OldLady
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- Nov 16, 2015
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James Madison and Abraham Lincoln were great men. Our society has changed since they offered their opinions, though. During their times, there were no such things as "illegals." If a person moved here, he could apply for naturalization or not, but the government did not start putting limits on how many or who could enter until 1882; immigration laws have become increasingly restrictive since.I can see granting US citizenship only to children who have one parent living here LEGALLY. That is easy enough to prove. However, using a term as fuzzy as "foreigners" is never going to cut it. By law, immigrants who WANT to become citizens must live in the US FIVE YEARS before applying for naturalization. They are foreigners who plan to become citizens and of course want their children to be, as well, since they will be raised here.It's the next step in making America great again. Birthright Citizenship refers to Citizen parents, not Illegals. The 14th Amendment was only created for slaves after the civil war. It was not created for foreigners. Let's hear from the man who wrote the Citizenship clause himself, Senator John Jacob Howard:
"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, 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. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."
This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:
"[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the word..."
The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete.
President Trump Says He Is Still "Looking Seriously" at Ending Birthright Citizenship
I agree that Chinese women who travel here on a tourist visa to have a baby and then fly back to China with a US citizen child is BULLSHIT. So is granting citizenship to the children of two illegals living in the US. The illegal shit has got to stop. I agree with that.
Trump has to be careful how that is done, though, in order to be fair. And I don't believe Trump can change that himself; it is written in law and needs to be changed by Congress, doesn't it?
The problem is less Congress than it was previous rulings on citizenship. That's what we need to do first; have it so the Supreme Court rules that anchor babies are not constitutionally protected.
Maybe you should study some American history. Birthright citizenship has been recognized for hundreds of years and by great men such as James Madison. We should discard it because white men are afraid of losing their political influence. If the Supreme Court turns this aside then no one including you is a American citizen.
16% of the countries (30+) in the world have birthright citizenship, almost exclusively in North and South America. From the map I found, only Colombia and Surinam in the Americas do not (it wasn't a big map; I hope that's accurate). Europe, Africa and Asia has only a handful--Kenya, Lesotho and Pakistan were the only ones I could find. None in Europe, although France and Ireland gave it up recently (1993 and 2005 respectively) and so did Australia. Over here, the Dominican Republic just gave it up in 2013--and left tens of thousands residents nationless due to undocumented nationality of their parents. We'd want to make sure that doesn't happen if we change over.
Canada is also considering revoking birthright citizenship due to "birth tourism;" and is one of the reasons the overseas countries that have recently revoked it did.
The cost of social programs for illegals who are not paying into the system? That is a factor, but I believe it is greatly exaggerated. That argument is for another thread, though.
This is a good article for perspective of jus soli (right of the soil) and jus sanguinis (right of blood) --the nationality of a parent. There is nothing "evil" about revoking jus soli. With the changes in our society, sometimes laws need to change, too.
America Isn’t the ‘Only Country’ With Birthright Citizenship