Let's start counting citizens

Pittsburgh Live ^ | June 26, 2005 | Dimitri Vassilaros

[Founding Father]

Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., wants to change one word in the U.S. Constitution.

Replacing "persons" with "citizens" in the 14th Amendment would force the Census Bureau to discount foreigners -- legals and illegals -- to ensure that every American finally would be properly represented in the House.

Michigan would gain a seat, as would Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Montana and Utah, according to Ms. Miller.

"It is almost ridiculously simple" she said.

[Txsleuth]

I don't know how long it has been since you have been to Austin---it has been about 10 years for me...

BUT, I hear horror stories about how bad the traffic is, and that a lot of people that I went to school with, that went to UT are wondering what happened to "their" college town.....

I haven't really had the desire to visit and find out either, because they say that the traffic from the D/FW area down 35 to Austin is like freeway traffic in Dallas during a work day,...ugh!

[PhiKapMom]

WOW! I did not realize it was that bad in NJ. Illegals running a company hiring other illegals and paying no benefits -- pure profit on anything above the meager wages they pay. I liked your idea further on down that talked about penalizing home owners that hire them.

When we built a new house outside of San Antonio in the Hill Country (now live in Oklahoma), I was furious at the builder when I realized illegals were doing the framing -- he got even with me -- they took two weeks off. If I had to do it all over again, we would have sued them. Same thing happened with the brickers -- they walked off the job for almost three weeks. Afterwards I realized they were almost all illegals although the builder was an Anglo as they come. Now I am mad all over again but I am a lot smarter today then I was in 1994! :)

[umgud]

Ask to see a driver's license?

Gotta make em foolproof 1st, which it seems like the Real ID act might do. But you're right, they gotta ask.

[billl]

NEVER is quite an exclusive neighborhood and far too brief a comment for us to learn the details.

Could you enlighten us all on this thread with some of your knowledge about all this?

By this also I mean the entire entirety of my post which was begun with "I think" and continued with "except for Indians and slaves" (which I honestly think covered 90% of the male exclusions) and then goes on to suggest it may have been a crazy quilt.

The scenarios I am unsure of, which I am hopeful you are more familiar with include:

1. when did "naturalization" 1st get defined here? Did our federal government do this first or was it states by which you got your US citizenship?
Being a citizen and being qualified to vote might have been different in the old colonies, but in the west there were less restrictions and universal white male sufferage was more of the norm.

2. how were annexed territories handled? Surely when Texas came on there must have been some guidelines. Was it everyone in Texas became a US citizen by virtue of being a Texas citizen? Did Texas have laws and rolls to check? Was it everyone around except for the slaves and Indians? Did they leave out the Mexicans?

how about the north-west territories? what if you were a Pennsy native who moved to what became Ohio? I can guess you only got to vote for Pres once you were a resident in a real state, so while you were in Ohio territory you might at best be an absentee ballot from Pennsy, if such a thing was possible way back then ...

how about the Southwest or especially California? Except for Indians and slaves, did they pick and choose or did they take all present? I think the Chinese exclusion act was a much later development, so even the Chinese 49ers might have been counted in the 1850 census.

I would think the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had something to say about the status of the persons in this former Mexican territory, even if there were irregularities in the actual enforcement.

Maybe most people who "naturalized" as we expanded across the continent did so by being in the annexed territory from the moment of annexation or statehood or something.

I really think there were a lot of situations where blanket naturalizations were the only practical method, (again, except for Indians and slaves).

I remember seeing something on the Mexican War where Jefferson Davis (maybe then Secy of State) was described as unwilling to annex more of Mexico because then those darker people would become Americans. That sounds like the default process was a sort of blanket naturalization. I think the idea of being there or being grandfathered in goes back a long way and I just don't buy NEVER. Another interesting one that I remember is that in the history of the Old Mine Road (from Delaware River to Kingston NY) the author suggested that part of the mystery of the age of the road is caused by Dutch settlers attempting to back-date their land occupation to before the 166? British take-over the 1st time, so their claims were grand-fathered.
If it was England after taking over Canada, I think if you were there, once you swore an oath to the crown you were in. The Arcadians were an example of those not doing that.

4. the old text about the native-born requirement had the escape clause for Alexander Hamilton about "unless you were a resident of the territory of the US at the time of adoption of the Constitution" or such like that always interested me. Do you know if that was ever applied for an area that became part of the US after the 178~ ish era? Vermont? Kentucky? Did they just take people as they were so long as they were taken as citizens in their state? Abe Lincoln was born in 1809 in Kentucky. Would it have been a problem if he had been born in Illinois territory? I'm not sure if being able to be President wasn't just a special case.

What about the people resident in areas of Maine (who until 183? was a part of Mass) who were added to Maine as a part of the Ashburton?-Adams boundary negotiations in 18?? That would be a situation where there was never a territorial interval in the annexation to the US.

