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End Birthright Citizenship
Oleysa Suhareva traveled from Russia to Miami to give birth.
Last week, Michael Anton (of “The Flight 93 Election” fame) wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post titled “Citizenship Shouldn’t be a Birthright,” which has caused paroxysms of huffing outrage from all of the predictable quarters of the left. A worse messenger for a perfectly sensible message would be hard to locate, but it isn’t merely the identity of the author that has people up in arms.
Monday, even the otherwise calm and reasoned Robert Tracinski wrote quite a doozy at The Federalist. Titled “Ending birthright citizenship will make the Republican Party look like the party of Dred Scott,” Robert responds to Anton’s op-ed with several hyperbolic claims that give undue credence to the left’s continuous charge that anything a Republican ever does (including breathe) is racist:
Anton’s proposal will be overwhelmingly interpreted as a declaration to black Americans that the Republican Party—the party that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment in the first place—now does not see them as equal citizens.
Excuse me, but this argument is so poor that it must be considered the leader in the clubhouse for non sequitur of the year. Not for nothing, when did Democrats start countenancing Republican policy proposals as anything other than racism? Welfare reform? That’s racist. Voter ID? Also racist. Border enforcement? Totally racist. Prisons and law enforcement? Super-duper racist. Even tax reform was pilloried as racist because it would disproportionately benefit whites according to its critics.
It’s true that the Democrats’ penchant for shouting “racist!” isn’t enough to dispel the possibility that this policy proposal didn’t stem from some wellspring of latent pro-white sentiment, however. So, what precisely is anti-black about the prospect of denying foreigners the right to have their children receive citizenship just for being born on our dirt? Nothing that I can see.
It’s an argument that doesn’t doesn’t even make sense, and no answer as to why is in the offing. Clearly, all African Americans who are currently citizens (and their children, by extension) are citizens. Anton’s proposal wouldn’t affect that one whit.
So, what exactly is the contemplated change? To understand this, you have to understand the history of Birthright Citizenship, which goes back (as most people will recall from history class) to the 14th Amendment. It states:
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The reasoning behind this is pretty straightforward. The 14th Amendment was necessary to annul the horrific Dred Scott decision, and was worded as it was to nullify the idea that black slaves and their children couldn’t even be citizens of the United States by dint of some spurious claims of “inferiority.” This, of course, was back when people had the will to do the hard work required to amend the Constitution if legislation or Court decisions went against them, rather than trying to enforce their will through judicial fiat — but that’s another story.
The trouble here arises from the term “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which under modern understanding includes people whose parents were neither born here or naturalized; i.e., people who are not citizens or legal residents of this nation. This understanding, however, is merely an extension of the Wong Kim Ark case in which the Court held that the children of legal immigrants were granted citizenship. Congress could clarify that definition with a simple statutory modification.
But this is all dancing around the central issue: Why should we do away with birthright citizenship? First and foremost because there’s no reason for us to give something away to foreigners for nothing which is so intrinsically valuable. Citizenship is literally for sale in many nations of the world for a variety of prices. American citizenship (it should come as no shock) is worth a boatload to its possessor. A person with birthright citizenship can essentially never be deported, and thanks to the various and sundry welfare laws in our country, the nation is statutorily obligated to care for him in the event of his incapacity. This is a massive windfall for merely having had the good fortune to have been birthed within the confines of our nation.
The current policy also leads to absurdities, such as Birth Tourism, whereby foreigners (like from the left’s favorite country, Russia!) travel to the United States for the sole purpose of having their baby so that it will gain US citizenship … and thereby have a bolthole in the event things go sideways in their home country. To wit:
Why do they come? “American passport is a big plus for the baby. Why not?” Olesia Reshetova, 31, told NBC News.
Indeed. Why are we so stupid as to give something away which is obviously worth so much?
Reciprocity is another reason why this policy needs to be modified. If you’re a pregnant Spanish tourist and deliver your child here in the US, citizenship is automatic. If you’re an American in Spain? Buena suerte, chica. There’s simply no reason for us to have such an expansive policy when other nations don’t.
I can hear some people saying, “but American citizenship is a windfall that you were an unjust recipient of!” That is completely accurate. But I would point such people to other things such as “inheritance” or “having caring, intelligent parents” that are similarly “unjust” but about which conservatives are rightly nonplussed by comparison. Citizenship is a thing that we will to our children merely by having them.
