So in addition to giving the police the power to stop and demand papers (like a birth certificate) from anyone, including US citizens, they suspect of being an illegal alien Arizona Republicans want to deny birth certificates to US citizens whose parents are illegal immigrants. This can’t possibly be constitutional. Like it or not these so called “anchor babies” are natural-born citizens of the United States of America.
It **does not matter **who their parents are or how they got here. They have the exact same rights as people who can trace their family history in an unbroken line back to the fucking Mayflower. Don’t like it? Then try to get enough state legislatures to petion Congress for another constitutional convention (& good luck with that). Making US citizens carry proof of citzenship at all times is bad enough; now you’re going to make it impossible for certain citizens to get that proof of citizenship in the first place because of something their parents did?
And how is this supposed to work when one parent’s is a legal resident/citizen and the other is illegal? Does the kid get a birth certificate or not? Does the illegal parent not get listed? Oh, and speaking of birth certificates I betcha there are alot of elderly white people in Arizona who never had birth certificates to begin with. Or passports for that matter. And everyone who remembers seeing them being born is long dead.
At this point, I’d be all for a Congressional resolution stating that if a state indicates its desire to secede from the Union by a 2/3 vote of each house of their legislature, the armed forces of the United States should make no attempt to use force to keep them in the Union. Only conditions being that any movable Federal property gets moved back within the revised boundaries of the Union, with a reasonable interval provided to get it all moved, and the Federal government gets to retain such Federal buildings and surrounding Federally-owned real estate as it deems appropriate for an embassy or consulate complex.
Call their bluff. And if it’s not a bluff, let 'em go.
Those things always get hung on the reef and the paperwork was much less if there wasn’t a pesky birth certificate in the first place. You just cut the anchor line and moved on…
Since the bill hasn’t been proposed yet, much less passed, I can only comment on the reported requirements.
Of course, as we learned from SB1070, what the media reports can differ dramatically from what the actual text of the legislation might say.
Still, I can’t imagine how to implement any variant of that described proposal without running afoul of the constitution. So I’d say if that proposal does get turned into law and passed, it’s not going to live a long life.
Does anyone have a link to the actual proposed text of the law? The article OP linked to indicates that it will apply to the children of not only illegal immigrants but of any non-US citizens. I can’t believe even Arizona Republicans would be stupid enough to deny birth certificates to, say, green card holders’ kids.
Not that it really matters, of course, because it is as clearly unconstitutional a law as any I have ever seen.
“Subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” maybe. But previous Supreme Court cases have made it clear that this includes illegal aliens, so any contrary ruling would have to overrule those cases AND adopt a construction contrary to the plain text of the Constitution.
I suspect this will be one of those issues where liberals rediscover their appreciation for the plain text, and conservatives start talking about esoteric penumbras or emanations.
Not to be outdone, the Texas Republican Party takes careful aim at its foot with an automatic shotgun and does its level best to ensure that no self-respecting Hispanic ever again votes for one of their candidates.
US v Wong Kim Ark examines in great detail the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, and concludes that it applies to everyone except the children of aliens who are either diplomats or hostile occupiers. Wong’s interpretation of the clause was reaffirmed in Plyler v Doe. Neither of these cases dealt directly with the issue of “anchor babies” (Wong was the child of migrant workers and the kids in Plyler were immigrants themselves), but the important thing is that the Court held that - outside of the two exceptions mentioned above - the clause refers to physical location and not status. Therefore it must be presumed that the children of illegal immigrants are covered by it, unless and until the SC decides to carve out another exception.
Here is Russell pierce, who introduced the 1070 bill and plans to introduce his state repeal of the 14th amendment, interviewing with Bill O’Rielly. It hurt my brain to watch Bill’s introduction including talk of 'anchor babies then go on to show footage throughout of people climbing fences and still end up on his side of the argument.
I think Russell Pierce had a few too many before the interview. BTW a few pics of Mr. Peirce.
As a bonus at the end you get to here them discuss firing teachers for having an accent.
I support AZ seceding we’d be better off without them.
Just to nitpick, Arizona residents - and residents from other states whose DMVs/MVDs check immigration status - would only have to present a valid driver’s license to overcome any reasonable suspicion that they were in the US illegally. You already have to establish your legal residency in the US, either by birth certificate, passport, alien permanent residency, or visa when applying for an Arizona driver’s license or ID card.
There you have it, the “hostile occupiers” loophole. Illegal aliens are occupying space, and occupyomg the time of important Americans like law inforcement officers and legislators. And many of them see damn hostile, especially when you try to round them up and deport them.
