Deny citizenship of babies born to illegals?

It seems as though Republicans and the Tea Party are working overtime to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Do they really think this is general election winning stuff?

Actually, it might be.

But I think they would need a ruling from the Supreme Court to actually enforce any such law, since it seems to go against the general way the court has ruled before.

I don't think children born to illegals should be citizens, no matter what country they are illegally here from.

I agree. Doesn't matter if they are Mexicans or Scots. The citizenship of a baby should follow that of it's mother. If she is Mexican, then the child is a Mexican citizen and should not be an American regardless of where the birth occurred. Same holds true for an Egyptian or any other country.

But it would require FEDERAL legislation or a Constitutional amendment. Arizona does not have jurisdiction to pass such a law.

I'm just curious, by not granting the baby citizenship would that baby technically be guilty of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time??? It didn't cross any borders, just came out of the womb and already it's an illegal immigrant
Why should the child suffer for the parents' mistakes and crimes of illegally crossing a border? I think it's pretty clear a child can't possibly be held accountable for being born to a mother who crossed a border illegally.
And just which country would that child be a citizen of, since the country of birth refuses to grant citizenship?? What if the parents' country refuses to grant the child citizenship, also (some countries don't have the same law that states that if one parent is a citizen the child becomes one automatically regardless of place of birth)

I agree. I think there are some coming here illegally for that purpose. I say if they are born to illegal immigrants, then they should not be citizens.

What makes you think that the country of origin (mother's country) wouldn't grant the child citizenship?

Name one.

Any American citizen who gives birth outside the U.S. conveys her citizenship to her child.

Why do you think it is fair for businesses to thrive on bringing pregnant women into the US to give birth, just so they can have an anchor baby?

If you are an American citizen, do you think if you give birth in Mexico, your child would be a Mexican citizen?

It's a US law to pass our citizenship to children regardless of where they are born. It's not a world wide law...other countries have different laws.
I say this because a friend of my family who is a turkish immigrant gave birth in the US, she has dual citizenship, but her child was not automatically a Turkish citizen, she had to apply for naturalization for her child and it took about 2 years with the slow moving bureaucratic system for her son to be naturalized and given turkish citizenship.

Just so we're clear on this, very few countries grant citizenship to babies born to non-citizens. That is normally the provenance of the mother's country.

The only countries that I know of that have ever done so have done it to be able to conscript boy children into the army, eventually. I had a teacher who was born in South Africa to missionary parents, and they were very careful to file his citizenship as American, but still left the country before he reached the draft age.

It's so easy for others to say that we're Americans, we are better so we shouldn't take other countries' examples!!
Well I've heard that argument over and over when we're talking about health care, Europe vs. the US, and I'm usually disagreeing but this time I think I have to say, we should be proud of our constitution and our citizenship laws the way they are, because IMO they are better than most of the rest of the world, where racism is more common and immigrants are treated as outsiders, ostracized, and so citizenship is obviously not granted to their kids, and sometimes even the 4th generation of immigrants still don't have citizenship, like the Koreans in Japan for example.

I am really tired of people who believe we should just open the gates and let anyone in. We have always welcomed immigrants, but those who come here legally must have a means of self support. It's different to welcome immigrants who want to contribute to society. But the illegals don't want to contribute; they want to suck off our wealth, and I'm tired of seeing our tax dollars going for all the social programs that many of our own poor can't qualify for. That is just BS and it must stop.

Immigration of 100 years ago was different. Those people came here for a better life, yes, but they wanted to assimilate. They wanted to be American. They couldn't learn English fast enough. They contributed to our society and our culture.

Well, I agree that illegals who don't want to contribute shouldn't be here- but currently giving birth to an American child doesn't make the parent legal, so I don't see how not granting citizenship to children born to illegals will solve anything..and i have nothing against children of illegals being raised American, they will have to pay taxes if they aren't illegal, they will assimilate, and like I said it was their parents' fault for coming to the US illegally, the kids shouldn't have to pay.

I am sure Irish immigrants in the 1900s weren't thought of as assimilating at the time either, but eventually the history of their immigration, their irish american culture contributed to making what we know of as American culture today...so I don't think illegals aren't assimilating, they ARE contributing to American culture, by adding a part of their culture to our culture.

