If SB 1070 Wasn’t Enough
It’s a little unnerving to read about what Arizona is trying to do next. Their new law SB 1070 has been all over the media for requiring local police officers to check immigration status of people “during a lawful encounter” whom they suspect are illegal. If this wasn’t controversial enough, apparently now they are pushing to deny US born children of illegal immigrants their birth certificates to prevent citizenship, by next year. See articles here and here.
I think this idea is even further down the scale into ridiculous than SB 1070 for a number of reasons, and I am not seeing how it will be effective at solving immigration problems.
Arizona continues to focus on the wrong thing.
Proponents of these types of laws go on and on about the drugs and gangs making border states dangerous and crime-ridden. Ok then, go after the drug dealers and gang members! I would be (am?) pretty annoyed to have my tax dollars going to arresting, detaining and deporting children and folks with the wrong shoes on who are otherwise not committing any crimes. If the organized crime is so bad, wouldn’t systematically cracking down on drug cartels and such keep local police plenty busy? What is deporting a child going to do to stop these problems?
It won’t be much of a deterrent to illegal immigration
I don’t see denying offspring citizenship taking away much incentive for illegal immigration anyway. If a parent enters the US with no documentation (i.e. crosses the border), the law never allows the parent to adjust status through their child. They cannot become legal residents by having a US citizen baby. Even if the parent enters the US on a visa or visa waiver, their child can’t petition for them until he reaches age 18.
What about welfare fraud? This is another common argument, that aliens will use their citizen kids to “leach off the system” and take advantage of public benefits. First of all, I think welfare fraud and taking advantage of the system is an issue for everyone, legal or not. Fix it or ignore it, but don’t blame immigration for an already broken system. Also, I am not up on my welfare knowledge but I am not sure how a child can manage to acquire enough public assistance to support an entire family. Is this really THAT big of an issue? Finally, we forget to account for the fact that these US citizen children will presumably someday grow up to be US citizen adults. Working, taxpaying members of society who will likely pay in way more than than they took out of they “system.”
Anyway, entire families continue to risk crossing the border together. Having an undocumented child didn’t deter these acts of desperation before, it probably wouldn’t if the undocumented child was born on the other side.
Whatever happened to the Constitution?
I am disappointed in the Right here. Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to stand up for our Constitutional rights? Does Arizona really think they can pass a state law that goes completely against the 14th Amendment? What are they going to say next, that the Constitution is a living document that needs to be updated with the times? That the founding fathers didn’t have this in mind when they wrote it? What would have happened if the descendants of slaves weren’t allowed to be citizens here? We would have a generation of people born and raised here that never set foot in Africa, basically country-less. The 14th Amendment was written for a reason – we need to leave it alone!
So what would happen to these children here now? If they weren’t citizens they would be children with no homes. They would have been raised here with no ties to their parents’ country, and probably unable to speak the language. This policy would create a new underclass of society in America with no chance for the people to pull themselves up. At least a new generation of US citizens ends a cycle of poverty and gives these kids a chance here in the US.
And where would we send these kids? Newsflash: not all illegal immigrants are from Mexico. What happens if a Mexican and a Honduran have a child here? Will ICE flip a coin to determine where to send him?
Hitting home
This leads me to the most disturbing point of all. The new policy also states that a birth certificate will be denied if “one or more parent” is undocumented. So basically, they are saying they can deny birthright citizenship to children of US CITIZENS! As if it was bad enough that many spouses of US citizens have no way to live in this country, now someone actually wants to keep their children out as well?? And oh boy is this ever a slippery slope. How does a US citizen woman prove that her baby’s father is a legal US resident? How will “they” know? Does it matter if they’re married? Or more importantly, what if Roberto and I had a baby right now? He’s not a legal US resident; he lives in Brazil for f#ck’s sake! Would my baby only be allowed in MY country if I applied for a visa?
Obviously the last bit here is very hypothetical, considering this is just being proposed in Arizona currently. But, there has been a movement for quite some time to deny birthright citizenship in the US and basing it on nationality like many European countries. If states begin adopting similar policies and putting pressure on the federal government to change the 14th amendment, we could see a change in policy here that will make things very difficult for immigrant families (both legal and illegal).
