Opponents of illegal immigration have recently launched efforts to gain support for amending or canceling the 14th Amendment. Others have said that the Amendment does not apply to children born to parents that are here illegally. As an opponent of the ongoing federal government effort to ignore illegal immigration, I am opposed to efforts to alter the Constitution, and I find these interpretations of the 14th Amendment too close to the view that our Constitution is a “flexible” document.
Amending our Constitution will be a major undertaking that will sap our national energy and further drive a political wedge between us. The only people that will profit will be the cable and radio demagogues of the extreme right and left – and of course the politicians that are using the issue to game the public. The rest of We the People will suffer.
Far better to fix immigration instead of allowing it to be a political weapon – this goes for both parties. I, and many of my fellow We the People, are sick of both sides using immigration to try to buy Hispanic votes. Dear members of Congress and Mr. President: Fix the problem or We the People will throw you out of office.
“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.”
In addition, I know that the 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to guarantee citizenship for former slaves, (according to Constitutional Law, Principles and Policies, 3rd Edition). I also know that former slaves are very different from the current illegal immigrants and it would normally be a stretch to apply laws created to benefit the former to the latter. However, the wording of the Amendment itself is not at all vague. “All persons….are citizens.” Not much wiggle room there.
Our nation has more important issues to wrestle over. We need the children of immigrants here; that is a simple, demographic fact. We also need our laws followed because it is ultimately those laws that keep us, as individuals, free. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Republican leaders, get together and fix immigration and enforce the laws on illegal immigration. This is a real issue and We the People are tired of politicians using it to advance their own political fortunes.
Update: There is no need nor excuse for offering illegal immigrants amnesty.
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Thanks for the post. It’s a topic I thought a bit about.
The stimulus of the creation of the 14th was to protect the children of non-citizen blacks from unfair state laws that were essentially trying to keep them in a slave-like status. However, the 14th its self was written to be as timeless as possible and to prevent history from repeating.
I found four central motivations on why people want to take away birthright citizenship from illegal immigrants:
1) Prevent ‘anchor babies’. ‘Anchor babies’ are mostly a myth. The child and parents can be deported, and the child can only apply for his/her parents’ citizenship when he/she turns 21. Even then, there are requirements (like basic wealth) that need to be satisfied. The ‘family reunification’ process, as they call it, is quite extensive. And, the child of one/two Mexicans born, regardless of where, is granted Mexican citizenship so there is no real ‘anchor’ or requirement that the child stay in the US from illegal Mexican immigrants.
2) Prevent ‘dumped babies’. Even the harshest “jus soli” countries have a clause saying if the child’s true state of citizenship can’t be determined, then it is a citizen of this country that the child was born on, by default. Makes a lot of sense. If you have a couple of undocumented country folks coming out of the hills and give immediate birth to a child, would you deny it citizenship? Of course not.
3) Illegals are taking away jobs from honest citizens. This has a bit amount of truth to it, but by and large they are doing work most Americans wouldn’t want to do for the amount of money being paid. In any case, punish the businesses that are hiring them! Go after them and stop the source of the demand.
4) Last I would have to say that there is a racist point of view. The elephant in the room are the Mexicans. There are plenty of people who simply don’t respect them and feel they are taking advantage of the US, bringing drugs and crime into the country, etc. They would like to bring back state controlled power to deny citizenship based on any criteria (that the 14th denies explicitly) as a leverage. Much like the Arizona law that tried to make law enforcement check citizenship proof based on looks, this should absolutely prevented as it encourages racism.
From the Republicans’ point of view, it’s a safe bet to beat the drum. It’s a knee-jerk reaction of support from voters. They know it has almost a zero chance of passing a new amendment, and when it fails they can blame the Dems. I doubt it would get to that point, though, because that would force some public education on the issue through the news and pundits. (God help us from Fox educating the public, though.)
But, suppose we change the 14th, fine. At least one of your parents has to be a permanent legal resident. (BTW- Don’t make it retroactive!) Would you expect a mass exodus of illegals? Or even a significant decrease in influx? No, I very much doubt so.