Birth-right Citizenship

Submitted by Casey Johnston on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 11:27am 

Every day, foreign mothers cross the U.S. border to have their children born on American soil, safe in the knowledge that their baby will be granted automatic citizenship. The foreign mother is then granted the right to stay and work in the United States, all the while free from taxation. Her "American" child is granted numerous government benefits and goes to public school. This doesn’t seem like a crime until you look at the facts. It costs approximately $370 per student to pay for public education, a cost that is covered by the government through money from taxpayers. While hardworking Americans are struggling to pay municipal taxes that will ultimately fund their child’s education, the illegal mother, whose child benefits from the same public institution, gets by without paying the government more than a sales tax on certain goods and services. From her financial perspective, the illegal mother is giving her child a free education. In actuality, however, legal taxpayers are paying for an illegal alien to live in the United States and get a free education.

The Urban Institute estimated that the cost of educating illegal aliens was $3.1 billion in 1993. Factor in the tremendous surge in the population of illegal aliens since then, and a more accurate cost would be upwards of $5 billion. This estimate does not take into account the additional costs of bilingual education or other special educational needs, or states with a lower concentration of illegal immigrants. It has been estimated that there are 287,000 to 363,000 children born to illegal aliens each year in the U.S.

What does this mean for the common American taxpayer: higher taxes? The federal government has control over immigration law for the United States. By failing to address this issue, the funds that our government provides to these illegal alien children amounts to a virtual tax on U.S. citizens. Ultimately, Congress is rewarding illegal aliens and taxing citizens who choose to follow the rules and immigrate legally.

Congress should pass a law according to the Constitution Amendment XIV, Section 5, which excludes children born of illegal aliens from birth-right citizenship.

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I stongly believe if the parents are illegal the birth should be illegal....and all members should go HOME!

When the child becomes 21yrs of age, I believe he should be contacted to make a choice, either his birth parents country of citizenship/or American, providing ALL back ground checks come back CLEAR! AND he/she can contribute to the American economy/way of life, not drain it.

Also, I believe the offer should be for the individual ONLY, not the entire family.

My question is this, we have alot of Americans who work/live outside of the United States, and birth their children in other countries, are these children not considered Americans since the parents are American? So a child born to parents who are NOT US citizens/or here legally, should take their parents home country citizenship.

 

We're working to get this changed, but it will take an enormous effort. Probably an amendment to the Constitution.

 

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Yes it deffinately has to be clarified. Im so sick of them twisting our constitution. We do have a bill on this going through congress we can scream about .

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Immigration Rights Activist Elvira Arrellano Arrested by Immigration Officers

The arrest reportedly occurred as Arellano was leaving church.

Last Edited: Sunday, 19 Aug 2007, 4:19 PM PDT

Created: Sunday, 19 Aug 2007, 4:13 PM PDT From My Fox Las Angeles

Elvira talks about being 'separated' from her son.  No!  She 'abandoned' him for the sake of politics!  I can't imagaine a mother doing that.  He looks so sad and is a pawn for the illegals.  He deserves a better life than that.  Now he's without family - where's the father?  His mother is in Mexico and he should be there with her.  He is being sacrificed and her protests aren't going to do anything except make the legal citizens of the US even more upset and determined to change the laws.  It needs to be done now!  I'm faxing and calling my representatives demanding that they do their job in representing us and enforcing the laws.  Let's all do that and let them hear our voices.

Yes IslandAnne, you are on the right track. I too will email and call also. Thanks for the encouragement Graciela and IslandAnne

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Arellano, Anchor Babies and American Wall Street

Posted Tuesday, August 21, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Rights: Elvira Arellano, poster child for illegal alien parents of U.S. citizens, has been deported back to Mexico. True immigration reform would end the ultimate incentive to illegal immigration — birthright citizenship.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed after the Civil War to ensure the full rights of citizenship to freed slaves and their descendants. Of late, it has been abused and misinterpreted to grant citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, including those who have the good fortune to have their mother slip past the U.S. Border Patrol.

When Arellano took refuge in a Chicago church to avoid her second deportation for crimes committed on American soil, she had with her son Saul, 8 years old and an American citizen. But should he be?

Such children, called "anchor babies," are used by illegal aliens and their activist supporters to fight the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. We're told it's morally wrong to tear families apart. But such families were and can be united in their countries of origin. Prisoners are separated from their families. Do we stop enforcing the laws they broke, too?

HR 1940 was introduced in April by Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., to restore and clarify the original intent of the 14th Amendment. It would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. of parents who are not U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, John C. Eastman, Chapman University School of Law dean and a fellow at the Claremont Institute, argued that the prevailing interpretation gives too much weight to place of birth than originally intended and should be changed.

Eastman argued: "Birth, together with being a person subject to the complete and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States (i.e. not owing allegiance to another sovereign) was the constitutional mandate." Indeed, the 14th Amendment reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and (italics added) subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

But, Eastman's argument goes, illegal aliens from Mexico are still foreign nationals and are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, except for purposes of deportation. Therefore, their children born on American soil should not automatically be U.S. citizens.

In a debate on the 14th Amendment during the Reconstruction, Sen. Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan added the jurisdiction language specifically to avoid accident of birth being the sole criteria for citizenship. If citizenship was determined just by place of birth, why did it take an act of Congress in 1922 to give American Indians birthright citizenship if they already had it?

