As Obama’s 2012 Campaign winds up the issue of anchor babies, open borders and amnesty has already been raised. Seems time for a little review, beginning with anchor babies. Below are some immigration eye-openers.
Overview: Justice Brennan’s Footnote Gave Us Anchor Babies
In a characteristically devastating column (printed out below) this week, Ann Coulter broke down why there is no need to re-work the 14th Amendment (which granted birthright citizenship to freed slaves) in order to stop illegal immigrants from importing their entire extended families into our welfare system by breaking into our country just long enough to have babies.
From "Justice Brennan’s footnote gave us anchor babies":
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
…The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians — because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.
Birthright citizenship for foreigners is undeniably not what was intended.
All we have to do to stop overwhelming border state hospitals, bankrupting state and local governments and devastating our already exhausted welfare system is to stop pretending that illegal immigrants are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, which is what the 14th Amendment requires for birthright citizenship.
These people are subject to the jurisdictions of foreign governments, so them having babies here in no way grants them or their children any rights to our country under the Constitution.
As with so many other liberal policy disasters this country is being bombarded with, this crisis began with tyrannical "make up whatever you feel like" leftist judges abandoning the Constitution, usurping their authority and arbitrarily inventing random rights for people out of thin air.
Justice Brennan’s Footnote Gave Us Anchor Babies
by Ann Coulter - 08/04/2010
Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when you’re 8 1/2 months pregnant, give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind, a sacred constitutional right, as old as the 14th Amendment itself.
The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right, the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades.
In fact, this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when no one was looking, and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves — many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: "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."
(The s0-called anchor baby provision was written to guarantee citizenship for disenfranchised native Americans and the children of slaves… not for the children who come here to live illegally or many cases just to have their children.)
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not the massive welfare state operating as a magnet for malingerers, frauds and cheats that it is today, it’s amazing the drafters even considered the amendment’s effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians — because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years, that was how it stood, with only one case adding the caveat that children born to LEGAL permanent residents of the U.S., gainfully employed, and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898.)
And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion inPlyler v. Doe, asserting that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennan’s authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, THE Clement L. Bouve — the one you’ve heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge — just some guy who wrote a book.
So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author’s intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants.
On the other hand, we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement — who, I’m guessing, was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper.
Any half-wit, including Clement L. Bouve, could conjure up a raft of such "plausible distinction(s)" before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties, contagious diseases, and have some qualification to be here other than "lives within walking distance."
But most important, Americans have a right to decide, as the people of other countries do, who becomes a citizen.
Combine Justice Brennan’s footnote with America’s ludicrously generous welfare policies, and you end up with a bankrupt country.
Consider the story of one family of illegal immigrants described in the Spring 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:
"Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan, Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children aged 19, 12 and 8. Felipa … gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, (Felipa’s 19-year-old daughter) Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby, Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby, Cristian. … The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies."
In the Silverios’ munificent new hometown of Stockton, Calif., 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in 2003 in the San Joaquin General Hospital were anchor babies. As of this month, Stockton is $23 million in the hole.
It’s bad enough to be governed by 5-4 decisions written by liberal judicial activists. In the case of "anchor babies," America is being governed by Brennan’s 1982 footnote.
Time for us rid ourselves of laws and provisions written and passed by Progressive lunatics!
Graham Eyes ‘Birthright Citizenship’ “For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for baby remains a plan
Amnesty Would Have a Present Cost of $1 Trillion
In 2007, the Heritage Foundation issued two studies, one on the cost of low-skilled immigration and one on the cost of amnesty. The study on the cost of low-skilled immigration noted that low-skilled immigrants do work hard: “It is important to note, these families are rarely idle; they consistently work and pay taxes. However, the taxes they pay are seldom, if ever, sufficient to cover the cost of the government benefits they receive. In consequence, these households must be continually subsidized by other taxpayers.” The Heritage study concluded that low-skilled immigrant households will cost native born U.S. taxpayers $89.1 billion per year over each of the next 30 years.
The Heritage report estimated that illegal residents comprise 41 percent of low-skilled immigrant households.1 Simple multiplication indicates that illegal-immigrant households cost the U.S. taxpayer $36.5 billion each year. Over 30 years, that works out to $1.1 trillion in costs. Using a financial calculator, we assumed a discount rate of 5 percent, and computed the net present value of a cost stream of $36.5 over the next 30 years to be $589 billion.
