President Neelix tries to void birthright citizenship through executive order

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/30/66204390 ... ntent=2058

I don't think this will actually happen, since it would mean overturning part of the 14th amendment, but the knowledge that he even wants to try is...disturbing.

Will the Republican voters please come to collect their evil clown and put him somewhere he can do no damage?

[Yukaphile]

Nothing surprises me from cheeto at this point.

[G-Man]

I wish they would not talk about "ending" and would rather talk about "restricting" birthright citizenship, as the move is almost certainly targeting only illegal aliens and perhaps people on temporary visas. I doubt anyone is considering taking away citizenship for the children of green card holders.

The idea is essentially to interpret "and subject to the jurisdiction of" to indicate that the children of people who are not legally tied to the U.S. are not covered. As I understand it, Supreme Court cases have never really addressed this, and the only aliens for whom we have a definitive ruling are those who are here "legally and permanently."

Doesn't anyone else see how crazy it is that someone can cross the border illegally and give birth, and that baby is considered American? Or someone can visit the U.S. for a few days to give birth in an American hotel? No need to establish any connection to the country whatsoever - it's an insane policy, and I can't believe that it was what was intended.

Even if you want to argue that legally he can't do it, it doesn't strike me as particularly far-fetched to want to make our policy less - ridiculous.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

No. It's not crazy at all.

If you're born in america, you're an american. It doesn't really matter what your dad and mom did, does it? Or are you going to go all "sins of the father" on us? The only alternative is to create a stateless slave-class.

[Darth Wedgius]

No. It's not crazy at all.

If you're born in america, you're an american. It doesn't really matter what your dad and mom did, does it? Or are you going to go all "sins of the father" on us? The only alternative is to create a stateless slave-class.

There are a lot of countries that don't make almost everyone born on their soil a citizen. Does the U.K. have a stateless slave-class?

[G-Man]

No. It's not crazy at all.

If you're born in america, you're an american. It doesn't really matter what your dad and mom did, does it? Or are you going to go all "sins of the father" on us? The only alternative is to create a stateless slave-class.

Great. Does that mean that if a woman trespasses onto your property to give birth, you owe child support?

Your view only makes sense if we assume that nations do not exist and countries are nothing more than districts of a world government.

[LittleRaven]

There are a lot of countries that don't make almost everyone born on their soil a citizen. Does the U.K. have a stateless slave-class?

See Fuzzy, this is why you try to keep pointless exaggeration to a minimum. If you simply had to show that countries without birthright citizenship end up developing stateless populations, well, that would be easy. They do. Even isolated ones like Britain. But now you have to show that they're a stateless slave-class, which is going to be a lot harder.

I know it's easy to get lost in the passion. But sticking to the facts is usually a better bet. Particularly when they're on your side.

[LittleRaven]

The idea is essentially to interpret "and subject to the jurisdiction of" to indicate that the children of people who are not legally tied to the U.S. are not covered. As I understand it, Supreme Court cases have never really addressed this, and the only aliens for whom we have a definitive ruling are those who are here "legally and permanently."

I dunno. The United States vs Wong Kim Ark covered it pretty well.

The case highlighted disagreements over the precise meaning of one phrase in the Citizenship Clause—namely, the provision that a person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof acquires automatic citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority concluded that this phrase referred to being required to obey U.S. law; on this basis, they interpreted the language of the Fourteenth Amendment in a way that granted U.S. citizenship to at least some children born of foreigners because they were born on American soil (a concept known as jus soli). The court's dissenters argued that being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not being subject to any foreign power—that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent)—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded "the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country".[3]

Now, I suppose you could declare illegal aliens to be no longer required to obey US law, but that seems very extreme. And failing that, you're relying on an incredibly narrow legal argument here. I mean, this is in the same category as people that argue that the Second Amendment requires you to be part of a state-regulated militia in order to own a firearm, even though the court has repeatedly shot that argument down. Frankly, it's probably even flimsier than that argument.

If you really want to change birthright citizenship, then Executive Orders and even the Supreme Court is a bad tactic. Roll up your sleeves and get crackin' on that Constitutional Amendment. Although I have to think there's a more efficient way to address whatever your real concern is.

Doesn't anyone else see how crazy it is that someone can cross the border illegally and give birth, and that baby is considered American? Or someone can visit the U.S. for a few days to give birth in an American hotel? No need to establish any connection to the country whatsoever - it's an insane policy, and I can't believe that it was what was intended.

This is not exactly a NEW policy. If we've been doing it differently than what was intended, we've been going astray for a LONG time.

And no, I don't think it's crazy. I think it's a very practical policy that has served us well for quite a long time. After all, what are the actual costs of birthright citizenship?