The current interpretation of birthright citizenship may in fact have been a huge and costly mistake. Anchor babies? Anchors away.

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here's a good link on this subject, make sure you read the notes about the floor debate before ratification.. it is VERY CLEAR that the amendment was not intended to give a birthright citizenship to babies born to Illegal Aliens.. Read it for yourself and then try and figure outwhy our government can't read it for themselves and come to the same conclusion I am sure you will after reading this. http://www.vdare.com/sutherland/weigh...

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That is right, that amendment has been misinterpreted. There was a time when that was not extremely significant, but that changed several decades ago. Native Americans who belonged to sovreign tribes did not gain citizenship until 1922.

I believe that was because sovreign tribes are not really sovreign because they fall under federal jurisdiction and there was no other sovreign nation where they lived and could have enjoyed citizenship except for this one. There was no excuse or reason the federal government could offer to continue to deny Native Americans citizenship. But we have no duty to provide every Mexican citizen child dual citizenship if only the mother can make it onto American soil to give birth. 

Mexican citizens do not fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government except when they are present on our soil. That means that their status is conditioned only by their very presence here. That alone should disqualify their children from automatic citizenship by birthright here because the parents do not by definition as citizens of another country fall under the jursidiction of the United States. If the parents are not required to file federal income tax returns on their incomes wherever earned in the world, they do not qualify.

The language in the 14 Amendment seems clear to me. It has been legislating federal judges that have dictated from the bench that continue to stifle its original intent. But that is just another example of the federal government taking powers from us that constitutionally belong to We the People.

They have most Americans convinced that our federal government is We the People, but our founding fathers understood better and originally provided us with better. That is why most  power to regulate how one lives was originally reserved by the people and by the truly sovreign states. State sovreignty was lost long ago.  And so apparently was our natural birthright as Americans to maintain this nation as American.

The anchor babies of illegal aliens are not citizens of the United States... Someone needs to interpret the US Constitution the way it was intended!  This is just a smoke screen!  Read the 14th amendment to the Constitution and understand that these babies born in the U.S. from illegal aliens are not citizens of this country!  We don't need a new amendment we need to understand what our forefathers put down in black and white! 

 

During the reconstruction period following the civil war the view on citizenship was that only children born to American parents owing allegiance to no other foreign power could be declared an American Citizen  upon the birth on U.S. soil.  This is exactly the language of the civil right bill of 1866: "All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." 

 

 The author of the Fourteenth Amendment, Rep. Joh A. Bingham (OH), responded to the declaration as follows:  "I find not fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen."

 

The opinion of US Attorney General Edward Bates in 1862, citing Judge Paschal's exhaustive work on the Constitution, said:  The Constitution does not make the citizen, it is in fact made by them.  "In other words, only a U.S. Citizen can make a US Citizen upon birth of their child.  It was Paschal's great work which was the basis of Bingham's birthright statement....

If the only persons whose children were not to become citizens by birthright were diplimatic officials and heads of state of other countries, the amendment would have stated just that.

It was far broader and was absolutely clear in its original intent to protect the people legally born on this soil who were under the jurisdiction of the United States because of citizenship of thir parents here or where no other country had jurisdictional rights over the parents and where the United States had no jurisdictional rights except in the Unted States,

It was not passed to grant citizenship to the child of just any yahoos who wanted an illegal  jump start for their child and themselves. We are disrespecting the citizenship rights of other nations as well as our own when we do this. If we can get that into the common beliefs of many Americans, we will win this. We are also disrespecting the framers of the 14th Amendment.

Does anyone know the status of HR 1940?  Do "We the People" need to get involved?

Zman61......thank you very much for your link.  I had read this Amendment a number of times and could not understand how an illegal was under US jusrisdiction and how the baby could be an automatic citizen.  Just didn't add up.  Elvira's child must be a Mexican citizen? Yes?  Mexican mother...child is Mexican.

Not sure how Mexican laws address children of mexican citizens born out of country.

They are condidered Mexican Nationals aand even their children would be protected under Mexican law and by Mexican law. Remember they have ties by blood lines, remember La Raz.

Thanks John..that is good to know. It used to be that US citizens that had children born out of county...their children were still US citizens. Not sure if the rule still applies and didn't know if other countries had the same rules.

So, Elivira's child is a Mexican....and US citizenship is surely in question.   The ACLU needs to change its name .. It has forgotten the American part of the name.

That rule still applies as not to have it would deny any citizenship to the children of Americans born in most of the countries of the world.

I have always said a child born in AMERICA to a woman who was not a citizen was not a citizen either.The 14 amendment made that very clear. This is like many other things.If a lie is told to enough people long enough they all believe it. We need to get the truth out to every AMERICAN and maybe they will believe IT. I  have always been taught "THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE." The Mexicans and the ACLU are trying to tell us as AMERICANS we have no rights to protect"OUR COUNTRY"from invasion by a foregin nation .  Another lie some of us believe. I personaly do not know how to get the truth out there.

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PLEASE remember every time the CONSTUTION is amended it takes away more rights from the average citizen,to grant rights to a select few.What we truly need in AMERICA is a government for the people not for the mobey.Do not amend the comstution ,enforce it. 

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If we want our country back, we have to take our country back. I believe that Americans want their country back. I have started a thread with the above bold heading. It is time for decisive political action to get the American People working to take back the country and get the right  candidate elected president.