Cost to Taxpayer for Government Benefits to Illegal Aliens:
Years
Cost Each Year
Total Cost
Present Cost @ 5% discount rate
2007-2037
$36.5 billion
$1.1 trillion
$589 billion
2038-2056
$144.5 billion
$2.6 trillion
$410 billion
$999 billion
A second report was issued by the Heritage Foundation a few weeks after the report discussed above. This report discussed the costs allowing current illegal aliens to become United States citizens. They will become eligible for the full array of welfare and medical benefits offered by state and federal governments. This study concluded that the $36.5 billion per year figure is valid for the next 30 years. The average age of an illegal alien is early 30s. Beginning 30 years from now, the current illegal alien population will retire. The problem is that low-skilled illegal aliens do not earn enough money to support their families, send remittances back to their homelands, and save adequate money for retirement. The U.S. taxpayer will be stuck supporting most illegal aliens in retirement. And each retired illegal alien is projected to cost the U.S. taxpayer $17,000 per year.
The Heritage report continues, that of the 10 million retired illegal aliens, some 8.5 million will live to the retirement age of 67 years old. At that time, the statistically normal lifespan is an additional 18 years. $17,000 per year for 18 years is $306,000. That is the cost of supporting one amnestied illegal alien through retirement. Multiplied by 8.5 million people, and that comes to the astounding figure of $2.6 trillion.2 Using a financial calculator, we assumed a discount rate of 5 percent and computed the net present value of a cost stream of $144.5 billion per year for 18 years from the years 2039-2057. The net present cost was given as $410 billion.
Attrition Through Enforcement Would Have a Present Cost of as Little at $13.5 Billion
H.R. 4437, The “Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005,” had Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner as its original sponsor. This bill had several features to combat illegal immigration including:
- mandatory E-Verify 6 years from date of enactment
- end the “catch-and-release” policy for all persons apprehended at border
- require DHS to reimburse counties within 25 miles of the border for the costs relating to illegal aliens
- removal orders would become final more quickly and readily
- facilitate removal of aliens who reenter the country illegally after having been deported
- mandatory minimum prison sentences for offenses related to illegal entry into the United States
- additional port-of-entry inspectors and canine detection teams
This was the bill to which Sensenbrenner offered an amendment to reduce the penalty for illegal presence (aimed at visa overstayers) from a felony to a misdemeanor (Amendment 656, Roll Call Vote 655).3 However, all but 8 Democrats voted against the amendment (in other words, they voted for upgrading illegal presence to a felony) because they wanted to use the provision as a rallying point from which to stir up opposition to the bill.
The passage of this bill attracted a firestorm of opposition from the open borders lobby, including illegal alien demonstrations in a number of cities on May 1, 2006.
The illegal alien lobby was opposed to this bill because it would have been effective. This is why we can safely conclude that effective attrition through enforcement would cost as little as $13.5 billion.4
Strong Attrition Through Enforcement Would Have a Present Cost of $177 Billion
The SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement) Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on November 6, 2007. It never made it to a vote because the House leadership would not allow it. Among the key provisions of the bill were:
- mandatory E-Verify 4 years from the date of enactment;
- increased employer sanctions for those knowingly employing illegal aliens;
- a "National Birth and Death Registration System" to reduce stolen identities;
- 140 additional Criminal Alien Program (CAP) officers to identify and remove criminal aliens detained in federal, state and local facilities;
- training at least 250 state and local law enforcement officers on how to perform federal immigration enforcement procedures;
- 8,000 additional beds for illegal aliens detained by immigration officials;
- 13 additional federal district judges in border states to increase the flow of deportations, including 4 for the District of Arizona and 5 for the Southern District of California;
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years between 2009-2018.5
1Robert E. Rector and Christine Kim, The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer, Special Report #14, May 22, 2007,The Heritage Foundation.
2Robert E. Rector, Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers At Least $2.6 Trillion, Web Memo #1490, June 6, 2007, The Heritage Foundation.
3See The Congressional Record – House – December 16, 2005, H11951-11953.
4The CBO report can be found by searching www.cbo.gov for H.R. 4437.
5The CBO report can be found by searching www.cbo.gov for H.R. 4088.
Source: NumbersUSA
Options and Solutions to America’s Immigration Problem
There are answers to fix our immigration situation and many are already on our books… It is just a matter of finding more people like Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio, Ken Cuccinelli, Glenn Beck, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Sarah Palin, the Minutemen, Jim DeMint, Michelle Bachmann, Tea Party Members, 9/12’ers, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, Rush… (and the list goes), plus a whole lot more average Americans… standing up and demanding the stop of the insanity and to insist on the rights and will of the American People be done and upheld!
SECURE THE BORDERS USING WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY (FENCES, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, ARMED TROOPS ETC) and TEMPORARILY STOP ALL IMMIGRATION, LEGAL AND OTHERWISE UNTIL WE DO!!
-
STOP SANCTUARY CITIES FROM OPERATING!
-
PROSECUTE ANYONE WHO HIRES ILLEGALS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW!
-
DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL CRIMINALS IMMEDIATELY, UNLESS THEY ARE SERVING MAXIMUM SECURITY TYPE OFFENCES AND ARE LOCKED UP. DEPORT THEM IF THEY ARE EVER ELIGIBLE TO BE RELEASED!