I respectfully disagree. Anchor babies are called that for a reason. A baby citizen can use that citizenship to make sure that the parent, or at least mother, is never deported, even though she came here for the express purpose of giving birth. Her anchor baby is now entitled to free education, welfare, WIC, etc........................

Illegals and many legal immigrants are not assimilating. They choose to keep their language, their culture, their dress, their holidays, their flag and their allegiance - not in addition to ours, but in place of ours. I've known and lived with many. There was a completely different attitude in the 1900s and late 1800s. They WANTED to be American as soon as possible. Today's immigrants want to be their native nationality, but live in America and take advantage of all we have to give while demanding that we accommodate their language and their customs.

*Theodore Roosevelt in a letter he wrote to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919, three days before he died.

And the Statue of Liberty is now nothing more than a really tall piece of pretty French Art.

The baby is guilty of nothing and loses nothing.

Scenario 1: Parents stay in their home country. Baby is born to parents in home country. Baby has right to citizenship of mother and/or father. This is the normal case.

Scenario 2: Parents sneak into US and exist as fugitives from justice. Baby is born to parents illegally in US. Baby has right to citizenship of mother and/or father. Baby is in same legal state as if parents had not broken the law, so baby is no worse off for illegal actions of parents.

Scenario 3: Parents sneak into US as fugitives from justice. Baby is born to parents illegally in US. Because our broken immigration system now favors "bringing families together" as opposed to brining in people who can help our economy, we are stuck with an "American" baby with parents who are illegal aliens. Win for criminals, loss for us.

There are plenty of illegals who are hard working people with a decent work ethic and I'd like to see us find a way to get those people integrated, and toss out the bloodsuckers and crooks who have no intention of assimilating or even trying to be decent citizens. As long as we allow their babies to become US citizens we are stuck, unless we want to keep the babies and throw out the parents.

I am not a constitutional scholar but to me the wording of the amendment is clear in excluding children born to illegal aliens:

If you are physically present in the US as the child of a fugitive from justice, ie you have not presented yourself to immigration officials to enter legally, then you are not subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

So the US has no jurisdiction over this child? Immunity by birth? That's an interesting view.

Hey I tried asking on the other thread and no one answered so I'll try again here. What happens in the hypothetical case of a baby born to someone in the process of entering the US who has not cleared passport control? As far as I know, consulates and embassies are not considered within the jurisdiction of the US, so what about that no-man's-land in airports and sea ports?

Which is why the "Birther" arguments about the President are meaningless.

We're forgetting about the welfare of the kids involved here.

What if the illegal immigrants aren't discovered till the child is 3 or 5 or 10years old, or god-forbid an adult?

What if the child doesn't speak or read their parents' native tongue well-enough to function in that society? Are we going to up and return them to their parents' country?

Should the kids be responsible for turning in their parents?

Just to give an example:

living in Okinawa, every HS where I teach has several students who are what they call here 'half'. One parent (usually the father) was an American service member. Often these relationships don't work out. Often the children wind up being raised by their mother or other family member who is Japanese in Okinawa. When they reach 18 they are legally supposed to make a choice since neither the US nor Japan recognizes dual citizenship. Most choose to stay in Okinawa as it is the only home they've known, even though becuase of their appearance they may often be treated as if they themselves are foreigners. (a couple of my students tried to convince me one day that their 'half' classmate was American not Japanese). Sometimes depending on the contact or lack thereof they've had with their American parent they don't speak English. Even if they speak it, often they can't read or write well enough in that language to function professionally.

They're not forgetting it...they're ignoring it. It's much easier to take a hard stance when you ignore the implications.

How is the baby not worse off- the baby came into this world in a foreign country which it's not a citizen of and becomes raised as an illegal alien?? When it didn't choose to go to a foreign country the parents made that choice.
The way I see it, if a Mexican citizen is born in the US and the parents keep him or her there as an illegal alien against their will (since kids don't have much of a choice)-then that Mexican child is a victim of its parents' choices... I mean, the same happens with children to immigrants who are born in their countries and they bring them to the US illegally.

