Without birthright citizenship a person born in the US whose parents are residents, either legal or illegal will not be citizens nor will their offspring or any of their descendants. It would create a permanent underclass in our nation who lack the right to vote and other rights reserved for citizens. This is exactly what our forefathers came to America to escape. We pride ourselves on being a classless society where all men are created equal and it should remain so.Legal immigration and stick to the naturalization act of the 1790's.Request: please keep discussion reasonably civil. And let's make refuge issues a separate discussion, please, and focus only on immigration in this one.
The following list is intended as a PROPOSED immigration policy, not what the law currently is or what any court rulings have been so far. What, if anything, can you agree with and support as immigration policy? Why or why not?
1. All immigrants must enter America legally. No exceptions. Anybody caught entering the USA illegally will be deported and forever banned from legal entry.
2. A border wall will be built to help keep immigration legal. No suggestion is made here of definition of 'wall' or what sort of wall, but we must be able to protect our borders.
3. DACA kids can stay legally but not their illegal family members. However harsh this sounds, the kids have a choice to stay by themselves or go home with their parents or other family.
4. DACA kids leaving with family will not have automatic right of return. They can't have it both ways.
5. New immigrants will be admitted by merit and not by lottery. We are the only developed country in the world that uses a lottery system to determine who gets in. Those admitted should be prepared to support themselves, learn English, and want to be Americans so that they enrich and improve us rather than be a further drain on finite resources.
6. Chain migration re immigrants will be illegal. It is unreasonable for immigrants to be able to import whatever family members they choose and therefore one new immigrant equals sometimes dozens of people.
7. Children of citizen parents will be the only automatic citizens. This one will require a constitutional amendment, but it would stop the anchor baby syndrome in which the mother knows if she can give birth to a U.S. citizen, she will be allowed to stay.
8. Immediate humanitarian aid; otherwise no benefits for illegals. We must stop giving jobs, the equivalent of welfare benefits, free educations, free healthcare, et al to those who are here illegally.
9. There will be a means of issuing short term work visas. This has long been an American tradition in which border states can benefit from Mexican et al labor and the laborers can enjoy the extra money they can legally earn. But when the job is complete, the workers go home.
10. Overstay a visa or come here illegally and you can be forever banned from the USA. There might be a bit of wiggle room if the overstay was inadvertent, i,e, somebody was in the hospital. But as a rule, this will provide a deterrent to those who now are apprehended and deported again and again and again.
The poll includes an option to change your selections should you change your mind.
Thoughts?
The Constitution of the 1990's however specified that all born on American soil are automatically citizens. That is a magnet for pregnant women in labor to cross the border where they will receive free hospitalization and a doctor to deliver their babies at U.S. taxpayer expense. And they know that we don't have the heart to send her home without the baby and it is illegal for us to deport the baby. That is why this practice earns the title of 'anchor babies' because it is the woman's ticket to not be deported.
We need a constitutional amendment to get away from jus soli and to make jus sanguinis (citizenship is determined by one or both parents being citizens) the law of the land.
That is just one provision among many to fix our broken immigration system.