-
STOP THE MISINTERPRETATION OF THE ANCHOR BABY AMENDMENT AND AMEND ‘THE FOOTNOTE’! MAKE IT RETROACTIVE… FOR AT LEAST 5-YEARS
-
REDUCE MINIMUM WAGE TO HELP SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS CREATE JOBS GOOD FOR SUPPLEMENTING STUDENTS, THE ELDERLY AND YOUNG PEOPLE, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO SUPPORT ILLEGAL WORKERS… MANY WILL GO HOME ON THEIR OWN
-
INSTEAD OF LEGALLIZING MARIJUANA ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, SO THE PROGRESSIVES CAN DUMB US ALL DOWN FURTHER AND MAKE EVERYONE EVEN MORE DOCILE, WE SHOULD BE TIGHTENING THE RULES, ESPEICALLY IN BORDER STATES AND PROSECUTING EVERYONE: DEALERS, MULES, SUPPLIERS AND USES! (THIS ENTIRE LEGALIZATION MOVEMENT AT THIS TIME IS NOT JUST A COINCIDENCE!) AND GET THE FLOURIDE THAT RENDERS PEOPLE DOCILE OUT OF THE WATER!
Then Once we confirm that all the borders, ports and airports are secured…for a sustainable amount of time… DOUBLE THE ARMED SECURITY FORCES AND SURVEILLANCE AT THE BORDER.
-
DEPORT EVERYONE THAT CAME HERE ILLEGALLY
-
ALLOW THOSE TAHT ARE NOT CRIMINALS TO REMAIN, BUT MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO WORK, AND CUT ANY BENEFITS WHICH WOULD INCLUDE NO OPTION OF BECOMING A CITIZEN UNLESS THEY RETURN HOME AND THEN APPLY LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.
-
REMAIN IDIOTS AND JUST IGNORE THE SITUATION AND DO NOTHING FOR OR AGAINST THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE… BUT NO CITIZENSHIP.
-
GIVE EVERYONE AMNESTY, WHICH IS WHAT THE PROGRESSIVES WANT TO DO… AND DON’T EVEN HAVE THE GUTS TO SAY IT (SEE: Amnesty Memo, WHERE THEY PLAN TO BYPASS EVERYONE, BUT DO WAHT THEY WANT.)
-
DEVELOP A PACKAGE: DEPORT EVERY ILLEGAL WHO HAS ANY TYPE OF CRIMINAL RECORD. STOP THE ANCHOR BABY POLICY. MAKE THE BORDER, PORT AND AIRPORT SECURITY FORCES PERMANENT. AND ALLOW THE REST TO STAY, BUT EVERYONE MUST REGISTER WITHIN 30-DAYS TO QUALIFY FOR A SLOW PATH TO CITIZENSHIP; ADD ADDITIONAL TIME TO THE WAIT TO TAKE THE TEST AND START THE TIME OVER FROM WHEN THEY GET THEIR NEW GREEN CARD. AND HERE IS THE PIVOTAL PART: GET AN HONEST COUNT…. 20 MILLION+. FIND OUT WHERE THEY ARE FROM, FROM REGISTRATION. AND CONTINUE THE BLOCK ON ALL FURTHER IMMIGRATION UNTIL WE HAVE REACHED THE PRESENT QUOTAS FROM IMMIGRANTS FROM EACH COUNTRY INVOLVED.
EXAMPLE BY SCALE:
If Country A has a present quota of 10 ‘legal’ aliens a year to come into the United States and they have 100 illegal aliens already here, we allow the 100 to stay, but Country A gets no additional slots for legal immigration for 10-years (or until their illegals are compensated for) plus an additional penalty of 1 to 5 years… for not helping to monitor their own citizens and so on down the line for all countries who have illegal aliens in the United States… period.
As Charles Krauthammer said, we have always opened our doors to immigration, but we are allowed as a nation to reduce, stop and choose who comes into our nation and from where.
Republican Candidate for Governor of California , Meg Whitman, says today, “No amnesty, no path to citizenship – no illegals will get citizenship no way no how!!” And opinion agreed with by most Americans and legal aliens.
Birthright citizenship for foreigners is undeniably not what was intended.
STUDY VALIDATES THE ANCHOR BABY DEBATE
From CNN:
“One of about every 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the offspring of unauthorized immigrants, a Pew Hispanic Center study released Wednesday concluded.
According to the study, an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in this country that year had parents who were in the United States without legal documentation.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that those children automatically become U.S. citizens, but some members of Congress are pushing to change that provision. That effort — rooted in the debate over illegal immigration, particularly of people from Mexico — has created some controversy.”
