See other Immigration Articles
Title: Ann Coulter: FOX NEWS Anchored In Stupidity On 14th Amendment
Source:
[None]
URL Source: http://www.vdare.com/articles/ann-c ... in-stupidity-on-14th-amendment
Published: Aug 20, 2015
Author: ANN
Post Date: 2015-08-20 14:45:09 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
Keywords: None
Views: 421
Comments: 21
Based on the hysterical flailing at Donald Trump—He’s a buffoon! He’s a clown! He calls people names! He’s too conservative! He’s not conservative enough! He won’t give details! His details won’t work!—I gather certain Republicans are determined to drive him from the race. These same Republicans never object to other candidates who lack traditional presidential resumes—Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain, to name a few. I’m beginning to suspect it’s all about Trump’s opposition to mass immigration from the Third World. Amid the hysteria, Trump is the only one speaking clearly and logically, while his detractors keep making utter asses of themselves. By my count—so far—Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry and the entire Fox News commentariat are unfamiliar with a period of the nation’s history known as “the Civil War.” They seem to believe that the post-Civil War amendments were designed to ensure that the children of illegal aliens would be citizens, “anchor babies,” who can then bring in the whole family. (You wouldn’t want to break up families, would you?) As FNC’s Bill O’Reilly authoritatively informed Donald Trump on Tuesday night: “The 14th Amendment says if you’re born here, you’re an American!” I cover anchor babies in about five pages of my book, Adios, America, but apparently Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the scholars on Fox News aren’t what we call “readers.” Still, how could anyone—even a not-very-bright person—imagine that granting citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is actually in our Constitution? I know the country was exuberant after the war, but I really don’t think our plate was so clear that Americans were consumed with passing a constitutional amendment to make illegal aliens’ kids citizens. Put differently: Give me a scenario—just one scenario—where guaranteeing the citizenship of children born to illegals would be important to Americans in 1868. You can make it up. It doesn’t have to be a true scenario. Any scenario! You know what’s really bothering me? If someone comes into the country illegally and has a kid, that kid should be an American citizen! Damn straight they should! We’ve got to codify that. YOU MEAN IT’S NOT ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION? No, it isn’t, but that amendment will pass like wildfire! It’s like being accused of robbing a homeless person. (1) I didn’t; (2) WHY WOULD I DO THAT? “Luckily,” as FNC’s Shannon Bream put it Monday night, Fox had an “expert” to explain the details: Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox’s senior judicial analyst. Napolitano at least got the century right. He mentioned the Civil War—and then went on to inform Bream that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to—I quote—”make certain that the former slaves and the Native Americans would be recognized as American citizens no matter what kind of prejudice there might be against them.” Huh. In 1884, 16 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, who—as you may have surmised by his name—was an Indian, had to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he was an American citizen because he was born in the United States. He lost. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship. The “main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the court explained—and not for the first or last time—”was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black … should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” American Indians were not made citizens until 1924. Lo those 56 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, Indians were not American citizens, despite the considered opinion of Judge Napolitano. Of course it’s easy for legal experts to miss the welter of rulings on Indian citizenship inasmuch as they obtained citizenship in a law perplexingly titled: “THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924.” Yeah, Trump’s the idiot. Or as Bream said to Napolitano after his completely insane analysis, “I feel smarter just having been in your presence.” The only reason the 14th Amendment doesn’t just come out and say “black people” is that—despite our Constitution being the product of vicious racists, who were dedicated to promoting white privilege and keeping down the black man (Hat tip: Ta-Nehisi Coates)—the Constitution never, ever mentions race. Nonetheless, until Fox News’ scholars weighed in, there was little confusion about the purpose of the 14th Amendment. It was to “correct”—as Jack Nicholson said in “The Shining”—the Democrats, who refused to acknowledge that they lost the Civil War and had to start treating black people like citizens. On one hand, we have noted legal