If you are born here, you're a citizen.

[trof]

OK, I'm just spitballing.
I haven't googled or wikied this.
I'm sure there may be answers there.

But I just wonder why we have this deal?
Not that it matters that much, but do other countries have this?

I'm not pro or con.
Just curious.
DU is my Go To to hear from some of our scholars and historians.
Comments?

Thank you.

[treestar]

1. at the time of the founders, they wanted more people to come

I suppose in those days there would be no good way to keep track of who was who anyway. They didn't limit immigration then. They wanted more citizens. In those days there was not much people could do to control the borders anyway.

[trof]

3. That's kinda what I thought.

We (U.S.), an new nation, needed warm bodies.
Craftsmen, workers.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The birthright idea originated with English common law.

The US didn't make it up - it's much older than the 14th Amendment.

[trof]

9. OK. Thanks.

I have a friend who was born in the U.S. of English parents.
Here on green cards.
Physicians.

He was immediately both a U.S. 'citizen' and a British 'subject'.
His parents eventually became U.S. citizens, but still have two passports, as does he.

Once a 'subject' always a subject?
My head hurts.

[Cleita]

13. I had a friend who had an English father and American mother and

she was born in Chile. She had three passports.

[trof]

20. My friend born here of English parents now has two kids.

His wife is Canadian. The kids were born in England while he was in med school in Liverpool.

Both kids now have U.S, British, and Canadian passports.

[Cleita]

21. It gets confusing.

[trof]

23. OK, his older brother was born in the UK. Married a Russian woman.

Their son has U.S., British, and Russian 'citizenship'.
whew

[treestar]

27. I think so; I've heard that it is impossible to lose British citizenship

Can't get out of British-ness, lol.

[Cleita]

32. Not only that but if your parents were Brit, you and all the generations below you are Brit.

You just can't get away from it.

[randys1]

4. The more immigrants, legal or otherwise, the healthier our nation and our economy is.

THis is a fact the rightwing assholes dont know and the ones who do wont admit.

http://www.economics21.org/commentary/more-immigration-stronger-economy

Research by Giovanni Peri at the University of California, Davis, shows that more immigration will raise U.S. wages and create additional jobs for native-born Americans

[seveneyes]

10. Yeah, another 320 million new people would be just fucking dandy

Just think of all the cheap labor and waiting in line to live. Math fail.

[randys1]

12. DOnt argue with me, argue with the facts which are readily available.

[seveneyes]

14. Well then how about all FIVE BILLION that want to come here do it?

Like I said, math fail big time. Your math, not mine.

[randys1]

16. You arent making any sense. Did someone say all 5 billion? Did you bother to read

what the ECONOMISTS say?

Have a nice day....

[seveneyes]

18. Here are your EXACT words ...

"The more immigrants, legal or otherwise, the healthier our nation and our economy is."

Like I repeated, math fail. Make an absolute statement, then reap the facts.

[randys1]

19. I linked to a FACTUAL study which PROVES what I said.

Read it, or dont

UP to YOU

There are MANY economists who can prove this to you, but you refuse to read it and instead just keep saying math fail

No, math not fail.

Read the damn article and all the other ones, or dont.

here is another one you wont read


http://clas.berkeley.edu/research/immigration-economic-benefits-immigration

[Igel]

36. Secula prooftexting.

Not good in church. Not good in class.

It increases demand, and therefore jobs.

However, 25% of the population growth in California has been because of immigration.

Minus that population growth, they'd already be below their carbon emissions requirements, they wouldn't have as much crowding as they have, and their water needs wouldn't be as high.

If you just care about demand and jobs--not necessarily high paying ones--and if that's the only thing you care about, then immigration is always good. Even if 5 billion people moved to the US, the model is likely to still hold.

(The model is probably horribly flawed in some ways, however it completely ignores other things that we think important. It "proves" something limited. And the proof has to be taken with those assumptions and those limits.)

[treestar]

28. They'd also be purchasing things

creating jobs. If that weren't so, previous doubling of our population would have killed us.

[seveneyes]

29. I guess an additional SIX Billion would really sell some shit

The absolute failure of simple math is depressing.

[LanternWaste]

44. As is your repeated and consistent use of the reductio ad absurdum fallacy...

"The absolute failure of simple math is depressing."

