On the news last night I noticed a lot of commentators and pundits were discussing the 14th amendment all willy nilly. Um…was anyone else uncomfortable with the dialogue. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and hear that I’m not a citizen. Don’t follow me…
Background: Anderson Cooper’s show offers the rundown of what’s being tossed about in the halls of Capitol Hill.
Republicans such as Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Kyl and John Cornyn are tripping over themselves to jump on the latest “Dumb Way to Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem” bus by suggesting Congress examine repealing the 14th Amendment, which deals with one way of becoming a U.S. citizen.
The far right has latched onto the idea that the provision in question – which grants citizenship to children born in the U.S. – is being abused by illegal immigrants who choose to come to America to have their children, thus worsening the illegal immigration problem.
Some are even trying to suggest that how it is being used today is counter to the original intent of the Founding Fathers.
Of course, the 14th Amendment was not in the first U.S. Constitution as drawn up by our framers. It was adopted on July 9, 1868, to prevent Southern states from denying citizenship to former slaves and their children, since they didn’t choose to come to America. They were brought here for the purpose of the vicious and dehumanizing free-labor plan that helped build the nation – slavery.
There were no immigration laws as we know them in 1868 so this is just crazy talk.
The problem is enforcement of the existing laws. The 14th amendment can’t change anything that the government is not going to enforce. The problem in my opinion is that we have neglected our own immigration laws and the enforcement of them for so long that now the elephant in the room is that there are millions of people who would have to be rounded up for the law to really be followed to the letter. Many of these people have children who are by law American citizens. Combine this with the fact that we’ve allowed whole industries to benefit from the labor of persons who are in this country illegally. If all of the “illegal” aliens were forced to leave, the impact would be felt on various levels of our society.
In addition, NO ONE is going to take away the 14th. One good reason? All the Italian, German, Russian, and other european immigrants who came to these shores. You see, no one is going to want to have to prove that their great, great grandma from England or Cicely became a citizen naturally. Remember people, we are a nation of foreigners. The only people who’ve “been” here are the Native Americans.