By Larry Moses
No one asked me but…The recent debate about the automatic citizenship of children born to illegal aliens in America has spread. This movement has been centered in the more conservative corners of the Republican Party.
I find it encouraging that these people, who support a literal interpretation of the constitution, have not attacked this issue by denying the fact that there is a Constitution right to citizenship for anyone born in the United States.
The Fourteenth Amendment is very clear on the issue of who is a citizen of the United States. This Amendment passed in 1868, to ensure the citizenship of the thousand of slaves set free by the Civil War, bestowed citizenship on any one born in the United States.
Section 1 reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
It cannot be much clearer than that. Those who oppose this automatic citizenship are proposing a change to the Constitution.
This is the proper way to attack a Constitutional issue. The founding fathers, realizing times would change, included a process to change the Constitution with the times. In fact, the provision for citizenship is in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the change in definition of citizenship, it is refreshing to see a proposal for a change in the Constitution rather than an attempt to undermine the document. The liberal left has for years attacked the Constitution through a “legislative court,” in direct violation to the constitution.
The left-wing liberal attack on the Second Amendment is the greatest example of this. Rather than attempting to change the Constitution by amendment, they take control of state and local governments and pass un-Constitutional laws in hopes that the courts will uphold them.
Every restrictive gun law is in violation to the Constitution. You may not like that statement, but it is true. Under the Constitution, the only permit one needs to carry a concealed weapon is the Second Amendment.
There is nothing in the Constitution that should require a citizen to have a permit to assemble peacefully. However, in the 1960’s, hoping to curb anti-war demonstrations federal, state, and local governments passed laws that violated the Constitutional rights of the American people to assemble peacefully. If the people deem it necessary to restrict the right to peacefully assembly, it should be done so by Constitutional Amendment, not by liberal courts.
Those who wish to stop the practice of “drop and leave,” as Senator Graham describes the practice of coming to America to have a child so it will be a citizen, are proposing an amendment to the Constitution. That is the only proper and legal way to attack this problem, if one sees it as a problem.
Interestingly enough in 1993, our very own Senator Harry Reid saw it as problem. He stated, “If making it easy to be an illegal alien is not enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee full access to all public and social services this society provides. And that is a lot of services…”
In 2006, Harry had a change of heart. In a speech on the Senate floor, he apologized for this statement. He said, “A group of people came and talked to us and convinced us that the thing to do would be to close the borders between Mexico and the United States; in effect, stop people from coming across our borders to the United States. This period of time for which I am so apologetic- to my family mostly – lasted about a week or two…This is the low point of my career.”
The time between 1993 and 2006 is more like 1,248 weeks, Harry. You can now decide which Harry you like best on the immigration issue; Harry 1993, or Harry after he was Pelosized in 2006.
I am not sure Pelosized is a word, I just made it up, but I like it.
I suppose one could argue that an act should not be deemed legal if it is based on an illegal action. The legal assets of drug dealers are seized along with the illegal assets. If you have a large bank account accumulated from a legal business that was established with ill-gotten gains the government could confiscate that bank account along with your illegal funds. One might argue that if the act of a pregnant woman entering the country was illegal, the birth of the child is illegal and the child should not be given citizenship.
While that is an interesting argument, the liberal courts would never uphold it. The Constitution does not distinguish the legality of the child being born.
Another argument might be that since the child had been conceived outside the country, the child as well as its mother, is an illegal immigrant. This gets to the issue of when is the child a child, at conception, at the third trimester, or when born?
This might be an interesting debate since America cannot decide when a fetus is a viable human being. America says the fetus is not a child and can be aborted at the whim of the mother.
However, if that same fetus is killed on the way to the abortion by a drunk driver, that driver can be charged with vehicular homicide. If the fetus is a person in the second case, could an argument not be made that the fetus was actually a child and entered the country illegally the same as if it had been born and carried into the states? Again, the liberal dominated courts would not uphold a law based on that argument. It is amazing how one can defend a literal interpretation of the constitution when it suits them (14th Amendment) and throw it aside when it does not (1st and 2nd Amendment).
For those of you who hold any hope that Senator Graham’s attempt to change the Constitutional definition of citizenship is a solution to part of the problem of illegal immigration I would say do not hold your breath. The process for a Constitutional Amendment is long and hard, as it should be.
Thought of the week…Births to illegal immigrants now account for nearly one out of every ten births in the United States.
-Nathan Deal