What was the Founders’ opinion about this windfall? Well, we could also look at the Preamble of the Constitution for some guidance:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [emphasis mine]
To whom were the blessings of liberty to be secured by the formation of this nation? Ourselves and our posterity … our children. Explicitly not the children of foreigners who sneaked into the nation. Worth noting is that the notions of “Justice” and “Domestic Tranquility” surely must include fair and even enforcement of the law and an expectation of peace which comes from knowing that the people who surround you are also citizens or legal immigrants to the nation.
How many other nations in the world have birthright citizenship? Many, mostly in the Western Hemisphere, but not all. Is there precedent for revoking birthright citizenship? Yes. In 1986, Australia imposed restrictions upon birthright citizenship, holding that at least one parent of a child must have legal, permanent residency in Australia in order to gain citizenship there. It’s possible the deliberations of the Australian Parliament in Canberra centered solely upon the need to deprive non-whites of Australian citizenship, but somehow I doubt it. India (curiously, another Anglosphere nation) abolished it utterly in 2004. Worth noting: neither of these countries were subducted by vengeful flames into the Earth’s molten core for daring to remove birthright citizenship either.
Given my druthers, citizenship and residency would work on a sliding scale, whereby people gain full citizenship in our nation via a demonstration of merit. That isn’t the world we live in, and I am utterly resigned to that fact. But I’m also not the sort of person who will allow a presumed image of perfection to be the enemy of the good. Therefore, down with birthright citizenship. It is both a travesty and a con played upon our children and the future of our nation.
Published in Immigration
This isn’t what is being discussed. What is being discussed is having children born here and raised in a foreign country (like China, Russia, Argentina) to be granted automatic citizenship by virtue of birth.
I have noted somewhere in these pages that while my youngest was in the NICU, the NICU nurses said that most of the premature babies that went through that particular NICU were born to Argentinians on vacation to Disney. So they planned a tourist vacation on a tourist Visa early enough to get a flight and while here, induced labor, resulting in months of nicu care. But hey, they got their citizenship foot in the door!
You apparently haven’t read the whole thread.
Depending how this law would be crafted, it would have excluded my wife from returning to the United States to begin college.
On the upside, the parents’ wealth is evidence that they’re not unintelligent, and intelligent Russian and Chinese kids are often encouraged to become proficient in STEM, fulfilling some of your ideals for the kind of immigrants we should be taking, anyhow.
As for the worry that ending birthright citizenship could create a permanent noncitizen caste living in this country, if children born here to illegals are noncitizens, but somehow manage to stay long enough that they have children of their own in America, would permitting these grandchildren citizenship be so bad? It is much harder to think two generations ahead than to think of your own children, and so simply denying the children but not the grandchildren citizenship would still be a deterrent.
I was not referring to any policy as cruel, only to Hypatia’s inexplicable animus toward the children in the way she talked about them. She called them “spawn” and “the spawn of invaders” in three separate comments, and when I asked her why she said they “deserve derogation”.
We inherited most of our laws, customs and traditions from England. Is England an Ethnostate?
Not for nothing, mass immigration has worked out very well for people living in places like London… or Rotherham. Especially if you have young girls.
The point Jamie is that pretending that there aren’t costs to these things which are measurable is nonsense. I’m not playing into the hands of the identitarian left by asserting that being American (which is creedal, not racial) actually means something, and that giving citizenship in our nation away to those who would cynically abuse it is pollyannish.
Libertarians are frequently the first to complain if things like “Drug laws” are premised on the interests of children.
Why the sudden concern for children? For what it’s worth, I’m agnostic about the children. They are their parents’ responsibility, not mine or our country’s.
Can you show that birthright citizenship (specifically for the class of people from whom you are proposing removing it) is a major contributor to this undesirable type of mass immigration?
Many things are being discussed in this thread.
Do Student Visas not exist? I’m certain that she’s among the best and brightest, and a points-based, merit system of immigration would favor her.
I’m not seeing why this complaint matters.
How big is the problem of birth tourism and what harms is it causing? How much would these problems be reduced if we repealed birthright citizenship for some class of aliens?
I have no comment as to that, but my point stands regardless. The cry “what about the children?” is frequently the last bastion of people who have no better argument to make based upon higher principles, which is why the left resort to it frequently.