expert Bill O’Reilly haranguing Donald Trump: “YOU WANT ME TO QUOTE YOU THE AMENDMENT??? IF YOU’RE BORN HERE YOU’RE AN AMERICAN. PERIOD! PERIOD!” (No, Bill—there’s no period. More like: “comma,” to parents born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “and of the state wherein they reside.”) But on the other hand, we have Justice John Marshall Harlan II, who despite not being a Fox News legal expert, was no slouch. He wrote in the 1967 case, Afroyim v. Rusk, that the sponsors of the 14th Amendment feared that: “Unless citizenship were defined, freedmen might, under the reasoning of the Dred Scott decision, be excluded by the courts from the scope of the amendment. It was agreed that, since the ‘courts have stumbled on the subject,’ it would be prudent to remove the ‘doubt thrown over’ it. The clause would essentially overrule Dred Scott and place beyond question the freedmen’s right of citizenship because of birth.” It is true that in a divided 1898 case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court granted citizenship to the children born to legal immigrants, with certain exceptions, such as for diplomats. But that decision was so obviously wrong, even the Yale Law Journal ridiculed it. The majority opinion relied on feudal law regarding citizenship in a monarchy, rather than the Roman law pertaining to a republic—the illogic of which should be immediately apparent to American history buffs, who will recall an incident in our nation’s history known as “the American Revolution.” Citizenship in a monarchy was all about geography—as it is in countries bristling with lords and vassals, which should not be confused with this country. Thus, under the majority’s logic in Wong Kim Ark, children born to American parents traveling in England would not be American citizens, but British subjects. As ridiculous as it was to grant citizenship to the children born to legal immigrants under the 14th Amendment (which was about what again? That’s right: slaves freed by the Civil War), that’s a whole order of business different from allowing illegal aliens to sneak across the border, drop a baby and say, Ha-ha! You didn’t catch me! My kid’s a citizen—while Americans curse impotently under their breath. As the Supreme Court said in Elk: “[N]o one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent.” The anchor baby scam was invented 30 years ago by a liberal zealot, Justice William Brennan, who slipped a footnote into a 1982 Supreme Court opinion announcing that the kids born to illegals on U.S. soil are citizens. Fox News is treating Brennan’s crayon scratchings on the Constitution as part of our precious national inheritance. Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is America’s most-cited federal judge—and, by the way, no friend to conservatives. In 2003, he wrote a concurrence simply in order to demand that Congress pass a law to stop “awarding citizenship to everyone born in the United States.” The purpose of the 14th Amendment, he said, was “to grant citizenship to the recently freed slaves,” adding that “Congress would not be flouting the Constitution” if it passed a law “to put an end to the nonsense.” In a statement so sane that Posner is NEVER going to be invited on Fox News, he wrote: “We should not be encouraging foreigners to come to the United States solely to enable them to confer U.S. citizenship on their future children. But the way to stop that abuse of hospitality is to remove the incentive by changing the rule on citizenship.” Forget the intricate jurisprudential dispute between Fox News blowhards and the most-cited federal judge. How about basic common sense? Citizenship in our nation is not a game of Red Rover with the Border Patrol! The Constitution does not say otherwise. Our history and our Constitution are being perverted for the sole purpose of dumping immigrants on the country to take American jobs. So far, only Donald Trump is defending black history on the issue of the 14th Amendment. Fox News is using black people as a false flag to keep cheap Third World labor flowing. Ann Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. She is the author of TEN New York Times bestsellers—collect them here.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#3. To: HAPPY2BME-4UM (#0)
(Edited)
C-SPAN linked Map: Countries that Recognize Birthright Citizenship -- only America and Canada of the West and First World categories ... basically a map reflective of the "North American Union" agendists planning to sprawl/redistrict their control grid eventually into the "North and South Americas Union"
Washington Journal | News Headlines | Viewer Calls - Video - C-SPAN.org AUGUST 20, 2015 [Yesterday morning - 1 hour video of the program below + at the site with transcript included] Open Phones News headlines were read and phone lines were open for viewer calls on the question: “Should the U.S. end birthright citizenship?” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley also spoke by phone about the history of the 14th Amendment and arguments both for and against birthright citizenship.
