Birthright citizenship and children separated from their undocumented parents

[alp227]

A new study "Shattered Families" (featured on Thom Hartmann and Democracy Now) revealed that thousands of US-born children were sent to foster care because their parents were illegal immigrants who were detained or deported.

If those children were brought here illegally, the children would most likely follow their parents back to their native country, correct?

This gets me thinking. Wouldn't those children be best off with their own parents, with whom they have bonded and trust the most, rather than suffer the trauma of foster care? After hearing about the study, I began reconsidering whether having birthright citizenship really is worth it anymore. (No, I'm not transforming into a conservative, I'm just considering the circumstances.) Because if those children followed their parents back home they'd grow up in the native country with US citizenship and just because of that they do not need to rip through any red tape to enter the US at all.

You may recall 11 years ago the "family values" crowd was gung ho against deporting Elian Gonzalez to Cuba (his father lived there, while Elian had US citizen extended family in Miami) because of the Communist government in that country. Yet that very very same crowd would be popping champagne over this study because it fulfills their law-and-order wishes.

[OhioBlue]

1. birthright citizenship is birthright citizenship

IMO- it is worth it. The US just shouldn't be deporting parents of US citizens and separating them from their children. There absolutely has to be a better model for this. Either give the parents a path toward citizenship themselves or allow the child to return to their parents native country with them.

I had a friend who was from Peru. She came here illegally. Her husband was legal, her son was born here... she brought 2 daughters who were not legal... thankfully through time they all became legal citizens. She did tell me stories of working in factories for less than minimum wage under conditions that sounded like something reminiscent of the robber barren era.. no bathroom breaks... no windows.. etc.

I cannot imagine the heartbreak for that family if they had been separated by the Government on the basis of who had legal docs and who didn't... they were and are a family - one total unit that nobody has the right to separate.

[provis99]

2. likely these are cases of parents abandoning their children.

[EFerrari]

3. Nope. And in fact, Obama's inhumane deportations is creating

yet a new problem, of deported parents returning to search for their children.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. No, they are being rounded up and sent away from their children

This happened to a German woman in Oregon who was given mistaken information saying that, having married an American in Germany, she automatically had permission to stay in the U.S. when she went to the States with her husband.

When someone told her--after she'd been in the U.S. for about three years-- that this was not the case, she and her husband and their one-year-old child went up to Portland to straighten things out with Immigration. She was immediately arrested and told that she would be on the next plane to Germany, forbidden to return to the U.S. for 10 years.

The baby had been born in the U.S. and was therefore an American citizen but didn't have a passport and so could not travel internationally. The woman therefore had to leave the baby (who was still nursing) with her husband.

The incident was the last straw for the Portland Immigration office, which had a record of summary deportations and refusals of entry, especially of Asians, people being turned back at the airport when they didn't understand the official's questions (and there were no interpreters onsite, despite the fact that there was a flight from Tokyo every day) or because, in one case, the person's passport had been "used too much." In another case, a Korean engineer was coming to fix problems at a Korean-owned manufacturing plant, and the Immigration officials wouldn't even call the plant to confirm his story. They just turned him back.

A lot of people were unmoved when told about the deportations of Asians, but when it was a European woman with a baby, that provoked outrage.

The Oregon Congressional delegation got the German woman readmitted to the U.S., and there was some major housecleaning at Portland Immigration.

But that's just a roundabout way of saying that yes, parents do get deported without their children.

[EFerrari]

4. The solution to one injustice isn't more injustice. nt