• We gain citizens without a great deal of control - anyone born here becomes a citizen, so we get to be slightly less choosy than other countries. However, we're also one of the few countries that taxes citizens even on money they make overseas, so generally speaking, more citizens is better for us. At any rate, the cost of this seems quite negligible.
• It encourages illegal immigration - we are basically rewarding people for having children here illegally. A slightly stronger argument, but only slightly. Because a quick glance across either ocean indicates that birthright citizenship doesn't play much of a role in the decision to immigrate, legally or otherwise. Not a single European country has it, and they're suffering a migrant wave that is taking down government after government. Japan doesn't have it, but poor Vietnamese will do everything they can to get into that country. China doesn't have it, but North Koreans will risk summary execution to get across the border. Australia doesn't have it, and Indo-Chinese just keep coming. From what I can tell, if people think they can get a better life for themselves or their children by crossing a border...they'll probably do it, birthright citizenship or no.

Ok, so those are the big costs that I see. (did I miss any?)

What about benefits? Well, there's really only one, but it's a doozy.

Everyone joins the club eventually. Sure, the folks that got into the country illegally from Honduras may never really integrate. They don't speak the language, don't have the papers to properly participate in the economy, and don't ever really understand or practice the culture. But their children are citizens. They can go anywhere, work anywhere, attend school anywhere - and the evidence suggests that they do exactly that. We don't end up with permanent ethnic enclaves, because the children just won't stay. And why would they? They are part of the club - there's a whole country at their fingertips. Within just a generation or two, immigrants are just like anyone else, regardless of how they arrived. That's....actually really amazing. Not very many countries manage that feat, and it's a big part of what has made us so successful.

Birthright citizenship has been firmly cemented for over a century, and in that time, America has risen to become the most powerful country in the world - probably the most powerful country the world has ever seen. We should consider very carefully before we go about tinkering with our formula. It's been working quite well.

[Worffan101]

Of course birthright citizenship is one of the best things ever to be thought up in human history! It means that one day, we can assimilate the entire world. Just invite people in until their kids and grandkids are all Americans, which not coincidentally will help with the population disadvantage we have against, say, Russia (out of the major powers, we're the one that historically AVOIDS human wave tactics and for good reason).

Nobody else can really DO this. We can get millions of free citizens in 25 years--citizens who work, pay taxes, bring billions of dollars of value to our GDP. Europeans will ask "how are those _insert country name here_ people accepted?" and we'll say "What _insert country name here_ people? Those are Americans. Sure, 25 years ago their parents immigrated here, and there's some nativists who still hate them, but those idiots are dying off and these guys, wherever their parents came from, they're just Americans."

You don't see Britain or France or Denmark doing that. Hell, those fancy-ass Scandanavians who like to look down on us because our idiot government fucked our social safety net? They're so panicked over a few million immigrants--well-behaved, peaceful refugees who just want work and a safe place to sleep because their home country's in the middle of a civil war--that they're going to be forcing kids from "ghettos", as they call immigrant-dominated low-income areas, into mandatory state-run indoctrination schools to try to forcibly introduce them to the Danish culture that they'll never really be accepted in because of their skin color.

You heard me. Even with the amazing Twitler, Supreme Orange Leader of all hateful xenophobes, as our President, we're still better than Scandanavia thanks to birthright citizenship.

AMERICA. Fuck yeah!

And that's why Twitler's boneheadedly stupid idea of stripping birthright citizenship from the "wrong" sorts of people is evil, stupid, will destroy America, and is a step on the road to fascism. After all--what's to stop him from stripping Indian-Americans of citizenship next? Chinese-Americans? Irish-Americans? People of mixed-race descent? Black people?

God, fuck that orange idiot. Not even James Buchanan was this stupid.

[SuccubusYuri]

Even if we accept that tourism babies are a thing (and ignore that they aren't mostly rich Russians), I don't think anyone is like, super in-favor of that. It's just a by-product of the policy meant to avoid a massive civil war and daily domestic terrorism. Like how, it isn't anyone's intention that sometimes guilty people go free, but that's the cost of doing business in a fair and just penal system. Every decision has a trade.

It also strikes me as bizarre that the focus group that most wants us to adopt this sort of measure, are also the ones most likely to spontaneously ejaculate that we're just like the declining Roman empire. You know, the Romans who famously wrote of the 4th century that their great failing was forgetting how to assimilate subject peoples.

Also, the U.K. is probably not the best example, as they are not only (presently) in the EU, so their cross-border citizenship laws are pretty lax, but they also have the Commonwealth which basically bestows a fast track to anyone who wants UK citizenship who was born in a Commonwealth state. I'm also unmoved by pleas we be more like Europe. How's the good old saying go? "Europe is very progressive. Very sophisticated. Between genocides." Part of Germany's problem today with migrants, isn't the new migrants, it's the Turkish nationals who have been living in Germany for generations, but still don't have citizenship. It is a significant bloc of their population and the stress of not being able to incorporate them has directly contributed to the perception that refugees are overflowing the nation.

Of course, Trump's pals the Israelis are the archetypal example of why you shouldn't want to become a two-caste state. I'll be damned if I see the United States Army need to post signs that say "60 days without a workplace massacre".