Thread: Sound off on automatic citizenship

Chicago Tribune by Eric Zorn

Open mike Thursday: Sound off on automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants

I've sworn off use of the aggressive, loaded and yet widely understood term "anchor baby" in discussions of birthright citizenship (here's why), a topic that's back front and center this week as the fuss continues over Elvira Arellano.

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_co ... chor_.html

(see more links in the original article)

To recap: Though Arellano was deported to her native Mexico for criminal violations related to her illegal entrance to this country, her son, Saul, 8, is a U.S. citizen solely by virtue of being born on U.S. soil.

This has led to a renewed call for Congress either to begin the process of amending the Constitution to eliminate the automatic grant of citizenship to babies born here, or to ask the U.S. Supreme Court take another look at the 14th Amendment and rulings upholding birthright citizenship as recent as 1982.

You probably have a gut reaction to this issue one way or the other, but I'd like to open up a comment thread here for considered analysis based not only upon the language of the 14th amendment but on various interpretations of that language.

To make that easy, I've put together some links to suggested reading on this topic. Look below:

In the U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV, section 1 reads:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the Jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. . ."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on whether this applies to children born of non-citizens in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, and there's a good discussion of that here:

The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, according to the court's majority, had to be interpreted in light of English common law tradition that had excluded from citizenship at birth only two classes of people: (1) children born to foreign diplomats and (2) children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory. The majority held that the "subject to the jurisdiction" phrase in the 14th Amendment specifically encompassed these conditions...

In Plyler v. Doe (1982), (the U.S.) Supreme Court (reaffirmed that) the 14th Amendment's phrases "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "within its jurisdiction" were essentially equivalent and that both referred primarily to physical presence. It held that that illegal immigrants residing in a state are "within the jurisdiction" of that state, and added in a footnote that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment "jurisdiction" can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful ."

My fellow liberals are accustomed to probing the Constitution for its real meaning when it comes to guns:

A main argument of gun-control advocates is that the stilted introductory clause in the 2nd Amendment, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," drastically limits the application of the next clause, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

And even if it doesn't, they argue, the Founders were all about muskets and flintlock pistols, and surely never intended this guarantee to apply to the rapid-fire, deadly-accurate weaponry available today.

But they don't seem nearly as engaged with probing the 14th Amendment.

Does that hedgy clause "..and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the middle of this otherwise unambiguous declaration mean that it still applies to illegal immigrants?

Did those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868 intend for it to cover children born to those who were illegally in the country?

And , clauses and amendments aside, is this time-honored practice still a good idea?

Even asking the three questions above is likely to prompt a left winger to brand you a nativist and immigrant hayta', (CQ) though Arellano's high-profile standoff with U.S. Immigration and Customs officials and her attempt to play her son's citizenship as a trump card brings them right to mind.

Here, updated from a year ago on this blog, is a selection of Internet sources on various sides of the question whether a child born within the boundaries of the United States ought to be considered a citizen:

Magazine article: Happy 14th Amendment Day! --Thanks to the visionary constitutional reformers of 1868, America enjoys equal rights for all. Today's anti-immigration zealots want to destroy their legacy. By Garrett Epps, author of "Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America." (Salon)

Commentary: The Hijacking of the Fourteenth Amendment (.pdf) by attorney Doug Hammerstrom of Reclaim Democracy (html version)

Testimony: 1995 Statement to Congress of Asst. Atty. Gen. Walter Dellinger

From the Federalist Blog: The Washington Post's Feeble Attempt To Revise Fourteenth Amendment History and Alien Birthright Citizenship: A Fable That Lives Through Ignorance

Law review article: Citizenship and the Babies of Non-Citizens (.pdf), a 1996 article in the Stanford Law Review (html version)

Wikipedia entries: Jus soli (Latin for "right of the territory"), or birthright citizenship. "Anchor baby" and The 14th Amendment.

Court decisions: The key U.S. Supreme Court case in this matter remains United States v. Wong Kim Ark (189. Background; Opinion; Dissent.Two other SCOTUS cases of note are Elk v. Wilkins (1884) and Plyler v. Doe (1982).

