Posted on 12/04/2007 11:29:33 AM PST by yorkie
Arizona voters may be asked to decide whether to prohibit the state from issuing birth certificates to children of non-U.S. citizens and require hospitals to check the citizenship of parents of newborns.
Those are key provisions of a proposed initiative filed Friday for possible inclusion on the November 2008 ballot, and a leading legislative critic of illegal immigration says he plans similar but separate legislation to take the issue to voters.
Della Montgomery, the woman who filed the proposed initiative with the Secretary of State's Office, did not immediately return a call for comment Monday, but the proposed “Birthright Citizenship Alignment Act” appears to be aimed at illegal immigration. “They are awarding the full privileges of United States citizenship of all persons born in the state without regard for the clear and equal requirements of federal law that a person born in the United States, shall citizenship be bestowed, shall not be subject to any foreign power and owe direct and immediate allegiance to the United States,” the proposed initiative's declaration of purpose states.
Some critics of illegal immigration contend that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment has been misapplied and was never intended to automatically grant citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants.
The constitutional provision was enacted after the Civil War and was meant to apply to former slaves, said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. “It has nothing to do with aliens.”
Supporters of the proposed initiative would need to submit signatures of at least 153,365 voters by July 3 to qualify the measure for the ballot, while legislative approval alone would be enough to put a referendum being drafted by Pearce on the ballot.
While generally banning issuance of birth certificates to non-citizens, the measure would permit one to be issued to a child whose mother is a foreign citizen and whose father is a U.S. citizen if the father formally acknowledges parentage and agrees in writing to financially support the child until adulthood.
The initiative also would require that hospitals submit “certified documentation of the parents' United States legal status” to local registrars with birth certificates for newborns.
Again, the children of illegal immigrants are both born here and subject to the jurisdiction of the US, while the children of diplomats even if born here are not subject to US jurisdiction because they are specifically excluded by treaty.
If the default assumption of US law was that the children of foreigners are automatically not subject to US jurisdiction, then there would be no need for the children of diplomats to be specifically excluded by treaty.
Thanks.
A very gracious thing to say, but it is a pretty fine distinction for anyone to keep in mind as one goes through the various iterations. You clearly are giving the matter the hard thinking it deserves, and I thank you for making me stop and question my own analysis.
Sorry. It's pretty clear that anyone born in the country is a citizen.
It is only "pretty clear" if you totally ignore the clause "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" .
A Native American Indian born in California in 1918 was born within the territorial limits of the United States, was he not?
The 14th Amendment was ratified long before 1918, was it not?
Then why was there any need for the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924?
Because the clause "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was in the 14th Amendment specifically to exclude foreigners passing through the U.S. and to exclude Indians who were considered to be from their own Indian nations........ Just like an illegal Mexican immigrant on U.S. soil is from his nation of Mexico and the French wife of the French Ambassador that gave birth in Washington, D.C. is from her own nation of France.
If the Jurisdiction Clause does not apply to an illegal trespasser from a foreign country hiding from the U.S. Government then who on Earth could it possibly apply to?
That clause was not put in the Constitution simply to waste ink.
The meaning of the 14th Amendment has been totally perverted, but what else is new?
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The text of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act (43 U.S. Stats. At Large, Ch. 233, p. 253 (1924)) reads as follows:
BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and house of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property."
Approved, June 2, 1924. June 2, 1924. [H. R. 6355.] [Public, No. 175.] SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. Sess. I. CHS. 233. 1924. See House Report No. 222, Certificates of Citizenship to Indians, 68th Congress, 1st Session, Feb. 22, 1924. Note: This statute has been codified in the United States Code at Title 8, Sec. 1401(a)(2).
You do realize that those Irish were not here illegally, don’t you? There was no real federal immigration law prior to 1882. There had been an anti-Chinese immigrant bill in 1875, but there was no general policy of limiting who could enter until the broad federal immigration law in 1882.
The same-sex “marriage” issue is perfectly analogous and you’ve made it even more so by introducing sodomy law. You’re correct that sodomy was illegal in 1868. However, it’s now been declared to be a fundamental right by deliberate misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. Until that misinterpretation, it was a matter for the legislative branch. That’s also true of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. The legislative branch determines the scope of what constitutes
such citizenship by their application of jurisdiction, which is different than location:
http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=29991
Exactly, and jurisdiction and location aren’t the same thing. A baby born to illegals is in our location, but not subject to jurisdiction as the framers of the 14th Amendment understood it.
The law dictionary argues otherwise. To ignore it twice reduces you to an empty demagogue.
They are excluded by treaty because diplomats are not here illegally.
My point does not hinge on whether or not they were here illegally (although some of them undoubtedly were, depending on the state they were in), it hinges on the fact they were foreign citizens on US soil without diplomatic accreditation - and more importantly, in countless cases without any naturalization status - and their children were still considered US citizens.
