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The terrible mistake of revoking birthright citizenship: U.S. owes Mexicans more, not less
New York Daily News ^ | Thursday, January 6th 2011 | Rogers M. Smith

Posted on 01/06/2011 9:22:56 PM PST by presidio9

As the new Congress convened, a group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration proposed two laws. One would declare that children of parents who immigrated here illegally are not born "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. and so are not birthright citizens under the 14th Amendment. Under the other, states would issue two types of birth certificates, one for those born "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. and one for everyone else.

The states have no power to pass the first proposed law. Congress may be able to, but it is a bad idea that will not halt illegal immigration. It also has no chance to pass the Senate or override President Obama's certain veto. If it were enacted, the courts would strike it down. It is symbolic politics expressing special hostility to Mexican immigrants, who comprise almost 60% of the nation's undocumented population.

This is a the opposite of how we should be making immigration policy. The U.S. owes more, not less, to Mexico and its immigrants than it does to other nations.

Why? Because the U.S. has treated Mexico in ways that it has treated no other nation, creating potent incentives for Mexicans to move north. Yet our immigration policy applies the same per-country cap to Mexico that it does to countries from which few wish to leave.

If the U.S. apportioned more of its overall legal immigration admissions to Mexicans, it would do far more to reduce its numbers of illegal aliens than any change in birthright citizenship would.

To suggest that the U.S. privilege Mexicans over other nationals is heresy in Washington - not to mention in Arizona.

But it is common sense if one studies history.

The story begins in 1846, when partly due to concerns that Mexico had abolished slavery, the U.S. provoked a war that resulted in America acquiring half of Mexico's territory, including the vast natural resources of California and Texas. No other nation has lost so much land to the U.S. except the Indian tribes, whose members now all have citizenship. Mexicans could stay on their conquered lands if they became American citizens. But few could provide land titles to American courts, so most lost their lands and had to work for U.S.-owned farms, mines and industries.

In the late 19th century, the modernizing Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz drove many Mexican small farmers off their soil, turning the lands over to American-owned railroads and mining companies, who employed many of those they helped displace.

Patterns were set: Many Mexicans found they could make a living only by working for American companies, often moving to the resource-rich north to do so. Through the 20th century, American employers in farming, manufacturing and service industries often recruited Mexicans when cheap labor was needed - then callously supported mass deportations, even of Mexican-American citizens, when labor surpluses arose.

Meanwhile, many Mexicans in the U.S. suffered from severe discrimination, despite their desire to work hard and contribute to America. Many, therefore, had strong senses of their distinct cultural identities, developing a kind of cultural "dual nationality," American and Mexican.

In sum, U.S. policies have created to our south a large population that has strong kinship ties to Mexican-American communities and well-founded beliefs that they have better economic opportunities in northern areas, many once part of Mexico, than they do at home. They immigrate, more than any other nation's people - and most are then productive, peaceful residents who seek to retain their cultural identities, like many other Americans, but who are glad to become loyal citizens.

Not all Mexicans fit those descriptions. But if the U.S. altered its policies to expand opportunities for those who do, it would reduce illegal immigration and express the best American values.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Mexico; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 14th; 14thamendment; aliens; amendment; birthright; california; citizenship; constitution; history; immigration; mexico
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To: presidio9

tsk...tsk... seems someone forgot the “BARF” alert.


81 posted on 01/07/2011 8:27:10 AM PST by beachn4fun (You are either an American - or not!)
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To: Wonder Warthog; Carry_Okie
I think this is a different situation from those here illegally.
LEGAL visitors ARE "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States".
If they drop the kid during the LEGAL visit, then current law applies.

Just being in the country does not make one "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."
At least not by the definitions used when the Constitution was written or by its intent.

The 14th Amendment has been terribly misinterpreted as has been written about at length. Here are some links Carry_Okie posted the other day where he has encapsulated the issues.

"Birthright Citizenship": A Fraud on the Constitution

Kelo & the 14th Amendment: Exploring a Constitutional Koan


82 posted on 01/07/2011 11:09:08 AM PST by calcowgirl ("Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life" --Lindzen)
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To: dennisw
From their web page,

For the past few years, Political Science has been the most popular major in the College.

83 posted on 01/07/2011 11:18:56 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: presidio9

The story begins in 1846, when partly due to concerns that Mexico had abolished slavery, the U.S. provoked a war that resulted in America acquiring half of Mexico's territory, including the vast natural resources of California and Texas.