As is your repeated and consistent use of the reductio ad absurdum fallacy...

[CreekDog]

54. You wouldn't even be here if the restrictions you propose applied to your ancestors

If you want to slam shut the gates i think you should go to wherever your ancestors came from.

[nationalize the fed]

31. Because

there are plenty of jobs. Anyone that wants to work now can. Everyone knows this.

There are plenty of resources. All the trillions spent on the Middle East are inconsequential.

There is plenty of health care money lying around in case any of these new immigrants need it.

After all, I can go to almost anywhere else in the world I want and be greeted with flowers and benefits. No papers necessary. Right?

Watch the US disintegrate LIVE on Youtube.

Next up for the lowly 99%- Droids. They'll fill in when there aren't enough new immigrants.

[randys1]

43. Whoa, the multiple anti Brown people posts here, ouch.

[geek tragedy]

49. Buchananomics nt

[WinkyDink]

40. "Raise U.S. wages," my Aunt Fanny. Where? The steel industry? Auto? Electronics? Customer service?

[pampango]

41. Studies (on climate change or immigration or anything else) don't change the minds of true believers

If you believe that every immigrant is only a burden or competition for existing jobs and resources then a study showing the opposite will meet with fear, name-calling and rejection. Legitimate studies that might provide a basis for this anti-immigration opinion will be noticeably lacking.

If you believe that there is no climate change and that evidence of it is a liberal, big-government conspiracy then a study showing the opposite will meet with fear, name-calling and rejection. Legitimate studies that might provide a basis for this anti-climate change opinion will be noticeably lacking.

[Throd]

5. So freed slaves would be considered citizens.

[seveneyes]

6. Some say an attractive nuisance

Unlike a a swimming pool without a fence, but a flower stem holding back the dike.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. 30 countries out of the 194 or so have birthright citizenship atm.

per web sources.

We have it as a result of the 14th amendment starting with the words 'All persons born or naturalized in the Unites States...'.

The 14th was one of the 'Reconstruction Amendments' passed in the wake of the civil war, and was intended to make sure all former slaves and their children were assured citizenship and all the rights and privileges attached thereto.

I don't think the writers intended to make sure anyone visiting the country could give birth and have their kids automatically be citizens, but they wanted to make sure there was no way for former slave states to deny citizenship to any former slaves or their progeny.

[trof]

11. Ah. Good info. Thanks.

[yardwork]

8. This seems fundamental.

I believe that Donald Trump's grandfather was an immigrant.

The argument against birth right citizenship is based in racism and the old idea that some people are better than others. I remember Pat Buchanan yapping about this back in the 1990s. Something about Zulus.

I am sick and tired of asshole racists.

[Cleita]

17. Me too. Also the sins of the fathers shouldn't be dumped on the children. eom

[Cleita]

15. I knew a Northern Irish couple who came over here illegally to escape

the troubles. They had American born children who were considered American born. Nobody wagged their tongues about their children but of course they were lily white and spoke English. They eventually did get green cards when Reagan did the amnesty

[awoke_in_2003]

22. Many of my friends...

while growing up in Cleveland, were first generation Americans. If you're born here, you're American (if you so desire)

[Cleita]

26. Same here. I went to school right after the war. There were many immigrant families

from Europe who moved here mostly from eastern Europe who were displaced during WWII. They were given refugee status and although the friends my age were born overseas, younger brothers and sisters were born here. I was used to going over to friends' houses and hearing the parents speaking Polish, Croatian, Czech and any other number of languages from that region.

[awoke_in_2003]

30. Our neighborhood

had a lot of first and second gen Poles, Italians, and Jews. I learned about the Holocaust when I asked my grandmother's boss what the numbers on his forearm meant. This was in the 80's. Those people are dying out, but I at least got a one on one history lesson- it made a big impact on me. We cannot forget.

[handmade34]

24. passed 1866, ratified July 1868

freed slaves made citizens...

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

**Because many states continued to pass laws that restricted the rights of former slaves, on June 13, 1866, Congress passed and sent to the states for ratification, Amendment XIV. Ratified on July 9, 1868, the amendment granted U.S. citizenship to former slaves and specifically changed the rule in Article 1, Section 2 that slaves be counted only as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation in Congress

[trof]

25. OK, so this came about because of freed slaves?

I can understand that.
And I do understand that one of the things I like about our country is the various ethnic 'things' (FOOD!) we enjoy.

