Posted on 11/03/2018 10:32:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that his natural political instincts are superior to those of any other current figure.
As campaign 2018 entered its final week, Trump seized upon and elevated the single issue that most energizes his populist base and most convulses our media elite.
Warning of an "invasion," he pointed to the migrant caravan that had come out of Honduras and was wending its way through Mexico. He then threatened to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship.
As other caravans began to assemble in Central America, Trump said he would send, first 5,200 and then 15,000, troops to the border.
This ignited the predictable hysteria of the media elite who decried his "racism," his "lying" and his "attack on the 14th Amendment." Trump, they railed, is sending more troops to the Mexican border than we have in Syria or Iraq.
True. But to most Americans, the fate and future of the republic is more likely to be determined on the U.S.-Mexican border than on the border between Syria and Iraq.
Moreover, in challenging birthright citizenship, Trump has some constitutional history on his side.
The 14th Amendment, approved in 1868, was crafted to overturn the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and to guarantee citizenship and equal rights under law to freed slaves and their children.
Did it guarantee that everyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen?
No. In the 1884 Elk v. Wilkins decision, the Supreme Court ruled that John Elk, a Winnebago Indian born on a reservation, had not denied his constitutional right to vote, as he was not a U.S. citizen.
Not for 56 years, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, did Native Americans become U.S. citizens.
Also, the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on those born in the U.S. and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Children of foreign diplomats, though born here, are not citizens.
Most legal scholars do not think Trump can, by executive order, determine who is or is not a citizen under the 14th Amendment.
Yet should Trump issue an executive order and lose in the Supreme Court, the controversy could raise public consciousness and force Congress to enact legislation to clarify what the 14th Amendment precisely means.
Only Canada and the United States, among advanced nations, have birthright citizenship. No European country does. And the Conservative Party in Canada is moving to end it. Does it make sense to grant all the honor, privileges and rights of lifetime U.S. citizenship to anyone who can fly to the U.S. or evade the Border Patrol and have a baby?
Nor is this a small matter. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 6 percent of U.S. births (250,000 per year) are to undocumented immigrants.
Yet that 250,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of immigrants now coming. In 2016, President Obama's last full year, 1.75 million legal and illegal immigrants arrived, a record.
With two months to go in 2017, the estimated arrivals of legal and illegal immigrants is 1.61 million.
Thus, in two years, 2016 and 2017, the United States will have absorbed more migrants, legal and illegal, than all the people of the 13 states when we became a nation.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there are 44.5 million immigrants in the U.S. today, legal and illegal, a number that far exceeds the total U.S. population, North and South, at the time of the Civil War.
While almost all of our immigration before 1965 was from Europe, only 1 in 10 immigrants now comes from the Old Continent.
Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean provide a plurality of migrants, legal and illegal. They have displaced East Asia and South Asia -- China, Korea, the Philippines, India -- as the primary contributors to the burgeoning U.S. population.
We are assured that the greater the racial, ethnic, religious and cultural diversity we have, the stronger a nation we shall become. Whether true or not, we are going to find out.
For the European population of America, 90 percent of the country in 1965, will have fallen to about 60 percent by 2020, and whites are headed for minority status about 20 years after that.
Of America's most populous states -- California, Texas, Florida and New York -- the first two are already minority-majority and the latter two are not far behind.
Yet the gaps between Asian and white Americans, and Hispanic and African-Americans -- in income and wealth, crime rates and incarceration rates, test scores and academic achievements -- are dramatic and are seemingly enduring.
To the frustration of egalitarians, the meritocracy of free and fair competition in this most diverse of great nations is producing an inequality of rewards and a visible hierarchy of achievement.
Politically, continued mass migration to the USA by peoples of color, who vote 70-90 percent Democratic, is going to change our country another way. Red state America will inevitably turn blue.
Immigration is a major problem, but it isn't the biggest threat to "Red State America" at all. We need to be better Americans before we complain about immigrants.
We have been importing large numbers of legal and illegal 3rd world people since Teddy put the screws to us in’65. We have become so diluted, it’s no wonder so much of our population is pro-open borders.
That's B.S.
I'm actually surprised to see a number of MSM reports in recent days indicating that recent immigrants are actually some of the strongest opponents of illegal immigration here in the U.S.