By all means, show us. Provide the definition that conflates the two as one phenomenon.
It shows how deeply ingrained judicial activism is in our society that even on conservative websites there are people who accept these absurd rulings at face value.
I don’t know how many times I’ve argued here with people who insist that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause requires the government to treat (for example) men and women the same. So if the Citadel doesn’t admit women, then it’s in violation of the 14th Amendment.
Well, if that interpretation of the 14th is correct, why do we have a 19th Amendment giving women the vote? The 14th didn’t give women the vote, yet we’re now told it requires sex integration at a state military academy.
We seem to have had a much more laissez-faire attitude toward immigration back then. That’s reasonable, given the difficulties of migration in those days, and the lack of any welfare state to attract parasites. Not to mention an expanding frontier and a culture that forced people to assimilate.
However, that attitude is legislative and a matter for the people to determine, not the courts. As time passed, we enacted more and more restrictions on immigration (until 1965, when we started going in the opposite direction out of misguided liberalism). Those laws weren’t applied retroactively, as that would constitute an ex-post-facto law. But we began to place limits on who could come in, and the idea that the concept of jurisdiction is outside the scope of the legislative branch can’t be defended logically.
(2) No conservative I have ever heard of argues that the 14A provides "equal opportunity" or "equal outcome", but "equal protection of the laws."
In other words, the states are not allowed to pass laws that single out specific classes for special privileges or special disadvantages under state law.
That protection is manifestly unrelated to the sexual integration of the Citadel.
No person was guaranteed a place at the Citadel by law and no law excluded women from a place at the Citadel.
http://www.14thamendment.us/birthright_citizenship/original_intent.html
“The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete.”
Here is the crux of the problem:
The US must be able to assert full jurisdictional authority over every person on our soil except for diplomatic staff.
If we do not, we are creating a protected class of persons who can do whatever they want on US soil as long as they can dodge deportation.
In the case of the piece of dirt who executed those three Americans in Newark a few months back, we would not be able to prosecute him or put him on death row for his crimes - all we could do would be to deport him with a promise from the Colombian government (or Ecuadorian if they have ascertained his true citizenship yet) that he would be charged for his crimes.
This is not acceptable.
So we cannot, as a practical matter, exempt illegal aliens or their US-born children from US jurisdiction.
That effectively ties Congress' hands.
What is needed is border enforcement and a policy that says: "We do not care if you gave birth to a citizen child in the US. You are not a citizen and you are being deported. You can either take your child with you, or leave the child in foster care."
What is also needed is a revision of the 1965 Act that eliminates "family reunification" as a valid criterion for legal residency.
In this way, a child born into the US would either accompany his parents back to his country of origin or be left in foster care.
This would obtain between birth and age 18 - either accompany your deported parents or be placed in the foster system.
Once age 18 is reached, he would be an adult US citizen, but his parents would still be permanently subject to deportation if they returned.
Rather than mucking with the Constitution and US sovereignty, the best solution is statutes that eliminate having children as an immigration strategy.
So how did states exclude women from voting for fifty years after the 14th Amendment was ratified? Why did the suffragettes work tirelessly for fifty years to enact the 19th Amendment if the Equal Protection Clause prohibits states from discriminating in such matters?
BTW, Indians weren’t illegally in the United States, which is why we could have a treaty with them. Are people illegally in our country a special class subject to treaty negotiation with our government? Or worse, a class above legal Indians and legal diplomats, eligible to drop anchor babies here?
By their very nature, we can’t form a treaty with illegal aliens, so once again we’re presented with a paradox and an absurdity. We can exclude the children of people who are legally within our borders from citizenship, but not of those who sneaked in during the dead of night to establish an anchor and avail themselves of our (ahem) generosity.
Another piece of history to throw into the mix on this topic: The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which ended the Mexican War and ceded most of the Southwest to the US.
Article 8 of that treaty states:
“Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever.
Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States.
In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.”
Yep ...... Like French Ambassadors and Mexicans who illegally sneak into the U.S. without the permission of the United States of America.
With whom do we negotiate if we want to sign a treaty with illegal aliens? I guess they’re “citizens of a world without borders” who can drop their offspring in the loving care of America anytime they want.
Given the fact that illegal aliens who manifestly do not have complete allegiance to the US are fully under US jurisdiction on our soil, it would be hard to show that a US-born infant is less subject to US jurisdiction than his foreign-born parents.
Again I ask: if all children born to foreign citizens on US soil are exempt from US jurisdiction, why are the children of diplomatic mission members specifically exempted by law from US jurisidiction?
There would be no need to extend them such protections if simply being born to foreigners automatically removed one from US jurisdiction.
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