Sounds this a-hole needs a new history book...Texas was invaded by Mexico in 1845 despite recognizing their independence. Texas would have remained a part of messico if they (Santa Ana et al) had chosen to follow their Constitution. They lost that war with Texas and the second one...Sounds like typical libtard sour grapes to me

84 posted on 01/07/2011 12:12:07 PM PST by Nat Turner (I can see NOVEMBER from my house....)
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To: drpix
■ Mexico owes very its existence to the US. Mexicans lost their independence to France after Emperor Napoleon III's armed invasion and occupation during the US Civil War. The "Second Mexican Empire" (as the French rulers called it) only ended when after the Civil War the US sent troops to the border and asserted the Monroe Doctrine; the French troops were withdrawn; and the puppet government, forced to hold power without French troops, fell.


sounds like we should have let the French keep it LOL

85 posted on 01/07/2011 12:21:20 PM PST by Nat Turner (I can see NOVEMBER from my house....)
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To: Loyal Sedition; presidio9
The one about Mexicans comprising 60% of the illegal’s in the U.S. ...

The amazing thing about this statement is that the writer claims to know! With the Census and practically every other agency of USG lying vigorously about every population, crime, or economic statistic that people use to make political and voting decisions, neither the writer nor anyone else can trust government numbers on immigration and demographics.

The real number of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. is much higher than those bruited by the Census Bureau. You have all the persons amnestied in 1986, to begin with, and then all the subsequent illegal immigrants. Including just their first generation descendants, you're talking about upward of 30,000,000 people. That is a hell of a lot of people!

And what do you do with children born in transit or on US soil? They grow up culturally Mexican in Mexican households; just how strong is their claim either to US citizenship or to an American cultural identity? They aren't like fifth- or sixth-generation Mexican immigrants from the 19th- and early-20th-century immigration wave. Much less do they resemble the Spanish populations that became American by reason of Texas independence (Mexico ruled Texas for only 14 years) or, 12 years later, the Mexican War.

The political grito "the border crossed us" applies only to the Spanish settlers in Texas, New Mexico, and California who became US nationals by war and treaty. And, arguably, Florida, the Louisiana Territory, and Puerto Rico. All of whom are long dead!

86 posted on 01/07/2011 12:21:40 PM PST by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
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To: iowamark
Rogers Smith is Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Also a drone in good standing with the CFR mindswarm:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/S?page=8

New World Order, anyone? North American Union, kids? Come along now, let's forget all that U.S. of A. stuff, all that "We the People" claptrap. We're in the hands of the Ubermenschen now.

87 posted on 01/07/2011 12:46:23 PM PST by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
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To: ViLaLuz
And the “indigenous” stole it from the Anazazi who were there before them. Kick them all out and send them back to Asia!

The only authentic "native Americans" had four or more legs.

The earliest immigrants from Asia appear (latest anthro theory) to have overrun and exterminated an older population with affinities to a very ancient Eurasian ethnotype (w?) associated with the oldest tool traditions discovered so far; and one of these pre-Clovis tool traditions, in turn, has been compared on toolmaking techniques and their details to the Solutrean tool tradition of Europe and the Old World more generally from 20 kybp +/- ......

..... of which population there appear to have been no survivors among the Amerindian population.

So nobody today gets bragging rights as to "we were here first".

88 posted on 01/07/2011 1:03:21 PM PST by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
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To: lentulusgracchus

I agree the exact numbers of the varied nationalities are unknown.

But there can be no doubt that there are MANY illegals here from countries other than Mexico, or even other parts of South America.

I have met/worked with illegal Russians, (white) South Africans, Irish, English, Germans, Koreans, and French.
They did not even bother to hide their status, some virtually bragged of it.
They seemed to feel that since they were “white”, spoke english fluently (even the Korean guy!) and were not involved in drug dealing that they had nothing to fear from INS.
So far as I know none of them were ever deported.
I know the So. African guy married an American gal and then got his green-card.

If the Mexicans (So. Americans) would actually make an effort to become AMERICAN, with the ability to speak clear English, work decently hard instead of mooching everything they can, and not import their criminal culture, most Americans would not be so hostile to them.

Personally, I want them ALL gone, regardless of where they originate, how hard they work, how little crime they commit, etc.
ILLEGAL should = DEPORTED!


89 posted on 01/07/2011 1:05:22 PM PST by Loyal Sedition (Loyal Sedition, often described as "To the right of Attila The Hun"!)
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To: dcwusmc
Where’s the Barf Alert?

Exactly. Who wants to keep down this steaming chunk? ....

The story begins in 1846, when partly due to concerns that Mexico had abolished slavery, the U.S. provoked a war that resulted in America acquiring half of Mexico's territory, including the vast natural resources of California and Texas.

That's just blatant historical malpractice. Book him, Dan-O.