I just wonder if we've drifted (mission creep?) into the realm of 'unintended consequences'?

NO! I don't want a wall on the U.S. - Mexican border.
I just look at what's happening in some European countries and wonder if we should have some limits on how many immigrants we can absorb in a year.

I'm NOT xenophobic!
My very closest friends were not born here.
I just wonder what our capacity (if there is one?) is for taking in the "huddled masses".

[Gormy Cuss]

50. We've done just fine absorbing "huddled masses" in the past.

Sure, there were short term tensions as communities became "overrun" with funny looking, funny talking, people with smelly food but then the foreign became the familiar.

But let's get back to birthright citizenship. If we end the practice, we open the door again to denying citizenship on other categorical bases. Atheist? No citizenship for you. Pacifist? Not in this country. Sold some pot? We'll take back that citizenship, thank you.

[Borchkins]

33. I'm pro.

You're born here, you're a citizen.
B

[PSPS]

34. The Roman Empire granted automatic citizenship to all inhabitants of the countries they conquered.

[Iggo]

35. You're born here, you're from here.

Nothing wrong with that.

[bhikkhu]

37. The earth is a planet we were all born on

and political divisions are all pretty much arbitrary and artificial. That's what I mainly think of when I read about the whole "illegal immigration" debate, and whether some person belongs to, needs to be contained within, or kept out of, some geographic region or other.

Anyone who thinks they have the right to dictate is probably clinging to some idea of privilege they were born into.

[WinkyDink]

39. Name one nation, one, that adheres to your "Citizen of the Earth" theory. Oh, they might agree to

their own citizens leaving to other (usually Western-values) shores, but just try to enter THEIR country without legal permission.

But hey---you go ahead and ignore all of human history!

[bhikkhu]

42. That misses the point

I'm not strident at all on the issue, but it wouldn't take much argument to show that "nations", which could also be called "arbitrary political entities", exist not so much by the consent and for the benefit of their people, but for the benefit of concentrated capital. Why should we look to traditional authorities to decide how we think?.

[LanternWaste]

45. Our fealty to the apparitions of our minds are indeed, sacrosanct.

"you go ahead and ignore all of human history!"

The history that is predicated almost entirely on little more than imaginary blue and red lines on a map. Our fealty to the apparitions of our minds are indeed, sacrosanct.

Our faith in the imaginary certainly does take a priority over our concern for reality-- a sentiment usually reserved for adherents of religion, yet now we can easily perceive that even the humanist and the worldly are forced to rely on the illusory and fanciful to better realize our place among each other.

[Warren DeMontague]

53. Is that how you feel about Israelis who want to live in the West Bank?

Just curious.

[WinkyDink]

38. Of course this is world-wide.

[hunter]

46. Nations where this isn't so have terrible problems.

Children who are born in the U.S.A., grow up in the U.S.A. are clearly U.S. Americans. But so are minor children who may have been born in other nations, but who grow up in the U.S.A., whose parents immigrated to work here.

But in some nations, without these sorts of rights, the nation ends up with large populations of people, born in the nation, raised in the nation, culturally of that nation in every way, but without the rights of "citizens" and with no attachments to their supposed nation of of origin. They are essentially people without a nation. It's a grotesque apartheid system posing as something else.

I'd liberalize U.S. citizenship requirements even further. I think any kid whose immigrant parents or guardians are working here in the U.S.A, documented or not, any kid who attends public school here for at least five years and graduates from public high school, should automatically be granted citizenship.

Children have no choice when their parents come to work in the U.S.A.. It's child abuse to send them home to a nation they do not know.

[trof]

55. Japan comes to mind.

To my knowledge there is no way to become a Japanese citizen if you're not born to Japanese citizens.

[LexVegas]

47. I'm fucking pro. nt.

[geek tragedy]

48. there's nothing more American (in the good way) than the idea that a person

is who they are, where they are at this point in time, not who their parents are or where their ancestors came from.

[mmonk]

51. Exactly. Here or territories or family.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. 14th Amendment.

As others have noted.