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twitterLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Our birthright laws don’t make sense
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.
Regarding Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun story, “More welfare going to parents here illegally”:
Our government has avoided addressing our antiquated birthright laws for decades, forcing us to support welfare against our will. In reality, a significant percentage of illegal immigrants come here because they know they can have children and avoid deportation because the children are U.S. citizens. And we pay the hospital bills.
Our representatives have copped out on changing this ridiculous policy for decades. Children born on U.S. soil should be citizens of the mothers’ countries unless the fathers are legal residents or U.S. citizens, as in most other countries.
Many think we should feel sorry for ourselves for allowing politicians to represent us who are unwilling to address this problem!
Discussion: 33 comments so far…
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Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
The Late Great United States
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Might as well delete that from the statue because it sure doesn't speak for the people in this country anymore.
VegasStudent-that phrase has never represented anything related to official United States law or policy. That statue was given to us by France and represents their opinion only. This is supposed to be a nation based on law and the hoards of undesirables flooding this country are in fact breaking the law. I do agree though that that statement should be removed, and replaced with "no illegal criminals allowed".
Maybe vegasstudent didn't see the small print that said... This is a country of laws, so if you want to relocate to the U.S. do it in a legal way...
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
_____________
Yeah, Vegas would be real sweet with another 2 to 3 million people living here. But, seriously this birthrite thing is ridiculous. If you are a non-citizen (especially if you're here illegally) and you give birth, the baby should assume the citizenship of the mother from whatever country she's from. Allowing for automatic citizenship if you were born here may have had a purpose a long time ago, but it has since outlived it's usefulness and become an area ripe for abuse and should be sent to the trash bin. But, it won't be considering the Democrat party is always on the hunt for votes and potential voters.
Hey vegasstudent: Someday when your not so young and naive anymore you just might understand what real responsibility in life is.
jib101: Wrong as usual!
The inscription on the statue of liberty is part of a poem written by an american, Emma Lazarus, to help raise money for construction of the base for the statue which was America's responsibility for accepting the gift from France. It was not part of the exhibit when the statue was dedicated in 1886. A friend of the author (another American) campaigned to have the phrase taken from Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus", "Give us your tired, etc......, added to the site in 1903.
You must be a registered Republican as your ability to twist facts falls right in line with that party's way of doing business.
I don't agree with our birthright citizenship policy either. I do like debate when facts are not abused.
I am a registered Liberterian and have been so for over 30 years. I believe in individual freedom above anything else. The statue of liberty should be torn down, melted and sent back to France as it has outlived stupid idea. This country does not need any more people at all. Which party are you registered in, The Communists of the Socialists?
And I would like to add that the birthright law is also creating thousands and thousands of duel citizens. For when these kids grow up they can sponsor all of their relatives. From that one person there is at least 200 or more people that will be allowed into the US. Do the math yourself. That adds up to millions of extra people
stemming from this one illegal birth on US soil.
Dear vegasstudent:
You are quite right, that is what the Lady-Liberty stands for, freedom from Archons, from oppression, from cynical people like those who attack you for posting a FACT.
Your comment is on point, it points out that some Americas have become contemptuous, evidenced by the four following bloggers who can't help exposing themselves, their need to trample your post without concern for your privilege of posting or American principles and the first amendment. Even though you didn't address your post to anyone of them, as I am not addressing this to them either, they will need to pompously address us.
Their self-righteous summa cum laude egos need adulation, that's why they talk down to you, me, or anyone with and independent thought, after they read this post. Rest assured I don't sweat the small stuff, as I consider these hot air thread attacks. Keep posting regardless of who disagrees with you.
Phargo -- amen to that.
vegasstudent -- used that bit myself here. The reaction from the herd speaks for itself.
jlb101 -- when America still wanted to be filled up that plaque was, and still is, an invitation. That's what America was originally founded for - freedom from the oppression of European governments, mostly the crowns' habit of acting arbitrarily. Personally, I disagree with any suggestion to remove it. Rather, this country requires a sea-change in attitude and policy back to its founding principles. Chief among them is government's primary purpose, found in both the federal and many states' Constitution Preambles, to secure liberty for us all. Currently government at every level, from the federal to the municipal, is in a headlong rush to the polar opposite.
LarryVegas -- yes, we are a "government of laws, and not of men." But you should post that in its original context as Justice Marshall wrote it in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).
WillieTanner -- you get a cookie for your excellent post.
All -- don't forget this is a nation founded by white European colonists who showed up here, the early ones with a severely militaristic Catholic agenda to rape, pillage and plunder. The inhabitants were considered pagans and subject to extermination by the Requerimiento (it's on Wikipedia). That policy was not relaxed, it just took new form when the original 13 colonies pushed west. President Andrew Jackson was a notorious Indian hater. Custer richly deserved that massacre. Good Christians like Colonel John M. Chivington were more the norm than not -- with his Bible in one hand and a bloody saber in the other, he considered it his sworn duty to slaughter Indians, especially Colorado's Cheyenne. His legacy is the Sand Creek Massacre.
