Thread: ALIPAC in the News: Hispanic leaders say a birthright ban wo

Hispanic leaders say a birthright ban would be misguided

By Veronica Gonzalez
Staff Writer Wilmington Star
veronica.gonzalez@starnewsonline.com

For 10 years, Lidia Juarez Espinosa’s husband traveled back and forth from Mexico to Southeastern North Carolina to work construction.

It wore on their marriage, especially with three small children.

So she decided to relocate to this country, albeit without documents.

“He always left me alone,” said the 29-year-old, who lives in New Hanover County.

“He stayed six months and he returned. I told him I wanted to come. There was no point in being married.”

Supporters of a measure to remove birthright citizenship to stem the flow of illegal immigration say undocumented immigrants like Espinosa come here to have “anchor babies” – or children who will help them stay in the country.

Conversely, local leaders believe removing birthright citizenship – a proposal likely to resurface in Congress – is a misguided proposal because Hispanics don’t come here to procreate.

“They come here for the same reason every other immigrant group comes here since the country’s invention – to have more opportunity for themselves,” said Minerva Velez Glidden, president of the advocacy board for Voces Latinas, a local resource center for Hispanics.

Removing birthright citizenship is one of many proposals that have surfaced in the national debate over immigration.

Birthright citizenship is granted by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 with freed slaves in mind. It states that all people born or naturalized here are citizens.

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., tried to take the first step toward revoking birthright citizenship in a House immigration bill, but House leaders didn’t let it come to a vote, according to the report.

That doesn’t mean the issue won’t resurface again as Deal has said he will continue to push the issue.

“We continue to push for comprehensive immigration reform and don’t see that we should be dismantling our Constitution to do that,” said Marisol

Jimenez McGee, advocacy director for El Pueblo, a Raleigh-based nonprofit advocacy and policy organization that works on behalf of Hispanics.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are 300,000 undocumented immigrants living in the state out of about 650,000 Hispanics, mostly Mexican immigrants. Nationally, the number of undocumented immigrants is estimated to be 11 million.

Supporters of removing birthright citizenship say that number is actually higher.

McGee said many people wrongly assume most of the Hispanic babies born here are born to undocumented immigrants.

“That assumption is commonly made, but it’s a stereotype,” McGee said. “A lot of these institutions are not recording documentation status.”

It’s unclear how many babies born in Southeastern North Carolina are born to undocumented residents.

In New Hanover County in 2004, 9.6 percent of the babies born were Hispanic. That’s compared to 14.4 percentstatewide.

In Duplin County, the number was much higher, at 40 percent, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

Glidden said the first wave of immigrants are usually men who come here in search of work. Then they earn enough to bring their wives and their children.

“They don’t come here to breed,” Glidden said. “They come here to work.”

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said immigration can’t be solved simply by denying birthright citizenship.

“We’re still waiting for Bush to explain why they’ve been catching and releasing illegals and why no employers were fined last year,” he said. “What we need is complete immigration enforcement.”

But Gheen said undocumented immigrants use “that anchor baby to then stave off deportation, apply for welfare and then eventually pull more relatives legally into the United States via the relationship to the anchor child.”

Those against removing birthright citizenship say that none of us would be here legally.

“If we were to do that than none of us would be citizens,” said Olga Rodriguez Wheatley, who works for New Hanover County Schools. “No American would be a citizen because nobody came here as American. What they’re doing basically is tearing apart the foundation of this country.”

Veronica Gonzalez: 343-2008

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