90 posted on 01/07/2011 1:09:25 PM PST by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
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To: mvpel
[Art.} But few could provide land titles to American courts, so most lost their lands and had to work for U.S.-owned farms, mines and industries.

Umm, if they didn't have title to the lands, then they weren't "their lands," were they?

Land speculation was rife in newly-independent Texas, which was cash-starved and sold off open land (that is why there is relatively less public land in Texas than in other Western States).

The Spanish land grants were recognized when recordeds (after all, most or all of the Texians held their Spanish mercedes on the same basis, duly granted and recorded by commissioned empresarios like Austin and Beaumont), but many of the Spanish-Mexican landowners held the new Texas government in contempt (cultural hostility => political hostility and non-cooperation) and so did not register their land titles. That cost them when American speculators and shysters started culling through the land records. Thus T.R. Fehrenbach in Lone Star, the pre-PC manual of Texas history.

91 posted on 01/07/2011 1:17:44 PM PST by lentulusgracchus (Concealed carry is a pro-life position.)
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To: Paladin2

Mexicans are mad because we stole the part of their country with all the paved roads and flush toilets....


92 posted on 01/07/2011 1:22:34 PM PST by Kozak ("It's not an Election it's a Restraining Order" .....PJ O'Rourke)
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To: presidio9
The story begins in 1846, when partly due to concerns that Mexico had abolished slavery, the U.S. provoked a war that resulted in America acquiring half of Mexico's territory, including the vast natural resources of California and Texas. No other nation has lost so much land to the U.S. except the Indian tribes, whose members now all have citizenship. Mexicans could stay on their conquered lands if they became American citizens. But few could provide land titles to American courts, so most lost their lands and had to work for U.S.-owned farms, mines and industries.

What a freaking pantload! The Mexican War was started by Mexico when Santa Ana couldn't get over the fact that Texas whipped him fair and square in their war for independence a decade earlier and were now using that independence to apply for admission into the United States. You can look it up.

As for the Mexicans on the newly acquired American lands, they were a relative handful, confined mainly to Texas (where they had made a conscious decision to join the Texas Republic and some even had fought for our side at the Alamo), around the missions in California and scattered ranches in New Mexico. Most of the rest of the southwest was Indian Territory or desert which would take another five decades or so to tame.

Yes, there were land acquisitions lost here and there. Sometimes because they never owned the land to begin with. Sometimes because the titles were never properly recorded.

They pale big time in comparison to land lost by Native American tribes and even white tribes like Mormons.

Irish, Poles, Chinese and scores of other nationalities were also exploited by American mining and railroad interests. All of them got over it. Some of them even got rich. None of them refused to learn English or demand special status elevating themselves above the American who were already here.

93 posted on 01/07/2011 2:01:19 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: presidio9

We owe them nothing. Mexico attacked us and wanted to conquer Louisiana. And even if we were the bad guys int eh EMxican American war, we settled that dispute with a treaty. Supporting Mexican revanchism and irridentism is treasonous.


94 posted on 01/07/2011 3:39:34 PM PST by rmlew (You want change? Vote for the most conservative electable in your state or district.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; bigheadfred; ColdOne; ...

Thanks presidio9.
95 posted on 01/07/2011 4:06:17 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: iowamark

I am so impressed./s


96 posted on 01/07/2011 4:24:59 PM PST by HonestConservative (http://www.freedomradiorocks.com)
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To: presidio9

Commie bastard professor — but I repeat myself.


97 posted on 01/07/2011 4:30:46 PM PST by WashingtonSource
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To: presidio9
From the article:

This is a the opposite of how we should be making immigration policy. The U.S. owes more, not less, to Mexico and its immigrants than it does to other nations.

Why? Because the U.S. has treated Mexico in ways that it has treated no other nation, creating potent incentives for Mexicans to move north. Yet our immigration policy applies the same per-country cap to Mexico that it does to countries from which few wish to leave.

Apparently we owe them more because we've provided them with so much.

98 posted on 01/07/2011 4:39:42 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Will88
Were it not for US, Mexico and most of Central and South America would be little more prosperous and stable than sub-Saharan Africa. The US is the only thing that prevents Mexico from being one of the world’s poorest and most repressive nations.

What's really sad is Mexico is much wealthier, resource wise, than the U.S. If they curbed their corruption, they'd be an economic powerhouse. If we keep going in our current direction, we'll be "North Mexico."

99 posted on 01/07/2011 5:30:20 PM PST by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: lentulusgracchus

“So nobody today gets bragging rights as to “we were here first”.”

There you go... Even better!


100 posted on 01/07/2011 5:58:32 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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