Heritage Foundation: Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution by Edward Erler, professor of Political Science at California State University, San Bernadino.

Beyond Borders Blog: Birthright Citizenship - Why Tom Tancredo is Wrong to Oppose It

News article: `Birthright citizenship' policy change stirs debate, December, 2005 article by By David Crary, The Associated Press. Polling data cited.

Legal brief: A 26-page amicus curaie analysis (.pdf) for the U.S. Supreme Court written in 2004 by former attorney general Edwin Meese III and attorney John Eastman of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Chapman University School of Law (California)

Legislation: Don't Complicate Immigration Reform by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), sponsor of House Joint Resolution 46 to end birthright citizenship by constitutional amendment. U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Florida) has a similar bill before the House. Newer: The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007.

Editorial: The Washington Post argues that the attempt to ban birthright citizenship is "an ugly and fruitless path."

News article: "Children of illegal immigrants may lose birthright citizenship-- 92 lawmakers in the House push bill revoking right of citizenship to discourage illegal immigration." Los Angeles Times, December, 2005

Polling Data: A Pew Research Center poll released in March, 2006, found that 54 percent of Americans oppose amending the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship. A surprising 44 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans oppose the idea.

Essay by GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul: "Rethinking Birthright Citizenship"

If you have other links, please submit them in the comments area.
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Comments

Everyone is always telling me how superior European countries are to the US, so let's take a play from their playbook:

The US should adopt a "European Union" style immigration policy with Mexico and Canada....a citizen of any of those countries can roam free amongst the other two..they can own property, take a job, etc, just like someone from Poland can take a job and live in Ireland.
Posted by: Stosh | Aug 23, 2007 12:33:11 PM

There seems to have been a serious problem in writing constitutional amendments in the 18th & 19th Centuries.
The Second Amendment is atrociously written & the part of the 14th that comes into play here isn't far behind.
I think we need the lazy, arrogant bums in Congress to sit down & rewrite these two amendments correctly, in clear, precise, unambiguous language or we're doomed to wreck the country!
We have to end birthright citizenship & we have to make that retroactive at least by 18 years.
We can't survive with more people, the country is too crowded now.
I heard Mary Schmich tell about some loony prof that said to fling open the borders.
That would mean the doubling of the US population in 10 years & doubling again in 20, which would mean 1.2 billion people here.
The first wave would be 40-50 million Mexicans, Central & South American, then a couple of hundred million from China, am equal number from India, then more from Africa, the rest of Asia & Europe.

Just think what Chicago with 10 million or more people within the city limits would be like, unlivable!
Posted by: Garry | Aug 23, 2007 12:44:48 PM

I always find it interesting that people on the left, apparently so interested in liberty in other areas (a woman's right to choose, etc.) are so sensitive about discussion of certain topics, viz. your comment above:

"Even asking the three questions above is likely to prompt a left winger to brand you a nativist and immigrant hayta'"

Just look, for instance, at the firestorm that Larry Summers ran into in exploring why women are underrepresented in science and engineering, and wondering whether among the reasons (he advanced several possible ones) might be that their abilities lie in a different direction.

Leftists in this respect resemble religious fundamentalists, who resist exploration of their beliefs (if the Bible is literally true, why does it say that pi is exactly three?) lest, one thinks, they crumble under the examination.

For myself, I believe that an idea that can't stand discussion isn't much of an idea, and in resisting discussion, people betray their knowledge of the fragility of their beliefs. But that's just my opinion.

ZORN REPLY -- My disagreement with you is that this is a liberal phenomenon-- I think it cuts equally across the political spectrum, where received, unassailable wisdom is king. Examine, for instance, the intellectually flimsy arguments against gay marriage. They boil down to "because I said so." Or "because the Bible says so."
And just try to question what the Second Amendment might have really meant and watch the fur and foam fly on the right.
So yes, but no.
Posted by: Dave Brann | Aug 23, 2007 12:51:19 PM

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_co ... thurs.html

The anchor babies aren't really citizens. Simple as that. According to the Congressman who wrote the law "aliens and foreigners" would not be eligable.