I posted about this back in May when Duncan Hunter brought up the possibility of changing the 14th Amendment (which, obviously since it’s an Amendment was already changed once…)
A few months ago, some may have considered this a non-issue or a scare tactic even…but I think the Pew Hispanic Center study results change that and highlight this issue as a viable debate this country MUST have. ONE in every TWELVE babies. No wonder this country is bankrupt…
Immigration, anchor babies and the intent of the 14th Amendment
The purpose of this article is to fact-check the history of the 14th Amendment, the intent of its authors and its subsequent interpretation (or misinterpretations) in court rulings that followed.
The article came first as a response to comments in a previous article about Congressional plans to target anchor babies. Iowa Rep Steve King is expected to propose a bill this spring that would deny citizenship to so-called “anchor babies” — children of ‘illegal immigrants’ who are granted citizenship by dint of being born in the U-S.
According to McClatchy, there’s already a split among House Republicans over the forthcoming bill. Opponents call it unconstitutional and say that it won’t resolve the issue of illegal immigration. King, however, claims that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to the children of immigrants.
He’s mistaken.
This is a common stance among those in the illegal immigration debate infuriated by the so-called “anchor baby industry,” and who are also frustrated by Washington’s refusal or inability to meet the immigration issue head on and craft a compromise that resolves some or all parts of the mess illegal immigration has become.
Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator behind that state’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070, made this argument repeatedly. From the Wall Street Journal, July 30:
Mr. Pearce, like some other proponents of the change, argued that the amendment as written doesn’t apply to illegal immigrants. Because illegal immigrants aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., as the amendment requires, they fall outside its protection, these people argue. A group of House lawmakers made a similar argument when they tried to pass legislation changing the birthright principle in 2005.
“When it was ratified in 1868, the amendment had to do with African-Americans; it had nothing to do with aliens,” said Mr. Pearce. “It’s got to be fixed.”
Mr Pearce is wrong, but the Journal never did the research to point that out.
On the August 12 edition of Fox News‘ “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren, Pearce made these claims again, arguing that the 14th Amendment was intended for African-Americans alone, and not “aliens, legal, or illegal”:
We have laws in this country. It’s illegal to enter, illegal to remain. Yet we reward you with the birth, again, citizenship of those born called birthright citizenship. It was never intended to be a part of the 14th amendment. It’d be nice if people would get it right once in a while.
I mean, there’s two Supreme Court decisions that make that clear. The debate, Howard Jacob – [Senator] Jacob Howards on the floor of the Senate, and Senator [Edgar] Cowan, in writing [inaudible] 1816 said this amendment does not apply to foreigners or aliens at all. Yet, we keep misapplying it. And that came from a court decision after the Slaughter-House and [Elk v. Wilkins] decision, which made it clear. And, like I said, the American Indians, there’s no doubt where they were born, they were not considered citizens under the 14th amendment. Congress had to pass three times congressional acts recognizing the citizenship of the Indians.
Among the comments by readers in the previous article, American Hispanic writes:
Apparently you do not understand why the 14th amendment was written and for whom?
The 14th amendment was written for the African slave’s children. Not for illegal aliens. Apparently the American leaders of that time period didn’t know about Mexico or their parasitic nationals and how they would use anything they can to their advantage.
“Illegal immigrants” as we know them now didn’t exist when the 14th Amendment was written in 1866, since the Congress had not yet begun restricting entry into the country. There were, however, plenty of immigrants who were excluded from naturalization. The rule at the time, established in 1790, was that aliens who were “free white persons” could become citizens after two years of residency. A couple years after the 14th Amendment was adopted, Congress extended naturalization eligibility to include “persons of African descent.” Asians remained excluded until 1898. (See below)
The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868. It’s one three Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th and 15th), also known as the Civil War Amendments. They were intended to restructure the United States from a country that was (in Abraham Lincoln’s words) “half slave and half free” to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed “blessings of liberty” would be extended to the entire male populace, including the former slaves and their descendants.
The 13th Amendment (proposed and ratified in 1865) abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment (proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868) included a redefinition of citizenship, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The 15th Amendment, (proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870) granted the right to vote, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” (It applied only to men, much to the disappointment of women suffragettes.)
With respect to immigration, it’s the Citizenship Clause that provides our focus. It opens the 14th Amendment (thus, making citizenship the most important part of the Amendment):
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. (The important part there is… subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which does not apply to the parents of the anchor babies!)
Worth noting is that this clause also contains the language that defines the federal government as the sole adjudicator of illegal immigration issues (which is why local or state governments are constitutionally prohibited from passing immigration law.)
The Citizenship Clause was ultimately intended to overrule the decision in the Dred Scott case of 1857, which held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States (one of the worst rulings in the high court’s history).
The issue, which was in the courts and on the front pages of newspapers through the 1850s, embroiled the country in a pro-slavery versus anti-slavery debate. The Supreme Court decision in 1857 put a match to the smoldering blood feud and the Civil War soon followed.
