Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[JustJo]

Hey...I was traveling and in and out of airports all night Friday and early Saturday, and kept hearing snippets of some crazy stuff about a push to prevent illegal immigrants from having "anchor babies" in the U.S. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, and is also just basically ridiculous, I'm alarmed....but I didn't hear enough to have the whole story.

Was anyone following this? Have more info? Know who's behind this insanity?

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by JustJo

Hey...I was traveling and in and out of airports all night Friday and early Saturday, and kept hearing snippets of some crazy stuff about a push to prevent illegal immigrants from having "anchor babies" in the U.S. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, and is also just basically ridiculous, I'm alarmed....but I didn't hear enough to have the whole story.

Was anyone following this? Have more info? Know who's behind this insanity?

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

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.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

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.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

Oh yeah, conservatives want to change a lot in the Constitution! A lot of them think it just fine to interject the 2nd Amendment as a means to eliminate politicians they don't like either.

And we now have Rand Paul really wanting to go at the Constitution.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

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.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

It would also be a handy blow against the gays if they repealed the 14th amendment. The equal protection clause and the due process clause were both cited in the Loving vs Virginia decision which ended laws against interracial marriage.

A bit from the court's decision back then:

The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.

...

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

These convictions must be reversed.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

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.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

Ugh....thanks....makes me wonder what they think the "effective date" should be. After all, an awful lot of us could trace our families back to somebody who hid on the ship or didn't quite have their papers in order. Does that mean we're all getting booted out too? And, if so, where exactly do we belong? Craziness. If you're born here, you're an American in my book....I don't care if your mother was 2 feet on the other side of the line for a minute and a half before you arrived.

[MsDemeanor]

It's actually kind of interesting. There are two widely recognized methods of determining citizenship - jus soli (right of the soil) and jus sanquinis (right of the blood). In the Americas, jus soli seems to be prevalent, which makes sense in a large land mass surrounded by oceans that contains folks who predominantly came from somewhere else. European countries tend to use jus sanquinis, which, to me, makes more sense the goal of preserving national heritage in a region with a lot of little countries with free movement between them. If your parents are Spanish, you're Spanish, even if you're born in France. There's also lex sanquinis, which allows citizenship based on other blood ties. For example, if my great grandparents had my grandmother before they left Ireland, rather than after they arrived in the States, I could get an Irish passport (stomps foot), and the Israeli Law of Return grants the right to citizenship to all Jews.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

It's actually kind of interesting. There are two widely recognized methods of determining citizenship - jus soli (right of the soil) and jus sanquinis (right of the blood). In the Americas, jus soli seems to be prevalent. European countries tend to use jus sanquinis, which, to me, makes more sense the goal of preserving national heritage in a region with a lot of little countries with free movement between them. If your parents are Spanish, you're Spanish, even if you're born in France. There's also lex sanquinis, which allows citizenship based on other blood ties. For example, if my great grandparents had my grandmother before they left Ireland, rather than after they arrived in the States, I could get an Irish passport (stomps foot), and the Israeli Law of Return grants the right to citizenship to all Jews.

Right...and those make sense to me too. I guess I like taking the broadest possible definition. If your parents are Irish citizens, and you're born here...then I guess I'd like the choice to be yours, and I have no issue with granting dual citizenship or whatever until that choice is made by the people involved.

The interesting part, to me, of the 14th amendment is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." My understanding is that was included because diplomats (for example) might have a child while residing in the US, but that child was not technically born American, because they (the diplomats and their offspring) were not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.

Take that argument to the children of illegal immigrants (which is what these wingnuts are trying to prevent)...are they actually going to argue that the children of illegal immigrants aren't subject to U.S. jurisdiction in the way that diplomats aren't? It's hogwash.

[Glenn]

WTH are all these folks going to do? AFLCIO.org2010/11/18

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa

WTH are all these folks going to do? AFLCIO.org2010/11/18

The repugs are gonna give all their rich buddies a tax break and the rich buddies will use the tax break to create jobs for all these folks.