This is where the debate on Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment between Edward Erler and Garrett Epps continues. All registered members of PublicSquare.net are invited to join in.
Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment
(3 posts) (3 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
-
I agree with Erler that a child born on U.S. soil of a parent who has NO allegiance to the U.S. should NOT be given automatic "natural born" citizenship.
After reading the debates in the Senate, it is obvious that they intended that only children of parents that owed allegiance to and where under the total jurisdiction of the U.S. should be given U.S. citizenship. Legal immigrants that are going through naturalization would qualify under that understanding. Illegal immigrants and foreign subjects would not!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.trolp.org/main_pgs/issues/v14n1/Graglia.pdfWhatever the merits of Wong Kim Ark as to the children of legal resident aliens and however broad some of its language, it does not authoritatively settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal resident aliens. In fact, the Court’s adoption of the English common law rule for citizenship could be said to argue against birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens. Even that rule, the Court noted, denied birthright citizenship to “children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation” of a country. The Court recognized that even a rule based on soil and physical presence could not rationally be applied to grant birthright citizenship to persons whose presence in a country was not only without the government’s consent but in violation of its law.
Posted 1 year ago # -
No legal prejudice is stronger than formalism, look at the text and then interpret language. That is not a sensible way to run a legal system, without first given further consideration to other policy aspects that sorround the rule. How about transaction and compliance costs for example? It is ver costly to enforce immigration law, and adding a regulatory scheme that makes distinctions such as immigrants/rightly naturalized citized is going to run into muddles and problems, since there is no simple critera to distinguish both and even if such criteria could be arranged the data available to make those determinations, enforce them, and process them through a court system costs society a lot of money. A simple rule cuts transaction costs, by making litigation less likely and lawyers less needed, and conpliance costs, through the simplication of the immigration process (if born in America then American). The US spends over 800 billion in tax-payer money to restrict immigration, and this doesn't take into account money lost through the uncertainty created in the immigrant labor maket by the United State's draconion laws. THe U.S population is also aging, and the only way retiree's will be able to cash social security checks in the future is because of the inflow of immigrant workers. Most of the evidence shows that immigrations benefits economies in the short and long-run
Posted 7 months ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.