Let's make some things clear about Anchor Babies

Warner Todd Huston has a piece over at the Rant to which I felt compelled to respond. The following is the text of an email I just sent to him.

Mr. Huston,

At the start of your column, "Automatic Citizenship: Change It Or Understand It?" you appear to a reasonable and rational sort of person. You also appear to be sensitive to originalist concepts. You revised your stand when presented with an effective counter argument. That's all good. I applaud you for your understanding at least a portion of the foundation of Conservative principles.

However, I remain somewhat distressed by your piece. I'll parse a portion of it so you understand from where I come:

But here is the catch. The reason the politicians of the late 1860s so carefully parsed the word "jurisdiction" was so that American Indians (and for some, blacks, too) could not claim instant citizenship upon the passing of the amendment. That is right. The creators of the amendment meant to exclude Indians, many of who were at war - or soon would be, with the US government. If this isn't a racist intent, what is?

That's a straw man. You're projecting your own bias into your analysis. Those who drafted the 14th Amendment were far from racist. They were being practical and pragmatic in their desire to erase the Dred Scott Decision. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were a dramatic expansion of civil rights. That just doesn't square with any sort of racist intent.

More Americans assumed that Indians were not "people" in those days than thought that Negroes lacked such a status. And, if the word jurisdiction could be construed to mean mere geography instead of allegiance then the Indians would certainly have to be considered instant citizens of the USA. And, due to the racism of most Americans of the day, this was an untenable situation. We couldn't have "savages" as citizens of our Republic, after all.

Here's more straw man. Let's expand this absurdity: If our first citizens and Founding fathers were in large part "racists," then let's invalidate everything they did because of their biases, whatever they may have been. We can start with the Bill of Rights and Proceed right through all the articles of the Constitution. Throw out the Articles of Confederation! "City on a hill? Hubristic! The Mayflower Compact? Racist! Magna Carta? Exclusionary!

Poppycock!

Now, I am not going to sit here, over 140 years later and decry our institutionalized racism of that day, as it is truly a waste of time. But, we simply must take this "original intent" into account when re-considering the 14th Amendment in this more enlightened day. If the original amendment meant to deny citizenship to the native peoples of this country and we were to accept the original intent of the framers of that amendment so that we could apply it to our current problem with illegal Mexican immigrants, then we must still deny our American Indians citizenship rights even today. Shouldn't we remain consistent?

You just did decry "our institutionalized racism" while saying you aren't. Are you prepared to decry the institutionalized reverse-racist detritus of the civil rights movement with the same vehemence? And who are you to decide that today is a "more enlightened day?" That's quite a bit of hubris on your part. Sounds awfully "Progressive" to me. You just won a bunch of friends on the left.

But, can anyone seriously intend to deny American Indians U.S. citizenship? I would be shocked and disheartened if anyone would. And, if we blithely ignore that original racist underpinning to apply original intent to Mexican immigrants today, aren't we piling one racist intent on top of another? Is that a message we should be sending to the world?

You continue with your straw man and more firmly tie it to an oblique ad-hominem attack on us "racists" who are originalist in thought. American Indians were given citizenship by Congress in 1924; our representatives used the same right granted by Article V of the 14th Amendment to do so. Couple this with an awareness of the Mexican Government's insistance that all people of Mexican descent are still - regardless of their current location, birth or citizenship - Mexicans, and give me a non-fallacious argument why we should tighten our citizenship requirements to exclude anchor babies.

Mexico makes its intent clear in many ways. Please note that Mexicans living in the United States actually run for Mexico's Congress to represent the interests of Mexicans in the United States.

From: http://tinyurl.com/8nsv9

Standing before a packed room decorated with his party's brightly colored signs, congressional candidate Jose Jacques Medina implores the crowd to give him its support in next month's election. It's just another campaign stop, except that the election is hundreds of miles away in another country - Mexico - and the yellow and black signs adorning the restaurant's walls bear the emblem of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD in Spanish.

Medina is one of six U.S. residents seeking a seat in Mexico's lower house of Congress in July's midterm election. A Los Angeles labor organizer who came to the United States 30 years ago, he is eligible to hold office in Mexico because that nation considers him a citizen. He was born in Mexico City in the regional district he hopes to represent.