The reason I say this is because a girl who is 19 was kicked out of college here recently because she's an illegal immigrant, she was here for 15 years and now she has to go back to Mexico, because her parents decided to screw up her life, I'm sure they weren't thinking about this when they crossed the border illegally, they thought they would all be better off, but what did she do wrong?? Now she can't continue her education, she wasted a year of her life and is faced with living in a country where she isn't even fully literate in the language- she can speak it but can't write it Sooo tin my eyes she's a victim but she is treated like a criminal and is being deported
This case was very famous here and the girl's sorority organized a demonstration protesting her deportation...

A LOT of parents make stupid choices for their kids and the kids suffer for them. Are we supposed to take care of all the kids whose parents made the choice to violate immigration laws and who didn't quite get away with it? What about the kids of stupid American parents who are here legally and whose parents made other types of bad choices for them? Is the government responsible for fixing their mistakes too? I'm normally pretty liberal about these things but there comes a point where I say people are responsible for their own choices and that includes dumb choices made by your family on your behalf. Life is not fair and the government shouldn't have to step in and fix everyone's stupidity, least of all those made by foreign criminals.
The girl you are talking about sounds like a victim of dumb parents, not the US.

I suspect most people talking about how well assimilation worked in the 1800 and 1900's have never taken a really in-depth US history course - for example, lots of people don't realize there was a Chinese Exclusion Act back in the days of the Gold Rush. Or how Americans of German ancestry were treated during the world wars - or the Japanese, of course.

And, any historical account will point out that the Irish were definitely considered trash and a major threat to the US. And, let's not forget how long it took to elect a Roman Catholic President - and there were many Americans who were violently against him, his ethnicity, and his religion - and still are, actually.

Racists and the pathologically xenophobic sometimes have short-term wins, but historically history is not with them, as far as I can see.

Denying them American citizenship is not punishing them in any way. There should be no reason they should become an American citizen just because the mother happened to go into labor on American soil. Currently anchor babies are being used as an excuse (and a good one at that) to keep families together by not deporting the baby's illegal parents. Splitting families would not be as big an issue if there were no anchor babies, and all children carried the citizenship of the mother regardless of where the birth occurred.

A great liberal talking point (are you sure you're not on moveon's mailing list?) but hooey nonetheless.

I know of very few Americans who oppose immigration. I know plenty who oppose illegal immigration. And there are good reasons why that type of immigration is illegal (that is, contrary to the laws of our land). For one thing, it makes a shambles of many of our economic structures.

When that statue was erected, there was no such thing as "illegal" immigration. The only thing that would keep people out of the US was contagious disease and sedition.

Those conservatives are quick to refer to the founding fathers, the fact that those same founding fathers would have been appalled by the idea that their descendants would imposed limits to immigration is lost on them.

Ok, let me ask a question. The mother was japanese but the father was American. Was the father granted citizenship just because he had a child born in Japan? I feel bad for the child, but the mother was already a Japanese citizen so that holds no ground (IMO) in this debate. That was the mother's bad choice, and I feel sorry for the child if they aren't accepted but they did get to make a choice at age 18. They chose to stay at home.

I have no problem if one of the parents is already an American citizen. I have no problem with dual citizenship of the baby if the parent's are here legally (ie, visitor visa's, work visa's, green cards, etc). I have a major problem with families breaking the law and sneaking over the boarder just to have a baby that will keep them here because the baby is automatically a US citizen.

One of my good friends in high school was born in Germany. Her father was in the military and stationed there but she was born off base during a short (and very eventful) vacation in the countryside. So she had dual citizenship and had to make a choice by age 18. Her parents were NOT granted citizenship simply because of that. That is the way it should be.

I'm sorry, but if an illegal citizen has a baby in the US where it is documented in a hospital then unless the mother or father can show proof of legal documentation then the parents should go and the baby will be place up for adoption or the parents can take the baby back with them. If the baby is born in the middle of a desert or in someone's trailer there is no proof that the baby was born on US soil so they all should go.

Heartless? Yes. Will it happen? No. But, we definitely have to crack down somewhere. Maybe if illegals realize that their baby won't be a free ticket to the US and to welfare/WIC/free college degrees/ etc, then MAYBE some of them won't come here.

Where are you getting this "fact?" Have you talked to them recently?