C-SPAN linked article with Youtube video [4.75 minutes]: Video: Jon Feere - Birthright Citizenship: Is it the Right Policy for America? - YouTube Published on Jul 29, 2015 by CIS Testimony [Center for Immigration Studies] Statement of Jon Feere Article: Birthright Citizenship: Is it the Right Policy for America?; Excerpts: By Jon Feere April 2015 U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary While it is unclear for how long the U.S. government has followed this practice of universal, automatic “birthright citizenship” without regard to the duration or legality of the mother’s presence, the issue has garnered increased attention for a number of reasons. there has been a bipartisan effort to end birthright citizenship legislatively. Multiple legislative efforts to clarify the appropriate scope of the Citizenship Clause have been proposed by both Republican and Democrat politicians, as there remains much debate about who should be considered “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. In 1993, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation what would limit birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens and legally resident aliens, and similar bills have been introduced by other legislators in nearly every Congress since. Few Countries Grant Automatic Citizenship to Children of Illegal Immigrants Only 30 of the world’s 194 countries grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens.8 Of advanced economies, as rated by the International Monetary Fund, Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens. No European country grants automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens. The global trend is moving away from automatic birthright citizenship as many countries that once had such policies have ended them in recent decades. Countries that have ended universal birthright citizenship include the United Kingdom, which ended the practice in 1983, Australia (1986), India (1987), Malta (1989), Ireland, which ended the practice through a national referendum in 2004, New Zealand (2006), and the Dominican Republic, which ended the practice in January 2010. The reasons countries have ended automatic birthright citizenship are diverse, but have resulted from concerns not all that different from the concerns of many in the United States. Increased illegal immigration is the main motivating factor in most countries. Birth tourism was one of the reasons Ireland ended automatic birthright citizenship in 2004.9 If the United States were to stop granting automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, it would be following an international trend. Some countries which currently recognize automatic birthright citizenship are considering changing the policy. Mexico has a unique citizenship policy in that the country’s constitution grants automatic nationality to anyone born in Mexico, but not automatic citizenship. This is true even of children born to Mexican citizens. When a Mexican reaches the age of 18, they then acquire citizenship. Mexican government officials with whom I spoke were uncertain how often their country grants nationality or citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. The effort Mexico makes to discourage immigration indicates that this may be a rare occurrence. For example, the Mexican Constitution, among other things, allows the government to expel any immigrant for any reason without due process.14 The constitution also severely limits the property rights of immigrants and requires immigrants to get permission from the government to own land; even if permission is granted, the immigrant can never own land within 100 kilometers of land borders nor land within 50 kilometers of the coasts.15 An immigrant wishing to change these rules will have difficulty as the Mexican Constitution states that only citizens are entitled to participate in Mexico’s political affairs.16 Even with Mexico’s form of birthright citizenship, any child born to illegal immigrants or even legal immigrants in Mexico is barred from becoming president of Mexico; not only must the Mexican president be born in Mexico, but so must at least one of his parents.17 While Mexico may grant citizenship to children born to illegal aliens, the nation’s constitution clearly imputes a second-class status on children of immigrants. Additionally, many countries which do recognize birthright citizenship are not necessarily quick to grant citizenship to all people within their jurisdiction. It is also important to remember that some of the countries which do automatically grant citizenship to children of illegal immigrants may not have much illegal immigration at all. For this reason, comparing countries like Fiji to the United States, for example, may be somewhat disingenuous; Fiji has an estimated illegal immigrant population of 2,000 people, while the United States has an estimated illegal immigrant population of up to 12 million.18 Moreover, not all countries which recognize birthright citizenship allow the child to initiate chain migration by petitioning to have additional family members enter. Consequently, some countries are able to avoid some of the problems associated with birthright citizenship experienced in the United States. Perhaps most instructive is the clarity with which most other nations have authored their respective citizenship laws. Most countries’ citizenship laws contain very little ambiguity and do not require one to conduct a historical analysis or seek judicial clarification for the purpose of determining intent. A Constitutional Amendment Is Not Necessary To Change the Scope of the Citizenship Clause A constitutional amendment would likely be necessary if the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause clearly directed citizenship be granted to children of temporary aliens. However, there is no evidence that Congress intended that children of tourists or illegal aliens, for example, be included within the scope of the Citizenship Clause. Some argue that Congress cannot pass legislation relating to matters addressed in the Constitution in an attempt to change the scope or interpretation of amendments. Of course, Congress routinely considers legislation relating to constitutional amendments When it comes to the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, there are volumes of writings on the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, which would seem to open up the door to some legislative clarification. Furthermore, in the case of the Citizenship Clause, the Congress that authored the amendment had never