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Home Front: Politix
Changing 14th Amendment 'worth considering,' Boehner says
2010-08-09
(CNN) -- Changing the Constitution's guarantee of U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the United States is "worth considering" if it helps reduce illegal immigration, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives said Sunday.
But it won't be considered. It'll be dismissed by the lefties as "racist" and the Pubs won't stand their ground because they're actually nudibranches.
"It's a serious problem that affects our country, and in certain parts of our country clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by undocumented Democrats. A lot of them came here just so their children could become U.S. citizens. They should do it the legal way," House Minority Leader John It is not pronounced 'Boner!' Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press."
I sometimes sympathize with them, since the "legal way" involves having to jump through hoops and stand on your hands and spit quarters.
The Ohio congressman, who could become speaker of the House if Republicans win back control of the chamber in November,
... even though they wouldn't be obligated to keep him...
is the latest GOP leader to float the idea of changing the 14th Amendment. Several leading GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 2008 presidential nominee John Maverick McCain
... the former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution...
have said they would support holding hearings into the matter as part of the heated debate over immigration.

The Reconstruction-era amendment guarantees equal protection of law and defines who is a U.S. citizen.
The exclusion of the children of illegals, of foreign consuls, and similar groups is also spelled out in case law up until Justice Brennan inserted a footnote into a majority opinion in the 1950s...
Critics of illegal immigration have long accused migrants -- particularly those coming from Mexico or Latin American countries -- of giving birth to children in the United States in hopes that their babies' citizenship will keep them in the country. The amendment has been cited as the foundation of U.S. civil rights law in cases ranging from Brown v. Board of Education to last week's decision that struck down a ban on same-sex marriage in California. Changing it would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and the approval of three-quarters of state legislatures.

Boehner said Sunday he's "not the expert on this issue," but "I think it's worth considering."
You could take a weekend and read up on it. It does make for interesting reading. You probably have a subscription to West...
"There is a problem," he told NBC. "To provide an incentive for undocumented Democrats to come here so that their children can be U.S. citizens does, in fact, draw more people to our country."
Posted by:Fred

#15  gorb is right -- the originial intent of 14th IIRC was so that the children of recently freed slaves would not be disenfranchised their citizenship.
Posted by: Broadhead6   2010-08-09 21:01  

#14  There's a small claque on Wikipedia that's trying to expunge 'anchor baby' from the lexicon as being only used in a hateful way.

It doesn't matter what you call it. People won't like it and it will be classified as hate speech.
Posted by: gorb   2010-08-09 20:55  

#13  Besides, I like the law when it is written in generalities and written correctly as was the style then. Nowadays, when modern libtards get hold of it, their tendencies are to turn it into 1000+ pages splintered between ironclad multi-generational pork, hideously over-detailed indebting garbage, and vaguely worded bureaucracy-generating rubbish that will be used in the Supreme Court to justify the fact that the meaning of the word "regulate" in the Constitution has gone from "to make regular" to "control".
Posted by: gorb   2010-08-09 20:53  

#12  There's a small claque on Wikipedia that's trying to expunge 'anchor baby' from the lexicon as being only used in a hateful way. That's a classic PC tactic to frame and limit discourse by prohibiting trenchant English vocabulary in favor of forced circumlocution. See the 'discussion' page for 'anchor baby'.
Posted by: KBK   2010-08-09 20:48  

#11  Anchor babies are a lunacy

Something like that. They are a political tool comprised of 50% leftist ideology supported by another 50% peasant ignorance.

Don't let them get their hands on the amendment or they will make it into law.
Posted by: gorb   2010-08-09 20:45  

#10  70% of the women who gave birth at Parkland were illegal immigrants. 11,200 per year.
The hospital spent $70.7 million per year on a total of 15,938 babies. Medicaid kicked in 34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds kicked in another 9.5 million. Maybe chickenfeed but when tallied up for the entire country maybe not chickenfeed.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-08-09 18:40  

#9  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birth-tourism-industry-markets-us-citizenship-abroad/story?id=10359956

An article about American "birth tourism".

Apparently we're the only suckers in the world to allow this.
Posted by: Black Charlie Chinemble5313   2010-08-09 12:58  

#8  gorb is right - they are subject to the jurisdiction of thecountry of their parents.

Anchor babies are a lunacy.

One more thing, I wonder what would happen if the Repubs in Congress offered amnesty to illegals but ony if the illegals right to vote was delayed 20 years. Think the Dems would still be pushing for it?
Posted by: Hellfish   2010-08-09 12:41  

#7  I think anchor babies are born in the US but not subject to our jurisdiction. Otherwise, the parents would need to jump through all kinds of hoops to take their baby home with them, including adoption papers because they are taking an American citizen out of the country with them.

Everybody has to be born somewhere.
Posted by: gorb   2010-08-09 11:57  

#6  Parkland Hospital in Dallas gave birth to 11,200 anchor babies in 2006. That is 70% of the births that occurred at one hospital.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-08-09 09:50  

#5  Inre: "Anchor Babies"

Yes, I think they would fall under the jurisdiction of the US. That is, I believe, the point of a new ammendment: to make them explicitly under the same jurisdiction as their parents.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats   2010-08-09 09:31  

#4  I've read other analyses that agree with yours, Gorb.

Illegal immigration was unheard of in 1867. It didn't exist. People immigrated to the US but none of it was illegal. We didn't conjure up that idea until another generation had passed.

So it's not surprising that the Framers of the 14th didn't explicitly consider immigration.

What they did consider explicitly was that many would try to deny the newly-freed slaves their rights, and they wanted to prevent that. Alas, they failed, and the slaves were dumped on for another hundred years.

One can argue that illegal immigrants are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States (except for deportation) and thus don't benefit from the 14th. It's harder with the anchor babies -- are they also not subject? If born in an American hospital and registered as a live birth, what then? It's an interesting legal question, and I've read opinions on both sides.

What Sen. Graham (RINO-SC) and Boehner are doing, however, is not encouraging a debate on the 14th -- what they're doing is clearing the road for another blanket amnesty.
Posted by: Steve White   2010-08-09 09:13  

#3  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.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.


Consider the the first "and" in Section 1 of the amendment. That's important. They didn't use "or". I'm sure by then folks had the difference between the two conjunctions down pretty good in a legal sense, and were pretty good about not dragging their knuckles around when legislating, too. Any talk about needing to rework this amendment is mere distraction from the fact that it is not necessary to rewrite it in order to achieve the desired effect of kicking out all undocumented Donks. I'm sure if the Donks get their hands on a rewrite of this amendment it will only lead to no good. They probably think that being involved in a new amendment will make them super-cool, too. If the Donks want the illegals to stay here, they had better repeal that amendment fast, because the federal government is in breach of contract regarding illegals overrunning this place.
Posted by: gorb   2010-08-09 05:39  

#2  I think they should add to it a passage that revokes the citizenship of anyone that uses the term immigrant when they mean illegal ALIEN immigrants.

FIFY

These are not IMMIGRANTS - we need to stop calling them that.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2010-08-09 00:58  

#1  I think they should add to it a passage that revokes the citizenship of anyone that uses the term immigrant when they mean illegal immigrants.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2010-08-09 00:30  

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