At least you concede it will take a constitutional amendment; too many Teapers are convinced they can just pass a local ordinace and kick out the children of immigrants.
And I kinda-accept.
Not an unreasonable position.
As RNATB said, it’s not an unreasonable position. However, let’s take Siege as a possible parallel. Now, in her actual case, she was born in the U.K., came to America at a very young age with her parents (legal aliens working here), and was naturalized. But the point was that she was raised here, she has only furtive early-childhood memories of living in England (plus visits to family). Suppose she had had a younger sibling born in Pittsburgh to legal non-citizen residents of America. Would you exclude that child from citizenship? Would you require naturalization? I’m not condemning your position, just looking to fine-tune it.
And what if the parents of an “anchor baby” are more than willing to become tax-paying assimilated members of the body politic, paying taxes for the privilege of their green cards and the chance to earn a decent living here? Because I suspect that, all rhetoric to one side, that’s what a lot of “illegal aliens” actually want to do. As between “let my family die of exposure and starvation if they’re not shot up by drug-dealing gang lords first” and “pay a bribe to someone to get them and myself to safety where I can work to support them,” I know which I’d choose, and I suspect you’d choose the same if you were in their shoes. Ideally those wouldn’t be the only two choices – but for the nonce they are. Think that one through, don’t just give a knee-jerk partisan response, and tell me what really needs fixing, and why.
That makes sense.
Are they legally compelled to to issue such a record of birth if requested by the record owner? If so is there a requirement for reasonable price? If not what’s to stop them from just not issuing a record at all, or issuing a record but only if the processing fee of 11 billion dollars (dr. evil laugh) is paid?
Without wanting to actually do the research, I’m fairly certain there is a significant body of law dealing with “reasonable” charges government agencies can levy for services. In any event, it’s going to be awfully hard to deport somebody if nobody can prove where they were born. You can’t deport a stateless person.
That’s why they invented writs of mandamus.
Yep, the first line on a Notice to Appear in immigration proceedings (the charging document in a deportation case) is generally something along the lines of “You were not born in the United States.” If the person in proceedings does not acknowledge that he/she was not born in the U.S., it’s the government’s (Federal, that is) burden to prove that he/she is deportable.
I can just see the clusterfuck now if DHS attorneys are forced to deal with this crap.
Eva Luna, former court interpreter, Office of the Immigration Judge
(Plus, then there is the real issue of how many people would be left stateless by a law like this. I believe Mexico has provisions for transmiting Mexican citizenship to children born to Mexican parents outside Mexico, but not every country does. As a practical matter, you can’t deport someone if no country will accept them.)
If the state law forbids local authorities from supplying a birth certificate, can mandamus compel them to violate the law?
I would say that being a legal permanent resident should also qualify, if only for personal reasons. My parents immigrated permanently, and legally, to the US in 1958; I was born in 1962. So they were not citizens yet because they hadn’t been in this country long enough. They became US citizens as soon as they could. There’s no way I would consider myself not entitled to be a US citizen from birth.
That court case would be a three-ring circus. Ask one of the lawyers around here - this must have come up before in other situations.
This law was made to be used-not abused!!! These illegals come across the border at the time or near the time they r going to give birth for the sole purpose of making their baby a U.S. citizen! Who do you think pays for these births and welfare for these anchor babies? mexican tax payers? WTF wake up!!! Y do u think your co-pays for insurance and doctors have gone up? To pay for these fks who take no responsibility for their actions!!! Or expect U.S.tax paying, hard working CITIZENS to pay for them!!! Then they want to speak THEIR language, and fly THEIR flag, work off the books and send OUR money back across the border… When the money stops being spent here and they stop building here, then maybe it will affect you bleeding liberals too… The laws need to be changed and u bleeding heart liberals make me sick…Its not just Arizona, its an epidemic ALL across the country!!!:smack::smack::smack:
I found the pony!
If you feel the constitution should be amended, I am sure a person such as yourself who knows how to work hard could get it done.
But no legislation short of a constitutional amemdment can make the changes you are demanding.
Why do you hate the Constitution?
You have more problems than just your punctuation, moron.
Next time, edit for exclamation marks. And maybe edit for logic too. And for broad brush characterization of “you bleeding liberals”
Oh, and please turn your radio down caller. Limbaugh does not like to hear the echo.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards. I think you’re going to like it here.
Sure, if a state law violates the Constitution a federal court can issue the writ.
Dude, “OUR money” doesn’t just vanish into some financial black hole when immigrants send it to their relatives in the Old Country “across the border”. It raises the standard of living in the destination country, enabling the recipients to buy more stuff, including stuff exported by the US.
In any case, I’m tired of you fucking hypocrites demanding cheap produce at the grocery store and then whining about the illegal immigrants. Look, asshole, if you don’t want illegal immigrants to be employed in this country, then QUIT SUPPORTING THE BUSINESSES THAT EMPLOY THEM.
Most of these anti-immigrant jerks are just a pack of hypocrites and freeloaders, enjoying the benefits of the system that relies on cheap illegal labor to produce low-priced goods, and then demanding that somebody else be punished for the illegality of it.
I’d like to see Arizona pass a law imposing fines and/or jail time not only on undocumented workers and their employers, but also on consumers who purchase goods made with cheap illegal labor. Then we’d see how the anti-immigrant assholes react to actually having to confront the consequences of their so-called principles.
This ought to be the final nail in the coffin of the inane “what part of ILLEGAL don’t you understand” argument. Birthright citizenship has been part of the highest law of the land for 150 years, and to try to change that law means that one’s motives have nothing to do with simply wanting to enforce current laws, as should have been obvious all along.
Combined with the apparent biological need of the anti-immigrant movement to coin new racial slurs for Mexicans such as “anchor babies,” this is the eight hundredth piece of airtight proof that opposition to illegal immigration, opposition to immigration, and racism against Mexicans are 100% equivalent. People who oppose immigration ought to be banned from any message board that claims to have a “no racism” posting rule and similarly excluded from civil society.
I’m not prepared to listen to a language purity rant from someone who can’t spell “why” or “you.”