Republicans want review of birthright citizenship

[SirNitram]

McCain, for example, needs this sort of thing.

Although I find it ironic, given that McCain actually was born outside the United States, in Panama.

I hate to nitpick, but people bring this up as a counter to the birther argument all the time (as if it needed a counter) and its based on false assumptions. John McCain was born to two US Citizens in an American Military Zone. As such he meets the qualifications of citizenship by blood AND by location.

The birther argument is that if Obama was born in Africa then he would fulfill neither, as his father was not a citizen and his mother was not old enough to have lived in the United States for two years as an adult.

So, the comparison is unequal. Sorry, that one really bugs me.

As much as it bugs you, it was a serious issue debated by people who study this stuff. 'Natural Born' is a rarely defined phrase, and thus there was alot of digging into old precedents. Of course, the memo that explains it all makes quite a bit of egg-on-face for McCain both in the elections and in his attempt to claim birthright citizenship should be curtailed.

[hunter5]

What sort of legal immigrants though? It would be absurd if we gave citizenship at birth to the children of rich birth tourist South Korean and Taiwanese who are trying to weasel their future sons out of military service simply because their parents can purchase it.

Last time I checked tourist were not immigrants so not really sure what you are going for. I would be for a system that only allows legal immigrants (green card or not if you have the paper work or whatever that says you live here legally) along with a reform in the actual immigration process.

[General Zod]

Yes, but the kids would still be none citizens unless they got naturalized themselves (so they'd be in the same place as the kids of the illegals). I don't think that becoming a citizen would automatically make one's children citizens too. And the problem applies as a whole to all the children of non citizens, legal and illegal.

Why the hell not? We make children dependent on their parents for everything else, so why wouldn't you apply it to citizenship? I really don't see the point of adding additional barriers for a legal immigrant's children. As long as they haven't reached the age of 18 it should be automatic.

[Broomstick]

Whether it should be or not, it isn't.

[General Zod]

Whether it should be or not, it isn't.

Close enough to automatic.

Children younger than 18 years use "Application for a Certificate of Citizenship" (Form N-600), and naturalize automatically when their parents become citizens. Adopted children who acquired citizenship from parent(s) use the "Application for a Certificate of Citizenship on Behalf of an Adopted Child" (Form N-643).

[Pelranius]

What sort of legal immigrants though? It would be absurd if we gave citizenship at birth to the children of rich birth tourist South Korean and Taiwanese who are trying to weasel their future sons out of military service simply because their parents can purchase it.

Last time I checked tourist were not immigrants so not really sure what you are going for. I would be for a system that only allows legal immigrants (green card or not if you have the paper work or whatever that says you live here legally) along with a reform in the actual immigration process.

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

[General Zod]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

I suspect that sort of thing doesn't happen nearly often enough to justify completely overhauling the concept of jus soli.

[eion]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

Yeah I call bullshit on that. Please provide evidence for your claim. If this is as big a problem as you say, the DPRK and PROC wouldn't allow pregnant women to travel, problem solved.

[Akhlut]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

Yeah I call bullshit on that. Please provide evidence for your claim. If this is as big a problem as you say, the DPRK and PROC wouldn't allow pregnant women to travel, problem solved.

Uh, how would North Korea and the PRC prevent pregnant South Korean and Taiwanese women from travelling to prevent their children from being born in the US to become US citizens and thus be ineligible for RoK or RoC military?

[hunter5]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

They still are not immigrants under any definition so I fail to see the problem you are having.

[eion]

Uh, how would North Korea and the PRC prevent pregnant South Korean and Taiwanese women from travelling to prevent their children from being born in the US to become US citizens and thus be ineligible for RoK or RoC military?

I'm sorry, misread that. Switch that for South Korea and Taiwan. In countries with conscription you normally can't leave the country if you haven't completed your service, or else your passport will expire before your service deadline, forcing you to return or be unable to leave. I would imagine if scores of pregnant women were fleeing the country to give birth to their children in conscription free America something would be done to address it. Again, I ask for evidence of the prevalence of such a practice.

There's also the issue that the US would consider them dual citizens, so they may have trouble avoiding military service in that regard. I'm unfamiliar with Taiwanese and South Korean law and how difficult it is to renounce citizenship.

[Pelranius]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

They still are not immigrants under any definition so I fail to see the problem you are having.

Exactly. Tourists still get their American born children American citizenship despite not being legal immigrants. That is no different than the what illegal immigrants are doing and if the conservatives want to close the "loopholes", they had better address the tourist issue as well.

Uh, how would North Korea and the PRC prevent pregnant South Korean and Taiwanese women from travelling to prevent their children from being born in the US to become US citizens and thus be ineligible for RoK or RoC military?

I'm sorry, misread that. Switch that for South Korea and Taiwan. In countries with conscription you normally can't leave the country if you haven't completed your service, or else your passport will expire before your service deadline, forcing you to return or be unable to leave. I would imagine if scores of pregnant women were fleeing the country to give birth to their children in conscription free America something would be done to address it. Again, I ask for evidence of the prevalence of such a practice.

There's also the issue that the US would consider them dual citizens, so they may have trouble avoiding military service in that regard. I'm unfamiliar with Taiwanese and South Korean law and how difficult it is to renounce citizenship.

