Posted on 06/01/2009 2:04:12 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
LINCOLN , Calif., June 1 (UPI) -- The ACLU says it is seeing a lot of cases like the one involving a Hispanic ex-Marine from California whose citizenship is suddenly being questioned.
Israel Betancourt of Lincoln, Calif., says he was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1977 with the assistance of a midwife, which the American Civil Liberties Union says has become a sticking point for U.S. passport officials seeking to verify an applicant's citizenship.
"In a lot of cases, these are folks who have been in the country and have considered themselves American their entire lives, and then suddenly the government is telling them they have suspicions about whether they are American citizens," ACLU attorney Vanita Gupta told The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee.
Gupta said the midwife issue came into prominence recently as the federal government began requiring passports for airline passengers flying in from Mexico and Canada. The requirements began applying to land and sea travelers Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
The Betancourt case is definitely a mess that need not be. I believe his father is an American citizen to begin with.
He should’a run for President, then proof of citizenship is optional.
We really need to face up to the fact that there is currently no method for really proving where someone was born, and some people — particularly the offspring of illegal immigrants — may really not know themselves. If we want to have a way of proving this, we have to accept that it will require the implementation of a huge biometrics-based federal database, along with a legal requirement that births be entered into the database within 24 hours or even less, and that even with that, it will only be functional for births that occurred after the datatbase was fully operational, and there will still be a few cases where a woman who just gave birth runs across the border, shows up at an emergency room saying she just gave hirth in the US (though with a 24 hour requirement, there would be ample opportunity for investigation of suspicious claims.
That's former-Marine, there are no honorable ex-Marines.
· Why Mexican illegals are driving America "cuckoo":
Why doesn't Mexico take care of its own people? Why do they instead encourage their poor to leave Mexico and invade the United States? Nature provides a parallel that is instructive.
Some species of birds thrive not by carefully rearing their own young, but by pawning that task off on adults of other species. The European Cuckoo, whose distinctive call is immortalized in the sound of the "cuckoo clock," is the bird in which this habit has been most thoroughly studied. Female European Cuckoos lay their eggs only in the nests of other species of birds. A cuckoo egg usually closely mimics the eggs of the host (one of whose eggs is often removed by the cuckoo).
The host may recognize the intruding egg and abandon the nest, or it may incubate and hatch the cuckoo egg. Shortly after hatching, the young European Cuckoo, using a scoop-like depression on its back, instinctively shoves over the edge of the nest any solid object that it contacts. With the disappearance of their eggs and rightful young, the foster parents are free to devote all of their care to the young cuckoo. Frequently this is an awesome task, since the cuckoo chick often grows much larger than the host adults long before it can care for itself. One of the tragicomic scenes in nature is a pair of small foster parents working like Sisyphus to keep up with the voracious appetite of an outsized young cuckoo.
Hardly anyone is more rabid on the border issue than me. If this guy served honorably as a Marine, especially if he served in a war zone, swear him in already.
End of story.
Understand your view and generally agree. However, I suspect the author (with the careful assistance of the ACLU) selected this young man because of his military service to advance their larger agenda of amnesty.
Roger that BulletBob!
Semper Fi’
JarheadFromFlorida
Hey there..check out 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue while you're out there.
So he made it 32 years without having to worry about where he was born.
...only in America.
If so I think they screwed up. This guy will have justification the others won’t. The contrast will be real, and the others much harder to ram through IMO.
I know the open borders people try anything and everything to cloud the issue, so I think your premise is reasoned.
“swear him in already”
If he’s a natural born American citizen (which he is through his father, regardless of where he was born) and has served his country, then making him take the naturalization oath is an insult. With his past, it is up to the US government to prove he is not an American.
No, he is NOT a natural born Citizen. To qualify for that both your parents must be citizens AND you must have been born in the U.S.A.
However, since his dad was a Yank he can claim citizenship.
ONLY if his father actually lived in the USA continuously for 8 years (military service counts as part of the 8)
For goodness sakes if this guy served in the Marines I have no problem he being a US Citizen, however it’s the hundreds of others that come here just for citizenship, and don’t pay taxes with which I do have a problem in this aspect!..
That’s a valid comment. I’m still a little fuzzy on the foreign soil thing. Unless you’re on U.S. embassy grounds or some such, I don’t think you’re still a citizen. I am open to discussion on the matter.
ping
An excellent reason not to give citizenship to children whose parents are not legally in the country, regardless of where they are born.
“Why doesn’t Mexico take care of its own people? Why do they instead encourage their poor to leave Mexico and invade the United States?”
Because they are mexicans and not Spanish!
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