As a side note, Dred Scott was the first case since Marbury in 1801 in which the Supreme Court used the power of judicial review to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional. The case reinforced the role of the Supreme Court as the institution to which American society turns for the final and binding decisions on its most incendiary issues. It also serves as the exemplar of how much damage can be done when the power of judicial review goes awry.
Fast forward to 1866 as Congress begins work on the so-called Civil War Amendments. The development of the language that made it into the 14th Amendment is revealing. Questions about who would be a citizen didn’t just include Negro slaves. Some senators wanted to exclude Indians and Chinese from citizenship. One argument was that if Indians were citizens, then state laws that prohibited whites from selling arms and ammunition to Indians would be void. At a time when the suppression of Indians and the seizure of their lands was proceeding in earnest, it was considered unacceptable to recognize a right of Indians to keep and bear arms. Thus, the Senate voted to define all persons born in the United States, without distinction of color, as citizens, “excluding Indians not taxed.”
The final draft of the Citizenship Clause would follow soon after, not only to address Dred Scott, but the question of Indians and Chinese. It’s the language we have today: “All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.”
Proposed in May of 1866, it’s known as the Howard Amendment, named after its author, Sen Jacob Howard of Michigan.
What’s important to note here, contrary to the claims of Arizona state senator Pearce and others who’ve made the same argument, the lawmakers of the 39th Congress absolutely and explicitly recognized the impact of the 14th Amendment on “aliens.” In proposing the Citizenship Clause, Senator Howard stated on May 30, 1866:
This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.
But as recorded in the Congressional Record, Senator Howard also provides his definition of a citizen of the United States:
A citizen of the United States is held by the courts to be a person who was born within the limits of the United States and subject to their laws. … [The Constitution] put the citizens of the several States on an equality with each other as to all fundamental rights…And how did they antecedently become citizens of the several States? By birth or by naturalization. [Emphasis mine]
Go back to the argument made by Congressman King, that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to the children of immigrants. What exactly, then, did Senator Howard mean when he said “by birth”?
Following Howard’s statement, a raucous debate followed over whether it was wise to extend citizenship to the children of foreigners –”coolies,” “gypsies” and “mongols” were some of the terms. For example, one lawmaker of the day often cited by conservatives is Senator Edgar Cowanof Pennsylvania (one of only 11 Senators who eventually voted against the 14th Amendment). During debate over the Citizenship Clause, he expressed concerns that Chinese immigrants would overrun California. He stated:
[I]s it proposed that the people of California are to remain quiescent while they are overrun by a flood of immigration of the Mongol race? Are they to be immigrated out of house and home by Chinese? I should think not. It is not supposed that the people of California, in a broad and general sense, have any higher rights than the people of China; but they are in possession of the country of California, and if another people of a different race, of different religion, of different manners, of different traditions, different tastes and sympathies are to come there and have the free right to locate there and settle among them, and if they have an opportunity of pouring in such an immigration as in a short time will double or treble the population of California, I ask, are the people of California powerless to protect themselves? I do not know that the contingency will ever happen, but it may be well to consider it while we are on this point.
As I understand the rights of the States under the Constitution at present, California has the right, if she deems it proper, to forbid the entrance into her territory of any person she chooses who is not a citizen of some one of the United States. She cannot forbid his entrance; but unquestionably, if she was likely to be invaded by a flood of Australians or people from Borneo, man-eaters or cannibals if you please, she would have the right to say that those people should not come there. It depends upon the inherent character of the men. Why, sir, there are nations of people with whom theft is a virtue and falsehood a merit. There are people to whom polygamy is as natural as monogamy is with us. It is utterly impossible that these people can meet together and enjoy their several rights and privileges which they suppose to be natural in the same society; and it is necessary, a part of the nature of things, that society shall be more or less exclusive. It is utterly and totally impossible to mingle all the various families of men, from the lowest form of the Hottentot up to the highest Caucasian, in the same society.
[...]
They may pour in their million upon our Pacific coast in a very short time. Are the States to lose control over this immigration? Is the United States to determine that they are to be citizens?
Cowan further said of California:
Therefore I think, before we assert broadly that everybody who shall be born in the United States shall be taken to be a citizen of the United States, we ought to exclude others besides Indians not taxed, because I look upon Indians not taxed as being much less dangerous and much less pestiferous to society than I look upon Gypsies. I do not know how my honorable friend from California looks upon Chinese, but I do know how some of his fellow-citizens regard them. I have no doubt that now they are useful, and I have no doubt that within proper restraints, allowing that State and the other Pacific States to manage them as they may see fit, they may be useful; but I would not tie their hands by the Constitution of the United States so as to prevent them hereafter from dealing with them as in their wisdom they see fit.