It's not immigrants who want open borders. It's f#%&ed-up white people whose families have been here for generations.
Pat has been warning us of the consequences of mass immigration since the early 1990s. If the status quo remains on legal immigration, the Dems will become the permanent majority party within a decade. There is a reason why the Dems have won the popular vote in six out of the last seven Presidential elections.
This kind of mas migration is a threat to ALL of America—regardless of how we vote—or even it we vote at all.
The tail end of the circus below our southern border is not afraid to use weapons to achieve their demands. This group shot at police in southern Mexico when their demand for buses was not met. The result was buses were supplied. Many Americans will lose their lives to this lawless circus should they be released into the U.S. May the will to stop them be the priority we have been told it will be
I don’t disagree with you, but I believe URBANIZATION plays a much bigger role than immigration in national political changes over a long period of time in this country.
BS. Mass immigration is the cause of much of our drug problems. Drug use is a symptom of the disease of hopelessness. Our political elites have not protected the interests of its citizens. Mass immigration is being forced on the American people. Most don't want the current levels of legal immigration and they want illegal aliens removed. Three quarters of Americans lack a college degree. They are the ones competing against immigrants for jobs, housing, services etc.
One note of caution....though in this country “hispanics” are treated as though they were one ethnic group, they are in fact, no such thing anymore than “Americans” are an ethnic group. Many “hispanics” are.....wait for it......White. They - to the great frustration of Leftists - often consider themselves to be White and after a couple generations are indistinguishable. Their ancestors were obviously just as European as those of the majority of Americans.
That said, obviously we cannot absorb an uncontrolled flood of immigrants nor do we have any responsibility to serve as Latin America’s dumping ground for all their people they can’t take care of.
In our prayers, by our votes--by every acceptable means, let us do what each of us can, to validate our President's resolve, next Tuesday!!
Our Last Chance? [Can Donald Trump Revive The "Spirit of '76?]
Perhaps They want to live in red States because Dems have destroyed prosperity in blue states.
Amen
” To the frustration of egalitarians, the meritocracy of free and fair competition in this most diverse of great nations is producing an inequality of rewards and a visible hierarchy of achievement.”
Politically, continued mass migration to the USA by peoples of color, who vote 70-90 percent Democratic, is going to change our country another way. Red state America will inevitably turn blue.
HOW LONG will folks of achievement continue to SUPPORT a herd of lessers?-—— To put it BLUNTLY ! They all know how to turn on the lights,but have no damn idea what it takes to get that power to them !!....I suspect the best will migrate to who knows where when that time arrives ...rather than be ‘servants to their lessers’ who will achieve power thru ‘democracy’..MOB RULE ..End of RANT >>>
“Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that his natural political instincts are superior to those of any other current figure.”
But, Paul Ryan and the rest of the feckless RINOs all keep saying that he is doing this all wrong. We will find out next Tuesday.
There. Fixed it.
Excellent post.
Anyone who defiantly refuses to assimilate and then complains about the country that is giving them welfare and an opportunity at success is not someone to allow into this country.
Immigrants rose from starting as low paid railroad laborers, garment sweatshop workers and dock hands and became leaders,business success stories and professionals. These earlier immigrants did not whine and criticize the amount of welfare and medical benefits or paid days off-—they had none to worry about. And no anti-discrimination laws.
We don’t have to take on the problems of all the world’s people trying to come here illegally.
Even ones hiding behind rows of women and children holding teddy bears pushing into the border.
Thank you!
87% of the 1.1 million legal immigrants we bring in annually are minorities as defined by the USG Since 1990 we have brought in 35 million legal permanent immigrants, the equivalent of the current population of Canada. In 1970 one in four was foreign-born in this country; today it is a little less than one in 8, the highest it has been in 105 years; and by 2023 it will be one in seven, the highest in our history.
We have just had three of the four highest decades of immigration in our history, with the last two decades being the highest in our history. The numbers are great, which hurts assimilation. And the Dems are making it more difficult to assimilate with their identity politics.
“Children of foreign diplomats, though born here, are not citizens.”
What’s the basis of that? Is it written into law? If so I’d like to see the law and see if it singles out this group or if it is more broad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.