Like it or not, fellow great whites, our REAL American history is the slaughter of all the non-whites who got in the way of our "manifest destiny." Even while we sang our hymns and said our "amens" when the Ten Commandments were preached.
The point -- all this here just shows in the 21st Century, as a People we really haven't changed.
jib101: I have no party affiliation and never will have one again since leaving the Republican party after Nixon and his band of thieves were kicked out.
vegasstudent/Gunslinger; Great post/great comment.
GunslingerA10 -- and amen to that, too!
You know what is antiquated, the immigration laws. If people want to work in this country, it should be easy to just pay your way and get taxed for the rest. But no, you have to pay illegal coyotes to help you cross the border, where they can force you into slavery. Use the Canadian system to pay fees to be here and make it simpler to be here. If you make birthright belong to the mother's country. I would have never been a born an American (she's is Filipino & immigrated after marrying my US Citizen father)nor would most Italians, Jews, Irish, Germans, Russians, Mexican, & any other person that wanted a better life for their families.If you did have the way, the article writer desires, then we could make a whole new slavery class of people. Oh wait, we already have that with people having to migrate here in the middle of the night to have a better life. Get these people out of shadows and give them amnesty like Ronald Reagan did on 1986!!!!
Welfare is unfair regardless of citizenship. Too many people have kids and live off the rest of us. I do not care where they are from. It is wrong.
Nick -- it's always been human nature to take the easy way, especially for one's daily bread. When this country headed into socialism as part of Roosevelt's New Deal, then the welfare state created in the 60s with Johnson's Great Society, who can blame anyone for getting in line?
If you want to question welfare I suggest you turn your attention to the bailouts of the last two years. That's "living off the rest of us" on a scale dwarfing social welfare -- feeding and housing families. Yeah, this barely scratches the surface, but look to the source -- Congressional creation of entitlements and unfunded mandates, most of it beyond its authority to make those laws.
Gunslinger, people also have a right under the first amendment to disagree with you, vegasstudent or anyone else in this forum. Or has that fact escaped your politically correct mind? The bottom line here is regardless of all the handwringing about Andrew Jackson being an "Indian hater" is that this is the 21st century not the 19th or whatever. You can't continue to give benefits to people who came here illegally and expect the system to survive and that includes their offspring. The fact is illegal aliens are milking the system through their legal citizen children. This is not right, it's not fair and needs to come to a stop before things collapse.
RHG: Things did almost collapse, but it had nothing to do with illegal immigrants. It had everything to do with greedy capitalists gone wild with no regard for the average american.
Don't let the boogyman, Dobbs, Limbaugh, Beck & Hannity scare you too much or we'll all be paying $8 bucks for a tomato.
$2 or $8 a tomato, it's still too much. Its enough we have good farmland going to waste in California because they don't want to recycle the water or desalination plants on the coastal cities to have more water to farming.
$2 or $8 a tomato, it's still too much. Its enough we have good farmland going to waste in California because they don't want to recycle the water or desalination plants on the coastal cities to have more water for farming.
Italians, Irish, Gremans, etc. Why would they want to come here? They live in socialist paradise where the government provides everything for them. Except freedom I guess. I know no Cubans want to come here though.
Freedom? What freedom? To be impoverished for healthcare!
RHG:
PC has not eluded me in the slightest, if you must have the "crib notes" here they are for you, applaud in public, chastise in private. If you have a disagreement of opinion, choose to disagree, but there is no reason for anyone to call-out anyone else for posting their opinion, opinions are like as holes everyone has one, me included; is that PC enough for you.
There is no need to address me or anyone else on these threads except the author/writer of the article, just post at will, with freedom to flavor and spice your servings.
Think of the white board as though it were a playground, make friends, support ideas, reveal new perspectives, bring things from out side of the box to share with us.
Don't for one minute try to feed that- your post is not good to me though, you can feed that to your pals, to your BF/GF, or your shrink, just don't come around thinking you will get away with trying to bully bloggers into you point.
If I make a bigoted (protected eight) comment call me out by username, if I out and out lie about a black and white issue in the article, you can point that out too, without addressing me.
It is not a disservice to the general public to be at odds on an issue that is thought provoking; it is however, a "kettle of fish" to be at odds on an unsupportable issue that has no bedrock.
Now, let's focus on the article and come up with ideas we can use to make America a better place for everyone who lives here.
Here's the problem you guys. Anyone here remember that old thing called "The Constitution"? Has anyone here read it lately? How about ever? Ah, still no hands.
