Thread: Kids of illegal aliens face bully treatment

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/ed ... edit_x.htm

Kids of illegal aliens face bully treatment
By Raul Reyes
In fourth-grade, I lived in fear of our class bully. It took me a while to realize he wasn't going to beat me up. Like all bullies, he had a finely honed instinct that led him to seek out only my weakest classmates.
I thought of him when I learned that Republicans in the House of Representatives, searching for a solution to the immigration crisis, are considering a proposal to end birthright citizenship. These bullies are zeroing in on the children of undocumented workers.

While I'm heartened that the Senate pledged to deal with immigration reform next term, I'm dismayed by this development. It is not enough to demonize the men and women who illegally enter this country in search of work. Now, politicians intend to punish their children.

"There is a general agreement ... that citizenship ... should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who came into this country illegally," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told The Washington Times.

According to the Pew Center, there are more than 3 million U.S.-born children of illegal aliens. They are granted citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment, which says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

Tancredo and other lawmakers claim that these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and are thus ineligible for citizenship. But the Supreme Court rejected similar reasoning in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (189, in which an American-born son of Chinese laborers was found to have full citizenship rights.

My grandfather was an illegal immigrant, but that doesn't mean that I will turn a blind eye to our immigration mess. The undocumented population, estimated by the Pew Center to be about 11 million, generates enormous taxpayer costs in health care, education and social services. Our porous borders also make us vulnerable to terrorists. Yet ending birthright citizenship would involve amending the Constitution. It would establish a two-tiered system for those born on American soil, exactly what the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to end.

Having an American-born baby is no easy ticket to government entitlements. Illegal aliens who give birth to children in the USA can still be deported, and should an American-born child wish to sponsor his parents, he must wait 21 years before he can do so.

If lawmakers are serious about stemming illegal entries, they should penalize employers found to hire illegals and address the status of workers already here.

Birthright citizenship is enshrined in our Constitution so that it doesn't matter who our parents are. What matters is that we are Americans.

The only hing that we ask for is that the illegal imigrants in America be treated exactly as the illegal immigrants are being treated where America's illegal immigrants come from.

Wong Kim Ark was in the United States legally. In fact giving birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is against the original intent of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The current de facto arrangement is just the result of an interpretation and not the Amendment itself.

Having an American-born baby is no easy ticket to government entitlements.

Well, it sure doesn't look like that's a true statement based on STATISTICS. Hell, they don't even ASK for PROOF of citizenship before they start passing out OUR money. I hope Congress wakes up and passes laws that prohibit children born in our country of ILLEGAL mothers from automatic citizenship. Going to court to sue for this right seems to me to fall under the "clean hands" policy. If you have broken a law and committed an illegal act, you can't go to court and sue when it backfires. These ILLEGALS who come here to pop out their babies do not have CLEAN HANDS so their "rights" should end right there.