I am tired of my views and those of many other conservatives
being misrepresented in an effort to taint our opinions. In this case I am referring to the issue of
illegal immigration and, most recently, the discussion of "birthright
citizenship". Conservatives are
frequently accused of being anti-immigration due to our stance against illegal
immigration in particular. Commentators
take the words of conservatives and eliminate the context of discussion of
illegal immigration in order to taint our views. We are then labeled as anti-immigrant and
hypocrites given our own descent from immigrants. Ignored in the accusations are the fact that
most of our ancestors came to the United States legally under the laws in effect
at the time of arrival. My own great grandparents
came from Germany around the turn of the 20th century, legally migrating with
their children, including my grandfather.
To most conservatives illegal immigration, is a question of the rule of
law rather than a question of the numbers and origination of who comes
here.
Legal immigration is a separate issue. I have issues with our current legal
immigration system, but not based on numbers or on country of origin. My concerns relate more to family
reunification laws that permit legal immigrants to bring significant family
with them, family that is not necessarily productive or a benefit to our
system; as well as the broad interpretation of the definition of
"refugee" that is currently utilized.
My understanding and observation of current immigration law suggests
that significant numbers of people are admitted based on the simple fact that
their country is an unpleasant place to live. In my opinion this actually prevents positive
changes in those countries as it reduces the population of those with
frustrations, the kinds of people who
might drive future change in their political systems.
However, the main issue at hand right now is birthright
citizenship. Birthright citizenship has
been a topic of considerable discussion for many years. The Constitution states that anyone born in
the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" shall be
a citizen. What it doesn't do is define
the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". Initially the specific exemptions listed as not subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States included foreign dignitaries and members of Indian tribes. These exemptions are been used to make the
claim that the writers of the Constitution never intended that the children of
undocumented or illegal immigrants be denied citizenship. Current law, which assumes that anyone born
in the United States (with the only current exception being the children of
foreign dignitaries as Indians were granted citizenship early in the twentieth
century) is based on a Supreme Court case from the late 1800s, Wong Kim
Ark. WKA was born to long term resident
parents and the case, to give the abridged version, recognized that
"subject to the jurisdiction" applied to the plaintiff as he had been
born in the United States.
The counter argument, however, is that there were, to the
best of my knowledge, few immigration laws relating to who could legally
migrate to the United States. There were
health and public impact exceptions and that was the primary purpose of the
Ellis Island facility. Apparently fewer
than 2% of arriving immigrants were deported after their inspections, generally
based on either health the possibility of public dependency. Given that history, it is not unreasonable to
assume that the grant of authority to Congress to regulate immigration would
also include the authority to determine who was subject to the jurisdiction of
the United States, including the right to assume that illegal immigrants,
having entered the country without
the permission of the government, have placed themselves outside the jurisdiction.
These illegal immigrants, despite their presence within the territory of
the United States, still hold citizenship in their country of origin and
therefore their children are citizens of that country. This, by a reasonable definition, makes them
subject to the jurisdiction of that country of origin and, therefore, not
subject to the United States. The phrase
does not, contrary to recent argument, mean subject to the laws of the United
States. Anyone in the United States is
subject to our laws, much like we would be subject to the laws of Japan while visiting. A similar argument (which was the gist of the
WKA decision described above) could be made that legal residents are also
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, having agreed to abide by
and, presumably, not engage in subversive acts against the United States,
therefore their children would have the opportunity to obtain citizenship.
Finally I wish to address the issue of the deportation of
children born in the United States and therefore granted citizenship under
existing legal precedent. Although much
has been made of the fact that Donald Trump apparently stated that he would
revoke their citizenship if he were President, the reality is that the
President does not have the authority to revoke anyone's citizenship. Additionally I would make the argument that
generally laws that apply retroactively are unjust and unfair. Most rational arguments that I have heard in
favor of rescinding the concept of birthright citizenship do not attempt to
remove citizenship from current citizens, nor do they attempt to eliminate the
granting of citizenship to anyone born here while their parents are legally
present
For more interesting discussion check out this Federalist
paper at http://www.federalistblog.us/2007/09/revisiting_subject_to_the_jurisdiction/
Meanwhile, an open comment to the media. Stop misrepresenting what conservatives think about issues and stop conflating legal and illegal immigration. They aren't the same thing, we don't think they should be treated the same, and this BS where you accuse us of being racist because we are opposed to illegal behavior isn't going to stop us.
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