Thread: Roosevelt Had it Right on Immigration

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/artic ... 496233.txt

Roosevelt had it right on immigration
By TOM HAMILTON
Monday, July 3, 2006 1:12 AM PDT
Allow me to apologize upfront for waking the author of the June 24 letter ( "No free ride on medical services") from her liberal-induced coma. Her woefully inaccurate missive regarding the poor plight of illegal immigrants forced me to respond.

For the record, "undocumented" equals "Illegal" in this state and in this country; please do not try to mitigate the unlawful status of these criminals.

Second, our current health care providers are obligated, by law, to diagnose and stabilize anyone presenting to the emergency room of a hospital. Allow me to translate that into our national language (English): Illegal immigrants use the Queen of the Valley and St. Helena Hospital emergency rooms as free medical care, sort of like a generic family doctor. When they show up, almost always with non-emergentcy issues (aka they are not "dying"), the poor overworked staffs of these private hospitals are required by law to evaluate, stabilize and diagnose their sniffles and boo-boos, at no cost to the indigent. The illegal immigrant is provided with first-rate medical services and then referred to free follow-up providers which our own citizens are not permitted.

Lastly, in regard to the child born of the Illegal immigrant: She correctly pointed out that a criminal cannot receive social services and also correctly identified the relevant issue; A child born in the U.S. of illegal immigrants is, by the grace of the American citizen, entitled to citizenship and benefits. Let's assume that I'm an illegal immigrant, from a country that cannot provide any social security at all. I know that if I make it to the U.S., especially California, I can receive services that I could not otherwise dream of ... and if I have children there, they become instant inheritors to a country that I hold no loyalty to and otherwise am using for free services and the opportunity to send American currency back to my native land ... hmmmm, there's a downside to this somewhere ... actually, no there isn't.



In 1907, at the height of European immigration, Teddy Roosevelt said, "In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American -- There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

What's so different now?

(Hamilton lives in Napa.)

Lastly, in regard to the child born of the Illegal immigrant: She correctly pointed out that a criminal cannot receive social services and also correctly identified the relevant issue; A child born in the U.S. of illegal immigrants is, by the grace of the American citizen, entitled to citizenship and benefits.

There's one thing that I understand is being challenged and that is this "anchor baby thing". According ot the 14th Amendemnt:

"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are FOREIGNERS, ALIENS , or who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.
Senator Jacob Howard, Co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.

Where did this "anchor baby" nonsense start?[/quote]