Honduran migrant gives birth on Mexico-US border bridge

My objection is not necessarily about the direct substance of your specific proposal. My problem is once you open that can of worms, it can't be undone. Assuming we scrapped the citizenship clause, you are assuming that we could just stop granting citizenship to children of illegal immigrants but it never stops there. Case in point, look at the debate around immigration over the Trump administration. Their argument started off as the boilerplate Republican talking points about preventing illegal immigrants while creating new pathways for legal immigration. Then over time it morphed into legislation that would have substantially restricted legal immigration (rolling back the lottery quotas, significant weakening the H1-B program etc..). If you similarly opened up the citizenship debate, the lines would shift really quickly. Republicans would move to advocate for Swiss style citizenship laws (where its virtually impossible for a foreign worker to get citizenship and by proxy children there never get citizenship). I have colleagues that have worked in Geneva for 20 years that will never get Swiss citizenship and neither will their children. You're kidding yourself if you think the citizenship debate starts and ends with illegal immigrants.

Now I will be the first to admit that America's immigration system is incredibly dated and poorly designed. We haven't really modified our system since the 60s and it shows. But in my opinion, birthright citizenship can never be part of the bargain because this country has proven over and over again that it is not capable of a reasonable policy on that particular issue.

And to be clear, I am a recipient of birthright citizenship. So in your last sentence, when you say you want to scrap it, that means that people like me also don't get citizenship. My parents were not US citizens when I was born. So your sentence proves my point. When people say scrap birthright citizenship, that actually means something really broad. In the quest to fix something you perceive as wrong, you open the door to a much more radical policy change.

 

Which is what this thing gets down to for me.

If babies born here get citizenship then the parents of said children need it too. Or if not citizenship, at least a long term residency that last until the child is 18. So if that’s the argument people want to
make I think it’s one that makes more sense to me then saying let’s have a system that incentivized legal babies to potentially non legal parents, or parents who’s legality will run out before the child is an adult. That is inherently dysfunctional and inhumane.

Personally, being ideal, I’d be for open borders, not in the future when all the other countries improve either. I’m no deserving of a quality life then a child born in Honduras, Congo or Indonesia. I’d say the humane and ethical thing to do would be to distribute wealth across the world, therefore dramatically lowering quality of life on highly developed countries, but also dramatically increasing quality of life in low developed countries.

but I don’t think that’s what many people are ready to face, and if that’s the case, and we’re going to do this whole country thing where we have bubbles of prosperity and bubbles of poverty, there has to be immigration laws.

 

You are tying this into political leverage for the current political games being played in the country, and I totally understand that, I was just talking in ideals.

While everything must be taken into the context of our political climate, I also think it’s important to remember our own ideals, and what end goals should really be. If one gets stuck into the political ****ery we play in this country too long, you can get a ton of weirdness and dysfunction, for example, how we have a large portion of the dem base who aren’t in favor of a humane universal healthcare system that wouldn’t leave tens of millions uninsured.

Sometimes the ideals need to put forward first, then you work through the misery of how we can get it done with the courts/senate/House etc. In this case of this topic, that would be humane, common sense immigration laws, ending birthright citizenship (unless we can make a pathway that the parents can get guaranteed residency until the child is an adult), without invoking or leaving room for imposing difficulty on immigrants.

 

I think we should restrict birthright citizenship a little. Maybe give it to people that were born to parents in the country legally either by visa or permanent residence. Have people who were born here to illegal residents a path to legal residence and citizenship with no guarantees. However, I too do not like automatic citizenship just because you came out of the womb with particular GPS coordinates.

 

So it would be better if your friends got deported as well?

Birthright citizenship is not just for illegals.

I don't understand the question of it being humane or good.

 

You keep saying that you want to end birthright citizenship. So do I (as a child of immigrants) no longer deserve citizenship at birth?

 

Do you think my citizenship should be revoked?

 

I say we go the Isreali route and require a year of military service for citizenship. Maybe that will stop the country for being War hawks.

 

No, I'd rather children not be put in the position of being a child in a country that their parents aren't legal in. The way our citizenship by birth in set up, there is a major incentivization for this be done. This creates numerous problems, the biggest on being, their parents can be deported at any minute leaving them for foster care if not homeless if the parent doesn't disclose they have a kid and the kid never reports their situation, on top of a whole host of other problems.

Of course, it's not for illegals, we'd need to change how citizenship works, which would require to have a parent who is a citizen to become a citizen at birth.

I'm not saying we should retroactively take away citizenships of course, but I would support it being ended for births that take place after whatever date would be set OR making it mandatory that the parents be given a residency that lasts until their children are 18.

 

No, come on guys.

 

I had birthright citizenship though.

 

I've laid out pretty clearly why I feel the way I do about how birthright citizenship works. I guess I can understand why one would take it personal, but if you read what I'm saying, I hope you'd see it not with malice. It's not because I'm dachuda and I think immagrants are taking r jerbs and making the country a **** hole.

It's because it's super ****ed up to have a parent/parents who live in shadows and can be deported at any minute, we incentivize that, I don't want us to incentivize that. Either give the parents long term residency or citizenship, or end birth right citizenship.

 

This has been going on since the late 80's , after Reagan granted the last bunch amnesty.

They aren't called anchor babies for nothing .... Children and their parents are generally not separated.

Once an illegal immigrant , even those without anchor children gets into the interior of the country , they are seldom deported - unless they are criminals. The multiple millions (estimates ranging from 12-30million) we have living in this country is pretty solid proof of that. They move around with impunity just like a citizen.

Now those apprehended at the border .... that's a different story when they are taken into custody , you can't house children with adults in that setting and we really don't have the resources to deal with the number of family units showing up on a daily basis at our borders other than how its currently done.

Honestly this is a problem that no one wants to fix. You fix it and you take away those economic advantages that the illegal presents and both sides are taking full advantage.

 

except nobody did

 

Birthright citizenship came with emancipation so ex slaves would not be shipped to Africa

 

LatinX?

 

The kid and her mother were human beings. Get over it if you are more or less moral.

 

yes and I'm pretty sure tourists with the financial means do the same thing, they are still not legal immigrants. diffenrence is they are either rich or come from a rich or allied country.

 

Ideals are a good north star and even emotional appeals can move people out of their inaction. That isn't a pass for not perfoming due diligence on the issue though.

It's merely a start on your journey of why this isn't the way you think it should be, who benefits, who doesn't, is your friend an exceptional case, or is he the exception....

You mentioned birthright citizenship incentivizes immigration. Isn't it more like any country with greater opportunities and stability incentivizes illegal immigration? Yes, it increases the odds for illegals but those odds are already shitty, so illegals are likely the all or nothing types.

Again your friend's deeply personal situation sucks, but you have sizable amount of Americans approving of torn families and cruel detentions out of spite for "not being respected or paid attention to". You keep using terms like "common sense" but that obscures factions and parties that deeply oppose your own worldview and is not "common sense" to them. Ignoring their viewpoints reinforces their stubbornness and could even be considered arrogant.

Maybe that's why some members bring up the Constitution as it's harder to change the law on a partisan whim every four or eight years. It's easier to argue from there and its historical context than relative abstractions people don't universally agree upon.