Natural Born Criminals?
At last weekend’s [Washington] state GOP Convention, the party adopted a platform including a resolution calling for a measure to deny citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. It also endorsed a guest-worker program that would require all applicants to return to their home countries first.
Nearly three years ago Michelle wrote a nasty column that closed as such:
Clearly, the custom of granting automatic citizenship at birth to children of tourists and temporary workers such as Hamdi and to countless “anchor babies” delivered by illegal aliens on American soil, undermines the integrity of citizenship – not to mention national security. Originally intended to ensure the citizenship rights of newly freed slaves and their families after the Civil War, the citizenship clause has evolved into a magnet for alien lawbreakers and a shield for terrorist infiltrators and enemy combatants.
If the courts refuse to close the birthright citizenship loopholes, Congress must. Citizenship is too precious to squander on accidental Americans in Name Only.
Anchor babies? Accidental Americans?
And to think that I agree with her that this is the greatest country in the world. What we do not agree on is whether it will survive any challenge short of our own species’ demise. Her career, being based on the politics of fear, smacks of her willingness to accept our country’s vulnerability.
Where Michelle believes that racist, isolationist policies will “save us”, I believe we have nothing to fear but our own ignorance and hatred. If Michelle has her way, our country will be transformed into a nation in which no mother would even want to bring forth life.
Isn’t Michelle an anchor baby? She says her parents immigrated here in 1970, the same year she was born. I assume her mother was already pregnant when they arrived. Pot…kettle…Michelle?
Comment by WTF — May 31, 2006 @ 10:53 pm
Terrorist infiltrators? Under the citizenship clause? Where?
Comment by blogenfreude — June 1, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
Michelle obviously needs a civics lesson. Changes to the citizenship clause would require a constitutional amendment, not a act of Congress or a court ruling.
Since she feels so strongly about “anchor babies,” I suggest Michelle renounce her American citizen, move to Manila, and “get in line.”
Comment by thelma — June 1, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Anchor babies are a myth. A mother without citizenship or other papers is still subject to deportation. The child with citizenship can stay or go with her. That’s exactly the law, so I’ve never understood this argument about “anchor babies”. There’s no entitlement to stay because of such a baby, so why do the anti-immigration folks keep harping on it?
Comment by BEG — June 1, 2006 @ 8:54 pm
The only thing Malkin ever did to “deserve” American citizenship is to be born in the U.S. She did not do anything more than a kid born in the U.S. to an illegal immigrant.
Comment by Tim — June 2, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
The precedent of jus soli goes back to 1896. I’d be curious to see the SCOTUS pleading, though: if the children of illegal immigrants aren’t ’subject to the jurisdiction’ of the US, which is the peg on which the wingnuts hang their argument, then how can they be deported?
Comment by ahem — June 5, 2006 @ 5:45 am