Domestic This - Horace Mann School

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scrapetv Domestic Domestic “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.” Stomping on the 14th Amendment by alexander posner This past August, Senator Lindsey Graham did what every good Republican does best: stir up misleading controversy. In this case, the matter of contention was whether the 14 th amendment of the United States Constitution should provide citizenship to everyone who is born in the United States. As Mr. Graham stated on Fox News, “We can’t just have people swimming across the river having children here — that’s chaos.” While his comments were misguided, at best, the discussion about the 14 th amendment is an important one. In fact, Congress has debated the merits of the 14 th amendment every year since the early 1990s. As the citizenship clause reads, “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.” Opponents of this clause claim it is outdated and anachronistic. Rooted in 3.1 million Children born in the U.S. with at least one illegal immigrant parent 13,000 American children have had one or both parents deported from 2005 to 2007 information provided by newsgroup the Civil War era, this 1868 amendment was initially intended to ensure American citizenship for the children of slaves. As critics like Senator Graham will argue, the problem of illegal immigration was virtually non-existent in the 1860s. They claim that the guarantee of birthright citizenship instead leads to increased illegal immigration. In the words of Mr. Graham, “People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child — it’s called drop and leave.” As convincing of an argument as this seems to be, this point of view is very misguided. When a female illegal immigrant walks into a hospital anywhere in the United States about to give birth, by law she must be provided with care. As a result of patient-doctor confidentiality laws, the medical authorities in the hospital will not reveal her situation to U.S. law enforcement authorities 4 The Horace Mann Review | Vol. XX
Domestic Senator Lindsey Graham: one of the leading Republicans calling for a change to the 14th Amendment. even though the mother is in the United States illegally. For this child, there are two potential paths. Path number 1: He can become a U.S. citizen and aspire to become a member of American society. Path number 2: He is denied citizenship and will live in the “underground” as an illegal immigrant in our country. The truth of the matter is that the birth will happen regardless of whether or not the child becomes a full-fledged U.S. citizen. It is far more beneficial for society, and for the newborn’s well-being, to allow him or her to assume U.S. citizenship. This newborn is essentiality an investment. While even illegal immigrants can have access to schools, being a U.S. citizen opens up a door to more opportunities for education as the ability to go to state universities. In a time of continued economic uncertainty, the education of our citizens is fundamental to the longterm prosperity of our nation. At the same time a U.S. citizen means a future taxpayer. Illegal immigrants are often criticized because most fail to pay taxes. Opponents of immigration often point out that American taxpayers end up picking up the tab for the hospital bills of illegal immigrants. From an economic standpoint, repealing the 14th amendment would be the wrong thing to do. The alternative would be keeping children in the shadows and living underground in our society. In that scenario, American taxpayers would surely have to pick up the tab if those immigrants were ever admitted to a hospital. The final argument opponents of the 14 th amendment will make is that the children of illegal immigrants are anchor babies. That is, their American citizenship will enable their parents to achieve legal status as well. However, under United States law, this does not happen. One must be 21 years of age before he or she can help a family member apply for citizenship status. Waiting 21 years is not much of an enticement and the statistics reflect this fact. According to a research report from PEW, a Washington D.C. based think-tank, almost 90% of female illegal immigrants who gave birth in American hospitals had already been living in the United States for over a year. As Kate Pickert from Time Magazine commented, “That blows a giant hole in the notion that mothers are crossing the U.S.- Mexican border just in time to give birth in American hospitals.” While the merits of the 14th amendment are clear, the fact that possibility of altering this amendment remains such a central part of the American political dialogue raises interesting questions about the attitudes of many people living in our society. Throughout history, some politicians have sought to place the blame for domestic problems on the shoulders of others. During World War II, Adolf Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats for the economic problems plaguing Germany at the time. In the 1880’s Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; essentially preventing any Chinese people from entering the United States. This specific measure was a product of high unemployment and the influx of foreign workers who were deemed to be the cause of this problem. In many ways, today’s scenario is very similar. With the world still crawling its way out the recession and the United States unemployment rate hovering at around 9%, political leaders are looking for people to take responsibility. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past, immigrants too often take the blame. As bad as the economy is, amending the constitution to prevent those born here from attaining citizenship is not the way to go around fighting this economic crisis. The 14 th amendment must not be altered. HMR wikimedia The Horace Mann Review | Issue 4 5
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