent would hold it steady and 17 percent wanted an increase. There seems to be scant support for a doubling. If the large immigration projections had been in the news, would the Senate have done what it did? Possibly, though I doubt it.
But if it had, senators would have had to defend what they were doing as sound public policy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My number has always been 60 million in 20 years. There will be SOME limit imposed in any compromise bill.
You have a pet peve (sic) that leads you to misuse the English language? "Democrat" is slang - I prefer "Demoncrat" for that - but, the proper adjective is "Democratic" Party. There is even a spell-check feature here at FR which is my pet PEEVE : P
You don't really believe that those 6 million catch-and-release illegals STAYED out of the US, do you? Most were back by the end of the week. That is just another misleading statistic thrown out by the White House that no thinking person believes.
I don't know how many of the 6 million were back by the end of the week. Do you have a more reliable and less misleading statistic on that?
Btw I do not believe the Constitution is an evolving document. The framers of the Amendment made very clear that foreigners would not be entitled to automatic citizenship and so all the USSC has to do is follow the law as it was intended.
simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural and national law, a citizen of the United States. … 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.
Pennsylvania’s Edgar Cowan discussed citizenship’s limits. “If a traveler comes here from Ethiopia, from Australia, or from Great Britain, … he has a right to the protection of the laws, but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptation of the word.” Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a key drafter of the 14th Amendment, explained the jurisdiction requirement. “The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ … What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.”
Yes legal residents but not illegal aliens, see above.
And USSC decisions are overturned all the time, they are not necessarily set in stone that cannot ever be rescinded.
No - the legislative history was dealt with too - have you even read the case? As your own linked artcle stated, your best alternative is H.J. Res. 42, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, to amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither U.S. citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to America. As I said, good luck with that. Gotta go.
The case is about legal residents, illegals are never even mentioned.
your best alternative is H.J. Res. 42, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, to amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither U.S. citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to America.
No need for that at the moment. The best and quickest process at this point would be for Congress to exercise its legislative authority then let the USSC hear it when it's challenged.
Actually, the lower courts had held he was not a citizen and therefore an illegal alien, so it is at least dicta that any such child born in the U.S. is a citizen. Like I said, your best bet is to get another Amendment.
And, presumably, the legals will be able to get more government bennies than the illegals could. Isn't it about time we abolished all this budget-busting social spending? /wishful thinking.
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