Senator John Conness of California (never quoted by conservatives) responded to Cowan’s remarks, stating:
The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.
What he said bears repeating: “it is proposed to declare” that “the children begotten of Chinese parents” “shall be citizens.”
Conness later added:
We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United Sates to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others.
Referring to Cowan’s remarks, Conness also stated that “it may be very good capital in an electioneering campaign to declaim against the Chinese.”
Sound familiar?
Consider the words of Ohio Sen John Bingham, a principal framer of the 14th Amendment who served on the committed that crafted the language. In debate, Senator Bingham said:
I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen; but sir, I may be allowed to say further, that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power or the color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, not owing foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States. Citizenship is his birthright, and neither the Congress nor the States can justly or lawfully take it from him. [Emphasis added]
Senator Bingham also makes clear reference to a difference between natural born citizens and citizens that difference being jus sanguinis, i.e., the citizenship of the parents:
…that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.
Vermont Sen Justin Smith Morrill stated:
As matter of law, does anybody deny here, or anywhere, that the native-born is a citizen, and a citizen by virtue of his birth alone … Sir, he has forgotten the grand principle both of nature and nations, both of law and politics, that birth gives citizenship of itself. this is the fundamental principle running through all modern politics both in this country and in Europe. Everywhere where the principle of law have been recognized at all, birth by its inherent energy and force gives citizenship.
During debate, 13th Amendment co-author Illinois Sen Lyman Trumbull said that his goal was “to make citizens of everybody born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States.” Clarifying his remarks, he stated:
What do we mean by “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?” Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means. “Birth,” he said, “entitles a person to citizenship, that every free-born person in this land is, by virtue of being born here, a citizen of the United States.” Speaking at length Trumbull said:
The senator from Missouri and myself desire to arrive at the same point precisely, and that is to make citizens of everybody born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States. We cannot make a citizen of the child of a foreign minister who is temporarily residing here. There is a difficulty in framing the amendment so as to make citizens of all the people born in the United States, and who owe allegiance to it. I thought that might, perhaps, be the best form in which to put the amendment at one time, ‘that all persons born in the United States, and owing allegiance thereto, are hereby declared to be citizens;’ but, upon investigation, it was found that a sort of allegiance was due to the country from persons temporarily residing in it whom we would have no right to make citizens, and that that form would not answer. Then it was suggested that we should make citizens of all persons born in the United States not subject to any foreign power or tribal authority. The objection to that was, that there were Indians not subject to tribal authority, who yet were wild and untamed in their habits, who had by some means or other become separated from their tribes, and were not under the laws of any civilized community, and of whom the authorities of the United States took no jurisdiction. . . . Then it was proposed to adopt the amendment as it now stands,—that all persons born in the United States, not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, shall be citizens.
There are many more quotes from many more lawmakers (catalogued here), all expressing the same sentiment: Being born here makes you a citizen.
So while Arizona state senator Pearce sources Senator Howard, he ignores Senator Howard’s own definition of an American citizen. And while Pearce cites Senator Cowan, he never points out Senator Conness of California, at whom Senator Cowan was directing his remarks back in 1866, or any of the many other Senators in consonance with Senator Conness. Why does State Senator Pearce fail to cite these other voices?
Keep in mind an important point: By the time Senator Howard introduced the 14th Amendment, Congress had been debating the language for months, and they would debate the 14th Amendment for another two years. Had lawmakers intended the Amendment to exclude certain parties, including the children of illegals, they would have included that language in the Amendment. Why didn’t they? Why didn’t Sens Howard and Cowan insist on specific language? If you follow the debate, you can see how the wording was very, very carefully worked out. If they had meant to exclude any kind of people, aliens, children of aliens, they would have done so.
It’s useful to examine the Supreme Court ruling in U-S v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that where birth in the United States was clear, a child of Chinese parents was, in the Court’s opinion, definitely a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, even though Chinese aliens were ineligible to naturalize under then-existing law. The Court stated that long before the adoption of the 14th Amendment, “all white persons” born in the U-S, including children of “foreigners,” were considered native-born citizens (provided that they were not “children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government”), and that “[t]o hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.” The Court further stated:
The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.
[...]
It does not appear to have been suggested in either House of Congress that children born in the United States of Chinese parents would not come within the terms and effect of the leading sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Doubtless, the intention of the Congress which framed and of the States which adopted this Amendment of the Constitution must be sought in the words of the Amendment, and the debates in Congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words. But the statements above quoted are valuable as contemporaneous opinions of jurists and statesmen upon the legal meaning of the words themselves, and are, at the least, interesting as showing that the application of the Amendment to the Chinese race was considered, and not overlooked.
