Thread: Kiss the Melting Pot Goodbye

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007574

Kiss the Melting Pot Goodbye
Do we want immigrant riots here?

BY TAMAR JACOBY
Sunday, November 20, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

What's the difference between the U.S. approach to immigration and that of France? What accounts for our relative success and their utter failure to integrate newcomers? Arguably the world's oldest and most successful nation of immigrants, we have developed a system that turns ambivalent new arrivals into wholehearted members of our society. But now, amazingly, despite the lessons from France, Republicans in the House are considering a move that would destroy that system overnight.

Many Americans have come to reject the label, but few question the idea at the heart of the "melting pot" tradition: Immigration works only if immigrants come to feel like full participants in our society, with all the rights, responsibilities and opportunities enjoyed by others, no matter how long they've been here. Developed gradually, partly by accident and partly by design, this approach to social integration is based as much in tradition as in law. But a key element is birthright citizenship--in practice for whites since the nation's founding, and codified for all in the 14th Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States . . ."

Newcomers put down roots and invest all-out in their lives here because they know their children will be guaranteed full membership. And children, knowing they have a secure place and a shot at the same opportunities as all other young people, feel entitled to aspire to the nation's highest pinnacles of success.

Things are different in Europe. No European nation grants birthright citizenship to the offspring of its immigrants. And largely as a consequence, no European nation has succeeded in giving second-generation newcomers the sense that they truly belong, and are fully entitled participants in the economy, the body politic and mainstream society. For the result, look at the Turks in Germany, now in the third generation and still not far from permanent underclass status.

And then of course there's France. Citizenship policy there is a convoluted matter, with birthplace, former colonial status and the nationality of one's parents all playing a role--and many of those behind the rioting are in fact citizens. But citizenship is not a given for the second generation, who are also marginalized by factors such as the heavy-handed business regulation and overgenerous welfare policies that make immigrant unemployment double the already soaring national rate. Together, these factors conspire to make the mainstream seem off-limits, and thousands of alienated youth, with no hope of a bright French future in sight, are now burning the cities that won't make room for them.

It is in this context--or despite it--that a consensus is growing among House Republicans (pro- and anti-immigration) in favor of abolishing birthright citizenship. The argument is that illegal immigrants enter the country expressly with the intent of giving birth--presumably on the theory that if the parents can hold out here illegally for 21 years, the U.S.-born child will eventually be eligible to sponsor them and other relatives for permanent visas.
Never mind that no one has found any evidence that this is indeed common practice today. The statistics often cited, of the number of births per year to illegal immigrants, could be births to newly arrived mothers--or simply to undocumented women (and they now number in the millions) already living permanently in the United States. Still, sentiment is building that ending birthright citizenship would reassert the rule of law.

Proponents of ending birthright citizenship do not imagine that the Constitution will be amended. But a legal scholar, John C. Eastman of Chapman University, claims that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted. In his view, the key words are not "born . . . in the United States," but rather "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"--a phrase he thinks can be used to exclude illegal immigrants by statute. More alarming still, he has convinced several congressmen, and provisions to this effect have been included in two pieces of legislation under consideration in the House.

The political risks alone ought to give proponents pause. Just imagine how these proposals look from the point of view of a Hispanic voter. For more than 200 years, common law and then the Constitution granted citizenship to the children of immigrants. But now that it's Latinos who qualify, the Republican Party is mobilizing to change the rules.

The repercussions of a national campaign to rescind birthright citizenship will make what happened in California in the 1990s, in the wake of the GOP's support for the anti-immigrant ballot initiative, Proposition 187, look like child's play. The party may as well give up any hope of appealing to the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc.





The consequences of such a policy for the melting pot--for our future as a cohesive pluralist nation--will be more momentous still. Think about the millions of children who will be born in coming years to the 11 million illegal immigrants already living on American soil. These young people will know no other home, many will never learn the language of their parents, and if what has happened in Europe is any guide, very few will even consider going back to the Old Country.
The overwhelming majority would finish out their lives here in the U.S. as second-class noncitizens with no hope of full participation in our society and little incentive to try in school or to aspire to mainstream success. Talk about a recipe for a permanent underclass: legally marginalized, undereducated, languishing near the bottom of the economic ladder and--can anyone doubt--increasingly resentful.

Republicans in Congress are right when they say that we have to find new ways to deter illegal immigration and to better manage the costs of the social services, including emergency-room maternity care, now extended to immigrants, both legal and illegal. But there are other, more appropriate and effective ways to deal with both problems. The answer cannot be to destroy one of our oldest and proudest American traditions--and the secret of our success as a nation of immigrants.

well- the article says there are more effective ways to dealing with birthright citizenship. what are they?
the Truth is that Latinos( non- american citizens) know the american system better then americans do -and they intentionally cross the border to give birth and have american children-sticking the medical bill to taxpayers - who will also pay for everything else for these children. then there is the tearjerker- of how can you break up a family-when the parents are illegals and the children are legal?
every angle - a Ph.d couldn't have thought this out better.
In the meantime- medicare does not check citizenship for applicants- nor for entering the public schools- the united states is an amazingly generous country -especially if you dont belong here -