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A Toughtful Look at Birth Rights

Immigration

If you head on over to the National Constitution Center there is an excellent discussion of Birth Rights by Linda Monk. This isn’t a quick sound bite. This is the whole enchilada.

Immigration Numbers:

• For the first time in two decades, the total number of illegal immigrants has dropped significantly, from a high of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009.
• The average annual number of new illegal immigrants fell dramatically, from 850,000 in March 2005 to 300,000 in March 2009.
• Mexico remains the primary source of illegal immigration, with 60 percent; other Latin American nations represent 20 percent; and South and East Asia have 11 percent

Immigration wasn’t always illegal

For much of U.S. history, there were no legal limits on immigration, although rules for naturalization varied. During the colonial era, the English colonies in North America took land from Native Americans by both treaty and conquest, and then sought to attract other European immigrants as settlers. The colonial charters of Virginia and Maryland, for example, allowed government officials to admit and give property rights to “strangers and aliens.” In some colonies, governors and legislators naturalized entire groups of settlers by statute. In 1740 Parliament passed a law that enabled aliens who had lived in the colonies for seven years to become English subjects–if they were not Catholics.

The 14th amendment:

The Constitution “was widely read in the antebellum era as making national citizenship derivative of state citizenship, except in cases
involving the naturalization of immigrants and the regulation of federal territories.” The Fourteenth Amendment nationalized the
definition of citizenship, rather than relying on the states, and it made state citizenship automatic upon residence in that state. Under
the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons “born or naturalized” in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens of both the state in which they reside and the United States. Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to overturn the Dred Scott ruling and protect former slaves, who were not recognized as citizens by Southern states even after the Civil War and emancipation.

Please read the whole piece. It is wonderful, informative and thoughtful.

By ecthompsonmd|2015-08-20T19:41:08-04:00August 20th, 2015|Border Security|Comments Off

Dred Scott and Donald Trump

Have you read Donald Trump’s immigration paper? Really?

From TP:

On Sunday, Trump released a series of immigration proposals, one of which seeks to restore a similar vision of citizenship to the one embraced by the Supreme Court in its infamous Dred Scott decision. Trump calls for the United States to “[e]nd birthright citizenship,” which he labels “the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” In Trump’s vision, the children of a disfavored class will once again carry tainted blood that disqualifies them from citizenship, even if his new target is the children of undocumented immigrants and not the descendants of men and women brought to this country in chains.

Black men and women “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” according to the most infamous decision ever handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. The core of the Court’s reasoning in Dred Scott was the notion that citizenship was a kind of hereditary inheritance, passed down from the kind of people “who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted” to their children. Black slaves and their descendants were, thus, disqualified by their own blood from enjoying the rights of citizenship.

Birthright citizenship, the principle that infants born on U.S. soil automatically become citizens regardless of ancestry, was written into the Constitution as an explicit repudiation of Dred Scott. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the Fourteenth Amendment begins, “are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2015-08-18T00:08:42-04:00August 18th, 2015|Border Security|Comments Off

I wish I had something new to say about immigration. Over the last eight or so months more that 52,000 children have made their way into South Texas. (Find other recent articles on this problem – here, here and here.) I don’t know, maybe this is a partisan answer, but if we would have secured the border after 9/11, I don’t think that we would have this problem now. Instead, we have talked about building fences and have never come up with a comprehensive solution to this problem. The problem must be looked at from both sides of the border. As long as we have way more economic opportunity and offer a safer environment to raise children, people are going to try to make it to the US.

The Center for American Progress has come up with five reasons why Administrative Action would help the American Worker –

Immigrants with temporary status would be able to contribute more in tax revenues.Bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and allowing them to work legally would put workers and employers on the books, thus increasing tax revenues. According to estimates by the U.S. Social Security Administration, a minority of undocumented workers and their employers are paying payroll taxes. A deferred-action program would create an avenue for undocumented workers and their employers to pay payroll taxes, which support vital programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

(more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2014-07-10T21:59:27-04:00July 10th, 2014|Border Security|Comments Off