You can get a good overview of all this in a 2005 report done by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). They, too, conclude that the Congress of 1866 intended to extend U-S citizenship to everyone born in the United States, regardless of “race, ethnicity or alienage of the parents.” That intent was affirmed by the Supreme Court with Kim in 1898, and again with Plyler v. Doe in 1982 and INS v. Rios-Pineda in 1985.
One final point raised by a comment in the previous article comes from reader (and fellow Examiner) Michael Williams, who references an article written by Ann Coulter last August documenting how “anchor babies” came to be citizens. Williams writes:
Her argument was that it was a footnote that Justice Brennen wrote in 1982 and slipped into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe that made anchor babies. She also documents the author of the 14th amendment as having said for the record: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens (without legal permanent residence status), or those who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”
Coulter of course, implies impropriety on the part of Justice Brennan (“slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion…”?), and she repeated this claim on Fox News, stating that the 14th amendment “was about free slaves. This multi-culti rainbow coalition is a brand-new invention.”
As the Congressional Record shows, that is entirely untrue, so either Ms. Coulter is unaware of the debate that took place in the 39th Congress, or she simply ignored it.
From the article, here’s Coulter’s account of the history:
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians — because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years, that was how it stood, with only one case adding the caveat that children born to LEGAL permanent residents of the U.S., gainfully employed, and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898.)
And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
[...]
Combine Justice Brennan’s footnote with America’s ludicrously generous welfare policies, and you end up with a bankrupt country.
If she’d looked a little further, she’d have found in an anchor baby case on the Supreme Court docket in which the child is repeatedly referred to as an American citizen, both in testimony and in the majority opinion by Justice John Harlan, Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 1957.
In fact, Texas Solicitor General James C. Ho –who has worked for Justice Clarence Thomas, Texas Sen John Cornyn and President George W Bush’s Justice Department– explains:
[Plyler v. Doe (1982)] construed the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires every State to afford equal protection of the laws “to any person within its jurisdiction.” By a 5-4 vote, the Court held that Texas cannot deny free public school education to undocumented children, when it provides such education to others. But although the Court splintered over the specific question of public education, all nine justices agreed that the Equal Protection Clause protects legal and illegal aliens alike. And all nine reached that conclusion precisely because illegal aliens are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., no less than legal aliens and U.S. citizens.
Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan explicitly rejected the contention that “persons who have entered the United States illegally are not ‘within the jurisdiction’ of a State even if they are present within a State’s boundaries and subject to its laws. Neither our cases nor the logic of the Fourteenth Amendment supports that constricting construction of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction.’” In reaching this conclusion, Brennan invoked the Citizenship Clause and the Court’s analysis in Wong Kim Ark Ark, noting that:
“[e]very citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.” … [N]o plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.
The four dissenting justices – Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justices White, Rehnquist, and O’Connor – rejected Brennan’s application of equal protection to the case at hand. But they pointedly expressed “no quarrel” with his threshold determination that “the Fourteenth Amendment applies to aliens who, after their illegal entry into this country, are indeed physically ‘within the jurisdiction’ of a state.” [emphasis added]
Law professor Bill Ong Hing reportedly said in response to Coulter’s claims: “She’s basically making a straw argument and saying the footnote’s the problem, not the Fourteenth Amendment. But it’s the Fourteenth Amendment that’s her problem, notPlyler.”
Gaping holes exist in our immigration policy. No question that reform is needed, but that’s not going to happen unless we calm down, do our homework, take the ideological blinders off and try to peacefully and objectively resolve this issue without rancor or specious ad hominem. The challenge of reform is difficult enough.
Update on “No More Anchor Babies” legislation in Congress
TOP 5 REASONS THE U.S. MUST END BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP IN 2011
1. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was never meant to bestow automatic U.S. citizenship upon the children of illegal aliens and citizens of foreign countries.
That is correct. Without specific reference to illegal aliens, we have contemporary statements from those who wrote and debated the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment that it was intended to *exclude* the US-born children of *any* aliens, whether legally or illegally present in the country. The history of the amendment, going back to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, makes this clear.
The current practice of giving U.S. citizenship to illegal alien babies is unconstitutional and illegal and must be stopped by Congress and/or the states.
I believe the interpretation of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment to confer automatic citizenship on *anyone* born in the country to be an egregiously and willfully wrong interpretation. Removing the misinterpretation would in no way impair any other part of the amendment.
2. The United States is the last remaining developed nation in the world (along with Canada) that still gives citizenship to babies born of Illegal Aliens and foreign citizens. All other first-world countries have stopped this ridiculous practice for obvious reasons.
That is correct. Most other countries that have automatic birthright, or _jus soli_, citizenship are in Latin America, and have political and cultural traditions completely alien to ours. Additionally, Canada’s adoption of birthright citizenship at least was enacted democratically, not handed to them by an egregiously wrong court interpretation that ignored both the clearly stated intent of Congress, and the court’s own precedents.
