A Seriously Slippery Slope

[puppetmaker]

We were watching the Daily Show last night like we usual do. I was half listening to what was being said when I felt a chill go through my spine. I had Peter run it back to make sure I heard what I thought I heard. There is a movement, which I really hope gets quashed very quickly, to repeal the 14th amendment which says that if you are born in the USA you are an American Citizen. The reasoning is that people run to the US and have an anchor baby so that child is their ticket to citizenship since if the child is born in the US then it is a US citizen.

I have to agree with John Stewart that the mother is probably thinking more about the miracle of life that she has brought into the world then, Yippie, I can become a citizen now.

Now I am the child of two American Citizens. My parents were the children of immigrants from various places in Europe. Peter’s parents immigrated to the US. He is an American Citizen because he was born here. His parents became citizens. I do know people who are here because their parents got work visas to the US and used that to become citizens. I know people who were born here but their parents weren’t but they went through the whole naturalization process. I can remember going to a friend’s family party when her father swore his oath of citizenship. I know people who came here as children and technically never went home but they were small children and infants and they haven’t known any other country but this one. And, yes, I do know people who slipped in the country and are living with their heads down hoping that no one notices them.

The problem is once automatic citizenship is revoked, how far back do you go? Anyone whose parents came in illegally has to leave? Anyone whose grandparents walked across the border (any border) has to leave? How many Senators and Congressmen would have to leave the country because they can’t produce the papers to prove that their ancestors were here legally? Who is here legally really? Those who can prove their ancestors were here when the Constitution was signed? How many people have copies of their ancestor’s immigration paperwork?

And when Lou Dobbs says that you are off the rails, you might want to rethink your position because Lou Dobbs thinks you have gone too far.

I am grateful that I am a US citizen and have the passport to prove it even if I do disagree with some of my fellow citizens.

Comments

[thenodrin.livejournal.com]

I miss Daily Show once in three years, and this is what I miss?

I can't prove that I am in the country legally. This is something that I continually argue with certain friends who are all for the Arizona law.

My grandfather fought with the US Army in WWII, Troop 442. But, as a Japanese-American citizen, his papers were burned and destroyed while he was in a California concentration camp. (Where, by the way, he met my grandmother. Silver lining and all that.)

We cannot trace my family back beyond my great-grandfather because of this. GGP Seiichi came to American with his wife and (eventually) twelve or fifteen children. I'm not sure how many, because he only talked about (and when numbers were mentioned, he only counted) his sons. And, I'm not sure if my grand-father was born here, or came here with the family. I do know that he talked about Seiichi forbidding his children to speak Japanese, saying, "We live in America now, we will speak American."

I have no way of knowing either of their immigration status. No one does. If the government suddenly decides that my grand parents were not citizens, then is my mother?

Am I?

This also makes me wonder about people who are children of illegals joined to a legal citizen. I have a friend who married a Canadian woman, and it took years for her to get citizenship. What if they had a child on one of her "secret" visits across the Canadian border. Would the child be a citizen, based on his father's status, or not, based on his mother's?

I'm going to have to research this and decide how upset about it I am.

Theno

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

The 14th amendment was designed above everything else to protect the rights of slaves and their descendants. The argument that those who choose to repeal it says essentially that they just want to overturn a little bit of it. Y'know, *YOU'LL* still be OK.

That's a VERY slippery slope that I really don't want to be on, and if they do this it will provide a wedge for every hate group to get rid of people like...me.

So not really happy about it.

Oh, and btw, where would I go?

So...bad idea. Bad law. Just plain evil.

[reddheart.livejournal.com]

I am of a mixed mind on this. I don't want people treated unfairly, but I also find it aggravating that we have enough trouble helping our own citizens, that we really can't afford to always keep helping those who are not here legally, no matter how noble the intent.

On the one hand, I understand that the mother of a child wants to give them a better life. At the same time, the mother should go through the proper citizenship procedures, and if they don't do so as soon as possible, then there should be consequences for that, up to and including being sent back to their home country with their child. To not at least consider such consequences undermines the efforts of those who have gone dilligently through the effort to become full, legal citizens, no matter the difficulty.

I agree with your concerns about "where do you draw the line" With that in mind, if any changes come to the 14th, I think they need to put in a big clause that states that current folks who already carry some form of current citizenship standing will retain that standing, and that you can't go back in history and retract due to how someone's ancestors got here. (I.E, if you're already a citizen, you stay a citizen, no questions asked).

I think the US is really trying to figure out just where they can draw their line in the sand. And while I respect what people are trying to do, there is that old saying..you can't help others if you can't help yourself and yours first.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

Apparently, my uncle, who was born in the US, had a seriously hard time getting a passport because my grandmother remarried when my biological grandfather died and my stepgrandfather adopted my uncle and changed his name. This wasn't an issue for my mom and her sisters because their first names stayed the same, but my uncle's first name was also changed, and he had a hard time proving citizenship.

But if we go back to ancestors, we encounter other problems - like Native Americans whose predecessors never had any immigration documents (of course) but who can't always prove they are from the US. This push to remove more basic American rights - a push being made by the same people who shout about big government, mind - is just wrong.

[queenanthai.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* People are such frakking idiots. Unless you're First Nation/Native American, no one's ancestry is fully "American." American is barely even a nationality. We're basically mutts. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF AMERICA. MELTING POT AND WHATNOT.

Conservatives hurt my brain.