What a shame, because if you had, you might have noticed that, like the right to own a gun, free speech and all that other progressive stuff, it's the Constitution that says anyone born here is a citizen. It was put there when the country was born, and predates the Bill of Rights. Would you like to discuss what the framers had in mind when they wrote that? Perhaps Clarence Thomas will explain it to you.
This is just ANOTHER problem with this illegal immigration. Illegal aliens are destroying this Country, and one has to be alnost blind not to see this.
Illegal aliens have made America the dumping ground for all their illegal alien children, then we have to school them and give them free medical care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSe3C5vMa...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ZnX9JRo...
How can you ILLEGALLY enter this Country and be rewarded with the precious gift of U.S. citizenship for a crime that the ILLEGAL ALIEN has committed by ILLEGALLY trespassing onto this Country. It makes no sense to me.
I for one, am sick and tired of these illegal aliens snubbing their nose at our immigration laws and the many other laws of this Country. If our Federal Government can not ENFORCE our immigration laws, and get these illegal aliens out of this Country, then let the States do it! One way or another, an end has to come to this illegal immigration, and not with AMNESTY! Amnesty will only encourage more illegal aliens to invade our Country and reward those who broke our laws and raped the American taxpayer in many ways...depressing our wages, taking our jobs, overwhelming our schools with their ILLEGAL ALIEN children, driving without a license or car insurance, all the crime from stolen identities to rape, drugs and everything else.
It's time for ZERO TOLERENCE with these illegal aliens. It's time for them get out of this Country and back in their own Country where they belong. When we get rid of the illegal aliens, we will get rid of all the problems that go with them. THAT IS A FACT!
Delaware_B -- unless you're at least registered with a tribe, go back and ask the same question of your first ancestor to show up on this continent.
You bigots must be organized -- your posts read a lot alike.
Wasn't the Constitution meant to be a "living document" in that it can and should be amended as the circumstances require?
Then does the immigration law that is in use today, come from one of those ammendments?
There are certain circumstances under which citizenship can be revoked. I believe one of those conditions has to do with a failure to obey the laws of the land.
Inviting huddled masses may not be very appropriate at this particular time. Perhaps it is time to look at ways to discourage an influx of more people in a time when this country is in a "famine" as far as work is concerned.
Streamline the Worker Visa process to allow people to work here legally. Offer these Visas to everyone already in the country. Prohibit the ability to become a citizen by those who are here illegally.
They can work here forever, who cares? If they can find a job they can stay. But because they broke the law, no citizenship. NEVER
"You must be a registered Republican as your ability to twist facts falls right in line with that party's way of doing business."
Yes, and it's common knowledge that the Democrats are above reproach. They would never lie or twist the facts.
"There are certain circumstances under which citizenship can be revoked. I believe one of those conditions has to do with a failure to obey the laws of the land."
destruct_mutt -- before you get stuck on that idea I urge you to consider what's found in these two links:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/2...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_...
My point is how "crime" is defined. Currently it is fast becoming meaningless. Example -- Washington recently made buying tobacco online a FELONY. Not a fine, but a high crime that strips one of all rights (including the right to vote and anything connected to weapons and ammunition, then the continued government supervision over every detail of one's life -- probation. You don't have to dig far to find other utterly unConstitutional and even absurd examples. That's why I keep posting that Jefferson quote. If no one's hurt there is no crime, period.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)
KillerB
Followed the links. interesting reading. Sensenbrenner is a "loose cannon" and a lawyer. Go figure that he would pass more "bad" laws, thereby creating a ton of work for other lawyers.
"It is also possible to forfeit U.S. citizenship upon conviction for an act of treason against the United States." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_citizens...)
There are other circumstances having to do with tax evasion mostly but the one above would be the provision used if one was to do so.
In any case, I was not advocating taking away citizenship, merely wanting to infer that there are provisions for establishing citizenship as well as losing it.
It was irresponsible on my part to cut a corner on my post and I am happy to clarify.
destruct_ -- interesting point you brought up about treason. If normal people's logic were followed how many public official and their agents should be charged? Except they've created that legal fiction of immunity -- despite some excellent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the contrary, especially one from about a hundred years ago, Old Colony -- and they have legions of attorneys ready to defend them against any of us little people who dare to sue. I know that first hand -- I've sued judges in several cases. Every time the judiciary circles their wagons to defend their own. You can't even get past the dispositive motions, despite all the law on the citizen's side. Frightening how easily it's brushed aside.
Glad you clarified.
destruct--Wasn't the Constitution meant to be a "living document" in that it can and should be amended as the circumstances require?
yes, but only if the change benefits those on the left and moves us closer to socialism and redistribution of wealth!