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Millions refuse U.S. Citizenship
Miami Herald ^ | 09/18/03 | ALFONSO CHARDY

Posted on 09/18/2003 9:38:43 AM PDT by bedolido

IMMIGRANT RESEARCH

Poor language skills and pride in national origin are two reasons why nearly eight million foreign residents eligible for U.S. citizenship have not applied, according to a study released Wednesday.

Mexicans and Canadians are among the nationalities least likely to apply for citizenship, the report by the Washington-based Urban Institute found. Historically, there have been millions of immigrants with green cards who have not sought citizenship for various reasons, but this is the first time a study has focused on the issue.

''Despite rising naturalization rates, the pool of legal immigrants eligible to naturalize remains strikingly large,'' the study said.

OFFICE CREATED

To encourage more applications, the Bush administration this week announced the creation of the Office of Citizenship.

Eduardo Aguirre, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a recent interview with The Herald that his goal is to eventually naturalize one million new citizens per year. In 2002, about 573,000 foreigners became citizens.

''We share many of the same concerns in the Urban Institute brief,'' said Dan Kane, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Typically, surges in naturalization applications follow changes in federal immigration law. A record 1.4 million applications were submitted in 1997, a year after Congress tightened immigration laws. Applications soared again after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when more restrictions were introduced.

OTHER REASONS

Other reasons that dissuade foreigners from seeking citizenship are fear of rejection and for some Canadians and Mexicans proximity to their homeland.

Of the 7.9 million eligible foreign residents, 2.3 million are from Mexico, according to the report. The report did not include a breakdown for Canadians.

The rate of Mexicans seeking citizenship has climbed from 19 percent in 1995 to 34 percent in 2001, the report said.

The number of Canadians seeking citizenship has remained at about 50 percent in recent years.

''Canadians are more likely than Mexicans to naturalize, but less likely than others to naturalize,'' said Jeffrey S. Passel, demographer and principal research associate at the Urban Institute. By comparison, the percentage of Asian nationals seeking citizenship is about 67 percent.

Foreign nationals seeking asylum or fleeing from dictatorship were among the most likely to want to become American, Passel said. Seventy three percent of Cubans seek citizenship, he said.


TOPICS: Canada; Cuba; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; Mexico; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: citizenship; immigrantlist; mencha; millions; refuse
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To: exmarine
Catholic school-educated, please. Yes, all of those guys as well, theoretically speaking. All were in the European philosophical tradition. Actual working models of a constitutional republic that was democratic was a bit short though. For that they had Britain, and maybe Venice, and then they had to jump back to Rome.
461 posted on 09/22/2003 2:36:25 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: buwaya
Killing Jews as authorized by the government was not murder as far as they were concerned.

Then murder was legal. No way around it. This is what happens when people invent their own moral standards. This is what happens when THE ABSOLUTE standard is ignored, and people make up their own rules. History is littered with hundreds of millions of dead as a result of moral relativism.

462 posted on 09/22/2003 2:36:41 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: buwaya
For that they had Britain, and maybe Venice, and then they had to jump back to Rome.

Hello? Britain was a monarchy with a Parliament, and it was only becuase of the PURITANS (Christians) that the power of the King was diminished.

463 posted on 09/22/2003 2:37:57 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: exmarine
The Roman republic didn't work because the Senate was too weak and it ended in a dictatorship

The Roman Republic worked for about 500 years, longer than America has existed.

Oh, and the Roman Republic had the same three branches of goverment that we have.

Try: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/RepGov.html

I doubt that's a coincidence.

464 posted on 09/22/2003 2:38:29 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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To: Modernman
Wonder where they got their ideas. Considering that in the FF days a man wasn't considered educated unless he had studied the Classical world, I'm pretty sure where the the gentlemen you quote started from.

all of the men I mentioned were CHRISTIANS!! All of them. Puffendorf, Locke, Montesquieu, Grotius, Rutherford, Blackstone. Get it now?

465 posted on 09/22/2003 2:39:41 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: Modernman
The Roman Republic worked for about 500 years, longer than America has existed.

Wrong again. The Roman republic ended in 44 BC with the ascension of Julius Caesar as dictator/emperor. so, you are wrong again, since the roman empire did not start coming into its own until the third century BC.

466 posted on 09/22/2003 2:41:33 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: Modernman
Oh, and the Roman Republic had the same three branches of goverment that we have.

Dont' you ever get tired of being wrong? The three different branches of government are from Montesquieu, who got them from the bible. Isaiah 33:22, and I quote: For the LORD [is] our judge, the LORD [is] our lawgiver, the LORD [is] our king; he will save us.

God is capable of being all 3 at once. A sinful man isn't.

467 posted on 09/22/2003 2:44:09 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: exmarine
The British constitution has separation of powers - undefined but real - note what happened to Charles I for ignoring that. This includes an independent judiciary btw.

Representation as well was from Britain, also true of many European assemblies and parliaments dating back to the Middle Ages

The electoral college exists in the Catholic Church - the Cardinals are designated electors. The same is common in various religious orders, often selected democratically, btw.. The Holy Roman Empire (neither holy, nor Roman, nor..) by tradition selected the Emperor by hereditary electors, etc. so this is not originally out of whole cloth either.

