Citizens Held as Illegal Immigrants

ABC ^

[Chet 99]

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native — in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write — signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.

These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

[rmlew]

Ummmm, it doesn’t seem like it takes a tortured reading of the 14th amendment to get to anchor babies. Clearly the law enacted by amendment to the constitution allows for it. It isn’t a penumbra.
Oh yes it does. "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."
The children of illegal aliens don't count any more than the families of foreign embassy workers. The Supreme Court in an act of extra-Constitutional kritocracy chose to ignore both the text and the explicit wishes of the authors of the ammendment to manufacture new citizens.

[Mr. Blonde]

So say they killed someone in the US, which country would prosecute them? Do they get to obey someone else’s laws while in the US?

[rmlew]

So say they killed someone in the US, which country would prosecute them? Do they get to obey someone else’s laws while in the US?
If you are talking about non-citizens, that is settled by international treaty. They are tried in the US according to US law but have access to embassy or consular aid. The same should apply to their children, 1898 ruling be damned.

[LifeComesFirst]

“Well, I suppose we ought to just roll over and die then. Thanks for the suggestion.”

So those are the only choices? How about this: we let them-self deport. We simply make sure that employers aren’t employing illegal immigrants, we do NOT provide a pathway to citizenship for people who broke into this country, we make sure that immigrants aren’t benefiting from the welfare state without paying taxes, and all at the same time we have an employee-sponsored guest-worker program. No quotas, we simply allow the market to self-limit the amount of immigrants coming in by requiring employers to pay a price for each visa. The price can be worked out, maybe a payroll tax or something.

But actually rounding people up and deporting them a la Elian Gonzalez? Politically impossible, if you ask me, and if it were put into widespread practice, then the media would get it on video and make screaming crying immigrant children the face of the problem and we’d never get anywhere.

[LifeComesFirst]

I’m not saying it happens all of the time, but I see it from time to time.

[fr_freak]

But actually rounding people up and deporting them a la Elian Gonzalez? Politically impossible, if you ask me, and if it were put into widespread practice, then the media would get it on video and make screaming crying immigrant children the face of the problem and we’d never get anywhere.

What you haven't realized yet is that the same elements that make it politically impossible to do the above also make it impossible to implement ANY solution at all, at least one that would be acceptable to your average American. That is why we can't worry about what obstacles we face, because the Left will oppose EVERYTHING. They are not interested in what works - they are interested only in tearing this country down and replacing it with their Marxist dreams. Replacing the American culture with one that is not opposed to socialism is an easy way to accomplish this.