Student visas exist. Often they are not able to stay in the US after graduation. She would also have been a non-citizen and there would be direct impacts to my career due to our marriage.
I’m just trying to keep the discussion grounded in the personal so it doesn’t get too abstract.
Don’t worry, I won’t be making that argument.
Then let them buy citizenship rather than steal it.
We also have processes of naturalization which people in this thread have followed successfully. I don’t see why that is even remotely controversial.
Worth noting is that the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty of 1986 created an entire second wave of illegal immigration on the come; they knew that we were weak-kneed at that point and only needed to wait us out and that we would get around to granting their children (and possibly them) citizenship or legal status.
For that reason alone I’m disinclined towards granting it to the so-called “Dreamers” because of the inevitable knock-on effects. I would be willing to grant them residency, but not citizenship.
I have heard many libertarians over the years, most of them interested in economics, propose methods for controlling immigration by ways other than controlling the number. For example, bidding for citizenship, or not having immigration quotas, but requiring every immigrant to have a sponsor to stand surety for the immigrant, for immigrants to be deported rather than eligible for social services if they cannot (with the help of their sponsors, perhaps) take care of themselves.
Honestly, there seems to be a fair amount of diversity in opinion among libertarians on immigration.
Let me turn this around and grant it for the sake of argument. If the problem is small, then changing the policy would cause a similarly small amount of harm (and possibly a small offsetting amount of good.) So, the objection then becomes?
I don’t agree with the calculus. The status quo could cause a very small amount of harm but have a big upside. In that case a conservative should say let’s not mess with Chesterton’s fence.
FWIW, I don’t think fraudulent votes have changed the outcome of any major elections, but I still support voter ID laws on principle.
Somewhere above, someone posted birth tourism numbers. It is currently relatively small relative to the numbers of American citizens, but I still think it is wrong.
As I said above, my oldest son was born in Prague, I don’t think the Czech government owes my son citizenship. I’m asking for rules that I think are fair across the board and I would want to live under no matter what country I lived in.
I would prefer if you divorced it from your personal interests, to be honest and made the conversation more abstract.
You are aware that marriage is one of the means by which foreigners can gain citizenship as well, yes? So, again, I’m not sure what the complaint is even with regard to your personal situation. But your personal situation doesn’t matter to me as much as the larger, society-wide downstream impacts that mass-immigration and granting birthright citizenship have.
The kid will not do any melting either. He will be fully Russian or Chinese until it is convenient for him to take advantage of the technicality his mother exploited.
Unless I’m mistaken, that’s what @majestyk proposed. That is, to qualify for birthright citizenship, your parents should have some greater connection to the United States than their mere presence here at the time of your birth.
I agree with you, @valiuth, and @jamielockett that the enthusiasm for the idea may be equal to the actual problem, and that there may be real harms caused by the change. (The fact that all three of you have more direct experience than I with immigration is noteworthy, too).
I’m just unconvinced that it’s an inherently bad idea.
In that case, though, they would become legal residents, making their children eligible for citizenship, answering my question, and not creating a permanent bloodline of noncitizens.
I agree entirely with @asquared: there’s a larger point of principle here that needs to be enforced.
What we have with birthright citizenship essentially amounts to a magnet – a magnet which incentivizes people to have their children here so that they will gain a toe-hold in our nation. Such foreigners aren’t fools. They see the paroxysms that we go through when dealing with children and the children of immigrants, and know (rationally) that we are unlikely to kick them out if it would separate them from their infant or minor children who are citizens.
Do you not think that foreigners are taking advantage of our merciful attitude towards children in precisely this fashion? If not, you haven’t been paying attention for years.
We don’t even have the willpower to deport and keep out felonious murderers who are illegal immigrants…
I’m not taking a position based on personal interest. I’m just pointing out that this affects people we know, not just faceless illegal immigrants who flout our laws.
I’m not going to get into the details but marrying a foreign national has different consequences.
Who here is pretending that there aren’t costs? Stop it with the strawmen. The question is are the benefits greater than the costs?
We were specifically talking about assimilation at that point. That is the direction my comment was aimed at.
Accurate. The horse is out of the barn, but we’ll never get it corralled unless we start shutting gates.
I don’t think anyone here has.
To what extent is this harming us?