contemplated the phenomenon of illegal immigration or birth tourism, making it hard to conclude that the Citizenship Clause was designed to include the children of such individuals. In fact, there has been a bipartisan effort to end birthright citizenship legislatively. Multiple legislative efforts to clarify the appropriate scope of the Citizenship Clause have been proposed by both Republican and Democrat politicians, as there remains much debate about who should be considered “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. In 1993, Sen. Harry Reid (D- Nev.) introduced legislation what would limit birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens and legally resident aliens, and similar bills have been introduced by other legislators in nearly every Congress since. It may be the case that even legislation is not necessary to change birthright citizenship policy. It is arguable that the Executive Branch could change the way in which the 14th Amendment is applied, particularly in light of President Obama’s recent unilateral [Nullification] actions on immigration. Birth Tourists, the Obama Administration’s Policies, and Fraud Birth tourists interpret the 14th Amendment as a means to obtain residency for anyone who travels to the United States on any type of visa. Obviously, our visa systems were not designed to operate in this manner, What irks Americans about this situation is that birth tourists are effectively taking control over U.S. immigration and citizenship policy by turning a grant of temporary admission into a permanent stay. The practice of granting automatic birthright citizenship allows a seemingly temporary admission of one foreign visitor to result in a permanent increase in immigration and grants of citizenship that were not necessarily contemplated or welcomed by the American public. The growth of the birth tourism industry illustrates how the executive branch’s broad application of the Citizenship Clause can have the effect of transferring control over the nation’s immigration policy from the American people to foreigners. And there is broad agreement within the immigration debate that birth tourism does constitute fraud. it is fraud for a person to travel here as a tourist and conceal their real purpose, namely to add a U.S. passport holder to their family, a broad interpretation of our nation’s birthright citizenship clause is creating situations that threaten to break down the nation’s social cohesion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 896,363 women who gave birth in 2012 indicated that they were born outside of the United States. If only 2 or 3 percent of these births were to women who are engaging in birth tourism, it would mean the United States sees 18,000 to 27,000 births annually. While this number would be less than 1 percent of the roughly four million annual births in the United States, the aggregate number of birth tourists babies would still be large, especially the cumulative effect over a number of years. Some government agencies consider U.S. birth certificates and SSNs to indicate U.S. citizenship, despite the fact that children of foreign diplomats are receiving them. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a “birth certificate provides proof of citizenship.” I spoke with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) which oversees employment for government jobs requiring U.S. citizenship. Since the U.S. is granting documents that give the appearance of U.S. citizenship to anyone and everyone at birth, the only option for OPM (and underlying agencies seeking employees) at this point would be to run the names of all job applicants through the State Department before clearing a person as an authorized U.S. citizen. Of course, this would be a significant undertaking, and it would depend on the State Department having a complete list of all children born to foreign diplomats — something that does not appear to be happening. There are more problems with this lack of focus on the birthright citizenship issue as it relates to children of foreign diplomats and they are detailed in the reported mentioned earlier, but one more point is worth noting: USCIS considers children born to foreign diplomats to be Legal Permanent Residents (LPR) at birth, though that was not always the case (8 § C.F.R. 1101.3). A couple of unpublished, decades-old court decisions made this so, and it is a questionable grant, not just because it raises plenary power issues (i.e. the right of the political branches to set immigration policy), but also because it seems to go against the intent of the 14th Amendment. Prior to these decisions, the government considered these children non-immigrants. The State Department is currently rewriting the agency’s guidelines on birthright citizenship, signaling a possibly significant departure from current 14th Amendment jurisprudence. In 1995, the State Department’s “Foreign Affairs Manual” (FAM) straightforwardly declared that children born on U.S. soil to foreign diplomats are not to be considered U.S. citizens While the reasoning attempts to push the idea that being “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same thing as being susceptible to police force, such an interpretation is implausible.31
Great post. Thanks.
There are no replies to Comment # 9. End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#4. To: All (#3)
(Edited)
#8. To: All (#4)
(Edited)
Center for Immigration Studies
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
April 29, 2015
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
April 29, 2015
Statement of Jon Feere
Center for Immigration Studies Every year, 350,000 to 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the United States. To put this another way, as many as one out of 10 births in the United States is now to an illegal immigrant mother. Despite the foreign citizenship and illegal status of the parent, the Executive Branch automatically recognizes these children as U.S. citizens upon birth, providing them Social Security numbers and U.S. passports. The same is true of children born to tourists and other aliens who are present in the United States in a legal but temporary status. It is unlikely that Congress intended such a broad application of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, and the Supreme Court has only held that children born to citizens or permanently domiciled immigrants must be considered U.S. citizens at birth. Some clarity from Congress would be helpful in resolving this ongoing debate.
#9. To: GreyLmist (#8)
Replies to Comment # 9.