Mexican voters won't directly vote for Medina and the other immigrant candidates, who are running for 200 at-large seats under a proportional representation system. Instead, their names appear on five regional lists compiled by the political parties in order of preference. The party's share of the vote determines how many candidates are selected from each list.

Medina pledged he would bring immigrants' concerns to the Mexican Congress. There are about 9.1 million Mexican-born residents of the United States, including citizens of both countries. "We don't have our own voices," Medina told the crowd, a mix of recent immigrants and longtime residents, all taking a break from their jobs in the Central Valley's fields, construction sites and service industry. "There's no representation."

Mexico has every intention of using its claims to "ownership its peoples abroad" to subvert American sovereignty. Adding some sort of heritage requirement for US citizenship is, in part, an act of self-preservation. Instead of being some sort of unconscionable act, ending birthright citizenship would simply be sending the same message that many other nations have sent:

Are babies born to non-citizens given birthright citizenship? (culled from http://www.cis.org/articles/1993/back793.html)

Algeria (No) Father must be Algerian or stateless
Australia (No) Children of legal immigrants born in Australia are citizens
Belgium (No) One parent must be a citizen of Belgium
Colombia (No) One parent must be a legal resident
Czech Republic (No) One parent must be a citizen of the Czech Republic
Egypt (No) Father must be an Egyptian citizen
France (No) Child of foreign-born parents must apply and be approved for citizenship
Germany (No) Those born in Germany acquire the citizenship status of their mother
Israel (No) If Jewish, a child is automatically a citizen - otherwise must be the child of an Israeli national to be a citizen
Italy (No) One parent must be Italian
Japan (No) One parent must be a citizen of Japan
Kenya (No) One parent must be a citizen of Kenya
Kuwait (No) Father must be a citizen of Kuwait
Nigeria (No) One parent must be a Nigerian citizen
Norway (No) One parent must be Norwegian
Philippines (No) One parent must be Filipino
Poland (No) One parent must be Polish
Republic of Korea (No) One parent must be a citizen of Korea
Saudi Arabia (No) Father must be a citizen - child is added to father's passport
Sweden (No) If mother is Swedish, the child acquires citizenship at birth - if parents are resident aliens, children acquire the citizenship of their parents
Switzerland (No) If child was born before June 1, 1985, the father must be Swiss for the child tio be a Swiss citizen - if the child is born after June 1, 1985, the child will be a Swiss citizen if either parent is Swiss
Syria (No) One parent must be a citizen of Syria
Taiwan (No) One parent must be a citizen of Taiwan
Turkey (No) One parent must be a citizen of Turkey
United Kingdom (No) One parent must be a citizen or legal resident of the UK
Zaire (No) Mother must be a citizen of Zaire

*Note: In Britain, birthright citizenship was eliminated in 1981 in response to the same sorts of issues that surround our discussion of Anchor Babies.

You have shown an appreciation for the thoughts of our Founding Fathers on these matters, so I ask you to reconcile the following section of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia with your position.

"…But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass."

This, I think, would be considered quite a "nativist" sentiment, based on your usage of the term. John Jay also weighed in along a similar vein in Federalist Paper Number 2.

Just because Congress has been remiss in not carrying out the edict in Article V of the 14th Amendment (The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article), it does not and should not preclude Congress from now enacting "enabling legislation" that would close the "Anchor Baby" loophole for good. Further, your concern about it affecting those Anchor Babies already born here is misplaced. Congress cannot pass any ex-post-facto law.

The bottom line is: If the rate of immigration surpasses the rate of assimilation or the characteristics of any immigrant group make it likely to remain strongly tied to foreign ideals as a part of a larger diaspora with interests contrary to this nation's, then it is Congress' responsibility to act to stop it. No arguments about "fairness" spiked with ad-hominems should ever stand in the way of our preserving this nation, its unique culture and fundamental ethos.

Katie's Dad


Technorati tags: anchor babies, birthright citizenship

UPDATE 1/6 - 7:30 a.m.

Over at Scrutiny's Hooligans, they're waxing idiotic about the very same issue.