- Show quoted text -
The argument that US-born children of aliens would be “stateless” if birthright citizenship were revoked is too absurd to be taken seriously. They most certainly would *not* be stateless – they would be citizens or nationals of whatever countries their parents are citizens.
- Show quoted text -
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KTIV) — Iowa Congressman Steve King has introduced a bill in the House to stop children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. from becoming citizens.
On CNN Friday morning, King said the 14th Amendment has been wrongly applied to so-called “anchor babies.”
“We’re looking at numbers as low as 340,000 anchor babies a year, the higher estimates are 750,000 a year, we’re looking at perhaps as many as a million in this upcoming year in an America that has their immigration out of control and granting somebody to catch into this giant ATM that America’s become a welfare state,” said King.
King could soon be chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees immigration and citizenship.
Thursday, KTIV asked viewers to vote in an online poll if they agreed with King’s bill that would deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U-S to illegal immigrants.
- 80 percent voted “yes”
- 18 percent voted “no”
- 2 percent voted “No opinion”
Missouri has NO illegal Aliens Eve Opener for States Like California
AMERICA…. LISTEN UP & TAKE HEED! Missouri has NO illegal Aliens…(THIS IS TRUE) Interesting: SCROLL TO BOTTOM TO VISIT IMPORTANT CONFIRMATION LINK AND AWESOME COMMENTS!!!
Missouri ‘s approach to the problem of illegal immigration appears to be more advanced, sophisticated, strict and effective than anything to date in Arizona.
Do the loonies in the White House, appreciate what Missouri has done?
When are our fearless President and his dynamic Attorney General going to take action to require Missouri start accepting illegal immigrants once again?
So, why doesn’t Missouri receive attention?
Answer: There are no Mexican illegals in Missouri to demonstrate.
The “Show Me” state has once again shown us how it should be done.
There needs to be more publicity and exposure regarding what Missouri has done.
Let’s pass it around.
- In 2007, Missouri placed on the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment designating English as the official language of Missouri .
- In November, 2008, nearly 90% voting in favor! Thus English became the official language for ALL governmental activity in Missouri .
- No individual has the right to demand government services in a language OTHER than English.
In 2008 a measure was passed that required the Missouri Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of any person arrested, and inform federal authorities if the person is found to be in Missouri illegally. Missouri law enforcement offices receive specific training with respect to enforcement of federal immigration laws.
In Missouri, illegal immigrants do NOT have access to taxpayers benefits such as food stamps and health care through Missouri HealthNET.
In 2009 a measure was passed that ensures Missouri ‘s public institutions of higher education do NOT award financial aid to individuals who are illegally in the United States.
In Missouri all post-secondary institutions of higher education to annually certify to the Missouri Dept. of Higher Education that they have NOT knowingly awarded financial aid to students who are unlawfully present in the United States.
So while Arizona has made national news for its new law, it is important to remember, Missouri has been far more proactive in addressing this horrific problem.
Missouri has made it clear that illegal immigrants are NOT welcome in the state and they will certainly NOT receive public benefits at the expense of Missouri taxpayers.
KEEP SHARING THIS INFORMATION UNTIL WE GET ALL 50 STATES TO COMPLY!!!
Here is the link to confirm: Be sure to read the readers comments too..
<http://www.ozarkssentinel.com/missouri-ahead-of-the-game-in-dealing-with-illegal-immigrants-p1034.htm>
Taken from: “The Ozarks Sentinel” Editorial – Nita Jane Ayres, May 13, 2010 .
If the link does not work, just type in “The Ozarks Sentinel – Nita Jane Ayres” in Google.
Many feel that the Latino community will not be fooled again as to Obama’s real intentions and many American born Latino’s and legal immigrants are just was worried, as the population at large, about unsecure borders, loss of jobs, violence and drugs in the border states and the quality of life for the future of their children as Americans.
Naturalized citizens and legal immigrants of all nationalities are often the strongest proponents for enforcing our laws, securing our borders and deporting those who have entered the U.S. illegally. Many foreign born Americans have lived the nightmares that Americans whose families have been here for generations can’t even imagine. Once you lose sovereignty… you have no country!
Related:
LA Anchor Baby Welfare Tab… $600 Million
Immigration: DHS confirms cheaper to deport every illegal alien than allowing them to stay
40th Anniversary of 1st Earth Day a Grim Reminder of Immigration’s Devastation of a Vision - Why does Congress not understand that U.S. environmental sustainability is not possible unless we greatly reduce immigration numbers?
Leaked Memo: Department of Homeland Security Contemplates Amnesty By Executive Fiat
Immigration Eye-Opener - Immigration, anchor babies and the intent of the 14th Amendment
Justice Brennan’s Footnote Gave Us Anchor Babies
This is the combination of two posts originally posted by By Ask Marion on August 7th 2010
Reuters