Come to think of it, were citizens of the NW territories American citizens by virtue of being subject to laws, like the NW compact, which maybe was under the Articles of the Confederation (don't remember the date of the compact vs. the Constitution, but there were real close).

5. what happened if you the Irish who came over around the time of the famine? What was the basis back then of them becoming citizens? How about the Irish that were supporters of the NY political machines or the Irish that joined the civil war army. This might have been the beginning of naturalization by the methods we knew.

6. The other one that I'd like more info on is the case of seamen either seeking aid from an embassy overseas or even the case of impressment during the war of 1812. The contention of HM Gov was sometimes that the "American" sailors were either Royal Navy deserters or former Englishmen. How did we determine if they were "Americans" if in truth they had come from elsewhere? Were we just defending the property rights of US flag vessels to be unmolested in their employment arrangements? I thought they were referred to as "Americans"?

Inquiring minds want to know...

[ErnBatavia]

allow citizen arrests....and force leos to do their jobs or suffer arrests themselves

Methinks you need to pick a more realistic wish list...you've just listed two or three things that fall into the "FFC" category.

[LonePalm]

I understand the problem but we have to make it absolutely impossible for the illegals to earn dollar one. If we do that, they will leave.

Legal immigrants are welcome. No problem. Glad to meet you. Welcome to America. Learn English and assimilate. You can even date my daughters.

If you are here illegally you should be out of the country in 48 hours and have to abandon EVERYTHING you have here, period.

Children born to illegal immigrants should be considered illegals themselves. As a worse case, they (the child) may be allowed to stay but their parents are deported. The parents can always take their child with them but the child must forfeit US citizenship. It think this is a reasonable compromise.

We need to make it PAINFULL to be in this country illegaly or to tolerate those that are.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[wardaddy]

Hell Yes

[Young GOP Samurai]

Yeah, but if we're going for true proportional representation, why not first eliminate the most egregious disproportionately representative government body in the country--the US Senate? Plus it'd stop those bastard Democrats from obstructing Bush's nominees and the spineless RINO's from being Byrd and Reid's prison bitches.

[HiJinx]

Here's a ping for those who have yet to hear about Congresswoman Candice Miller's (R-Mich) proposal. The discussions to date surrounding the 14th Amendment have centered on the anchor-baby issue.

The way that Amendment is used by bean-counters, however, is much more insidious.

[janetgreen]

That is absolutely disgusting and am passing on to my State Rep and Senator not mention by Congressman and two Senators.

DITTO

[azhenfud]

"Counting illegal aliens in the Census is like counting an unknown passerby as part of your immediate family."

Rather, counting illegal aliens in the census is more like counting common house burglers as part of your immediate family.

[pepsionice]

I think it'll be difficult for any Democrat to stand up on the Sunday Talk shows and go against this idea. The entire idea of the constitution...is to protect the citizens of the U.S., and nothing more. To sit and count Juan in California...and pretend he might be a full-up citizen is a joke. And as for who loses out on this debate...its Texas and California...pure and simple. Both might lose two representatives each.

[jigsaw]

...counting illegal aliens in the census is more like counting common house burglers as part of your immediate family.

Your analogy is definitely more accurate.

[Modernman]

Yes, each must decide; take public subsidies, or exercise the right to vote. Not both.

I'm with you. The right to vote should be reserved for people who are net-taxpayers into the treasury. If you receive more from the treasury than you pay into it, you should not be allowed to vote.

Never going to happen, unfortunately.

[in the Arena]

BTTT

[blackie]

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Be Ever Vigilant!

Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!

[afnamvet]

Counting illegal aliens in the Census is like counting an unknown passerby as part of your immediate family.

Yeah, count the illegals as they board a bus to home paid and provided for by their home government.

[Paulus Invictus]

Un hombre-un voto

[IronMan04]

Pass it on to Gov. Brad and his 57% Approval Rating.

[PhiKapMom]

Yeah right! The RAT Governor doesn't get out of bed until noon, is always late to meetings, and basically is drifting through the position. BTW corruption has increased in tourism with him as Gov but the RATs named one of the beneficiaries of the slimely Tourism contracts to head the RATs here in OK.

Found out this afternoon that our four Republican Congressmen Cole, Istook, Lucas, and Sullivan are all co-sponsors of this legislation to have an amendment. There are only 23 co-sponsors and Oklahoma has four of them -- we would have five but we lost a seat due to the foreigners being counted. I asked Cong Lucas' staff if the RAT Boren from the NE was a co-sponsor -- the answer was NO. And people on here say there is no difference between Republicans and RATs -- not true for our delegation.

Watch for an announcement on Wednesday following a meeting from our State House Reps/Senators namely my Rep. I will post it when I get the press release on Wednesday.