Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/11/2010 10:40:32 AM PDT by GOPGuide
Politico reports on Bush-era staffers who are condemning the latest rhetoric on ending birthright citizenship:
The push by congressional Republicans to deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants has opened up a split in the GOP, with several former Bush administration officials warning that the party could lose its claim to one of its proudest legacies: the 14th Amendment.
For Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) and other conservatives, the solution to what they regard as one of the greatest flaws of U.S. immigration policy is obvious: Amend the amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil regardless of whether their parents are legal residents.
But in recent days, former aides to both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush, who pushed for comprehensive immigration reform, have condemned the calls by top Republicans to end birthright citizenship.
Cesar Conda, who served as domestic policy adviser to Cheney, has called such proposals “offensive.” Mark McKinnon, who served as media adviser in Bush’s two presidential campaigns, said Republicans risk losing their “rightful claim” to the 14th Amendment if they continue to “demagogue” the issue.
“The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican party. It is a shame and an embarrassment that the GOP now wants to amend it for starkly political reasons,” McKinnon told POLITICO. “Initially Republicans rallied around the amendment to welcome more citizens to this country. Now it is being used to drive people away.”
Enacted during Reconstruction by a Republican Congress, the 14th Amendment officially overruled the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision and defined citizenship not only for newly enfranchised blacks but for all Americans.
For more than a century, it’s been interpreted by the courts to include children whose parents are not U.S. citizens, including illegal immigrants.
“That is the wisdom of the authors of the 14th Amendment: They essentially wanted to take this very difficult issue — citizenship — outside of the political realm,” Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “They wanted to take an objective standard, birth, instead of a subjective standard, which is the majorities at the time. I think that’s a much better way to deal with an issue like this.”
But for a growing number of Republicans who believe the children of illegal immigrants should be denied birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment needs to be fixed.
Graham has become their somewhat unlikely spokesman. In recent months he has faced increasing anger at home from members of his own party who have derided his support for President Barack Obama’s two Supreme Court picks, the bailout for financial institutions, and comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country.
Boy am I glad to see that bunch gone.
"Curious, why is it you spend 100% of your time here trashing what is supposedly your own political side?"RINOs are not "my people". They are responsible for the decay of conservatism and the failure to defend against encroaching socialism. They are traitors to my, and your, values and deeply-held beliefs. They must be exposed and turned out if we are to make this country great again.
The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: “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.”
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians — because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years, that was how it stood, with only one case adding the caveat that children born to LEGAL permanent residents of the U.S., gainfully employed, and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898.)
And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennan’s authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, THE Clement L. Bouve — the one you’ve heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge — just some guy who wrote a book.
So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author’s intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants.
I don’t even think Canada offers it any more.
Oops, I guess I was wrong.
They must really hate this country.
I have seen conflicting reports that they ended it in 2009, but I will go with Roy Beck’s latest comments on the issue.
Only it does not do any such thing. There are few things more expensive than "cheap" labor. Massive drains on basic social services, rampant crime, drug abuse, skyrocketing insurance costs, broken families, gang wars - oh yeah - that's such a good deal for them, and for us.
What kind of idiots in the GOP think that it's a swell idea to admit an army of uneducated, illiterate, unskilled, disease-ridden people into this country without any guarantors of personal or financial responsibility nor any commitment to our nation's laws, history, or way of life? It is among the most self-destructive notions of our age, and we've got those in spades.
This just reminds me why I’m glad Bush is gone.
And why David Frum is a noisy irrelevance.
True enough, and the same goes for the rest of the GOP ruling class. It's election season rhetoric to score a few cheap points.
AFAIK it was one tiny footnote in a supreme Court decision.
Some years back in a nation in South America’s Sothern Cone a Consular Official approached the U.S. Ambassador with the information that a known gangster was sending his wife to the USA to have a baby, and thus acquire a form of American citizenship. The Consul informed the Ambassador that it was the sixth or seventh such event in recent months when gangsters and drug merchants had sent their spouses to America. The Consul urged that no visa be issued the gangster’s wife. The U.S. Ambassador (a good Liberal) ordered that the visa be granted. As he put it, “I have my own security to consider.”
These people are opposing a common sense solution to fix the illegal immigration madness that is eating away the fabric of the Republic. Why would you say they are on our political side?
Not really. Senator Jacob M. Howard, author of the citizenship clause contained in the 14th, has said it was never meant to apply to those illegally here. That alone should clarify the issue.
On the other hand. If immigration law was enforced and borders even half secure, this would be a non-issue.
Always hated that about W.
I guess a case by case review is called for.
People who have no desire to become Americans have no business being here unless they are just visiting or have a special TEMPORARY visa.
Ping...
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