The Senate was a copy straight from Rome, with perhaps a stop at Venice, and a brush by British parliamentary principles.

The founders had practical origins for all the elements of their system.
468 posted on 09/22/2003 2:44:28 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: exmarine
lol. Give me one example of a democracy before the United States that had an electoral college, representation, separation of powers, etc

The Roman Republic had everything but the electoral college. Male, land-owning citizens could vote (sound familiar?)

and that which was formed BY THE PEOPLE.

As opposed to Republics formed by the fish?

So what are you talking about? You have simply redefined democracy from what it really was at the time of the Greeks. You have called our republic a democracy and then said that the two are the same. HAHAHA. To you they may mean the same thing, but not to our founders, and not to the witness of history, that is clear.

Nope, all I've done is tell you that your incredibly narrow definition of "democracy" and "republic" are based on nothing more than your personal views of what those words should mean. Historically, there have been many different entities that could be considered both republics and democracies. The two meanings overlap and have nothing to do with your provincial view of the subject.

469 posted on 09/22/2003 2:45:20 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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To: exmarine
So ? Everybody else in Europe was Christian.
470 posted on 09/22/2003 2:47:29 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: CaptRon; JohnHuang2; MadIvan; TonyInOhio; MeeknMing; itreei; jd792; Molly Pitcher; muggs; ...
If they're so proud of their national origin why aren't the still in their nation?

Because our government gives them the ilusion that this is their nation !

471 posted on 09/22/2003 2:47:32 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK ("If guns kill people, where are mine hiding the bodies.")
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To: exmarine
Hello? Britain was a monarchy with a Parliament, and it was only becuase of the PURITANS (Christians) that the power of the King was diminished.

Britain has been a constitutional Monarchy since the Magna Carta. One of the few systems close to a republic at the time, but it probably doesn't qualify as a Republic, unless you remove the king as the head of state, tough.

472 posted on 09/22/2003 2:48:25 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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To: exmarine
The British parliament was a power before there were any Puritans, and they had separation of powers - the Parliament had the power of the purse - to set taxes and authorize expenditure, which the King did not.
473 posted on 09/22/2003 2:49:47 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: exmarine
all of the men I mentioned were CHRISTIANS!! All of them. Puffendorf, Locke, Montesquieu, Grotius, Rutherford, Blackstone. Get it now?

So? That's just one part of what shaped their philosophies and writings. They didn't exist in a bubble. Where do you think they got their ideas, if not the Classical World?

474 posted on 09/22/2003 2:50:31 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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To: exmarine
OK, for you it was legal. You are arguing semantics here.
475 posted on 09/22/2003 2:50:56 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: Modernman
The Roman Republic had everything but the electoral college. Male, land-owning citizens could vote (sound familiar?)

Baloney. The roman republic was not formed by the people, it was formed by PATRICIANS who inherited their status. And Rome had no Constitution, no Bill of Rights, no guaranteed freedoms, no acknowledgement that rights are unalienable (come from God), did not understand the sinful nature of man, etc. The founders knew well the failings of the roman system (not the same as ours). 27 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Indpendence has seminary degrees, and one of the requirements was to be fluent in both greek and latin.

476 posted on 09/22/2003 2:51:27 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: exmarine
Rome was around for @ 500 years before Caesar, the founding of Rome being generally placed in the 7th century BC. The Republic probably existed in one form or another for 500 years, as Rome was a city-state before it had an empire.
477 posted on 09/22/2003 2:53:57 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: exmarine
For the LORD [is] our judge, the LORD [is] our lawgiver, the LORD [is] our king; he will save us.

Interesting, then I'll just have to wait for God to decide any pending court cases my law firm might have. I guess Congress can go home and we'll wait for God to reform Social Security.

Dont' you ever get tired of being wrong? The three different branches of government are from Montesquieu

And I ask you again- where did he get those ideas, if not the Classical World?

478 posted on 09/22/2003 2:54:34 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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To: exmarine
Plebians voted too you know. There were also Plebian senators.

Rome had several constitutions, one written (the plates of the law) and another unwritten, much like the British one, based on precedent.

And like we have been saying, the US constitution was heavily influenced by classical example but was an agglomeration of many different elements.

BTW, the Bill of Rights was an add-on.
479 posted on 09/22/2003 3:00:03 PM PDT by buwaya
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To: exmarine
Baloney. The roman republic was not formed by the people, it was formed by PATRICIANS who inherited their status

The FF were essentially patricians- they were not too keen to give the majority the right to vote (most WHITE men couldn't vote). Hell, only about 1/3 of the American people at the time supported independence. The US was not formed by the "people," at least, not by the majority of them.

And Rome had no Constitution, no Bill of Rights, no guaranteed freedoms, no acknowledgement that rights are unalienable (come from God), did not understand the sinful nature of man, etc

Rome had no written constitution, but there were many laws that protected citizens- there was certainly a "bill of rights" (for example, you couldn't shackle a citizen before he was convicted of a crime).

Sure, the Roman Republic was different from us, but I'm not saying the FF adopted their system completely- they picked and choose from a variety of places.

480 posted on 09/22/2003 3:01:52 PM PDT by Modernman ("Oh no, the dead have risen and they're voting Republican"- Lisa Simpson)
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