Here's a link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birth-to ... d=10359956

If half of the 7096 non residing mothers are birth tourists (a very conservative guess), then that means 3,500 children are born to birth tourists each year, which means that 2000-2010 would have 35,000 birth tourist babies. That is not a lot compared to the amount of children illegal immigrants have, but it would be ethically absurd to deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants while granting it to those whose parents can cough up $20,000.

and a LA Times article posted here: http://fileus.org/dept/citizenship/02-0 ... _asia.html

If the conservatives want to "solve" the "problem" of illegal immigrants' children getting automatic citizenship, they had better do something about birth tourism as well.

The RoC dual citizens (male at any rate, I'm not sure if South Koreans can have dual citizenship) can simply evade dual service by staying in the US from the time they're 18 until something like 32 years of age, though they can visit Taiwan for periods of up to two or three weeks before being detained. It's also a very controversial topic in Korea and Taiwan.

[Edi]

What the US could so about this is similar to how Finland has done, namely that our constitution says that citizenship can be acquired according to the means set down in a specific law dealing with that issue.

The actual law then has contents more or less per linky:

Acquiring Finnish citizenship

A person can automatically acquire Finnish citizenship on the basis of

* birth
* marriage of parents (legitimation),
* adoption, or
* place of birth.

In addition, Finnish citizenship can be acquired

* by application or
* by declaration to the authorities.

Birth

A child acquires Finnish citizenship at birth if

* the child's mother is a Finnish citizen;
* the child's father is a Finnish citizen and the parents are married;
* the child's father is a Finnish citizen, the child is born in Finland out of wedlock, and the father's paternity is established;
* the child's father, who died before the child was born, was a Finnish citizen and was married to the child's mother at the time of his death; or
* the child's father, who died before the birth of the child, was a Finnish citizen and the child was born in Finland out of wedlock and the father's paternity is established

A local register office will enter the child's Finnish citizenship in the Population Information System.

A child acquires Finnish citizenship based on the place of birth if the child is born in Finland and cannot acquire any other citizenship.
Legitimation

A child who is born abroad and whose father is a Finnish citizen will acquire Finnish citizenship when the parents get married. If paternity has been established, the child will acquire Finnish citizenship as of the date of the marriage contract. If paternity is established after this point, the child will acquire Finnish citizenship as of the date on which paternity is established.

A local register office will enter the child's Finnish citizenship in the Population Information System.

Transfer of Finnish citizenship to a child of a Finnish father
Adoption

A foreign adopted child under 12 years of age will automatically acquire Finnish citizenship if at least one of the adoptive parents is a Finnish citizen and if the adoption is recognised as valid in Finland. A local register office will enter the child's Finnish citizenship in the population register.

An adopted child (aged 12 - 17) will receive Finnish citizenship by declaration.

For further information on entering the citizenship in the Population Information System, please contact the local register office.

Unfortunately I don't have a translation of that particular law in all its details at hand, since there's no English translation of it in the online Finlex database. Of course, this being the US, the law would require to have a clause in it that once it was patterned after our law, it requires the same process for revising as a constitutional amendment or something like 75% or 5/6ths majorities in both houses to change and that it can't be overwritten, altered or changed by any other law (to prevent tampering by bigoted fucks).

Naturally, the chances of anything like that happening are less than nil.

[hunter5]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

They still are not immigrants under any definition so I fail to see the problem you are having.

Exactly. Tourists still get their American born children American citizenship despite not being legal immigrants. That is no different than the what illegal immigrants are doing and if the conservatives want to close the "loopholes", they had better address the tourist issue as well.

Uh, how would North Korea and the PRC prevent pregnant South Korean and Taiwanese women from travelling to prevent their children from being born in the US to become US citizens and thus be ineligible for RoK or RoC military?

I'm sorry, misread that. Switch that for South Korea and Taiwan. In countries with conscription you normally can't leave the country if you haven't completed your service, or else your passport will expire before your service deadline, forcing you to return or be unable to leave. I would imagine if scores of pregnant women were fleeing the country to give birth to their children in conscription free America something would be done to address it. Again, I ask for evidence of the prevalence of such a practice.

There's also the issue that the US would consider them dual citizens, so they may have trouble avoiding military service in that regard. I'm unfamiliar with Taiwanese and South Korean law and how difficult it is to renounce citizenship.

Here's a link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birth-to ... d=10359956

If half of the 7096 non residing mothers are birth tourists (a very conservative guess), then that means 3,500 children are born to birth tourists each year, which means that 2000-2010 would have 35,000 birth tourist babies. That is not a lot compared to the amount of children illegal immigrants have, but it would be ethically absurd to deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants while granting it to those whose parents can cough up $20,000.

and a LA Times article posted here: http://fileus.org/dept/citizenship/02-0 ... _asia.html

If the conservatives want to "solve" the "problem" of illegal immigrants' children getting automatic citizenship, they had better do something about birth tourism as well.

The RoC dual citizens (male at any rate, I'm not sure if South Koreans can have dual citizenship) can simply evade dual service by staying in the US from the time they're 18 until something like 32 years of age, though they can visit Taiwan for periods of up to two or three weeks before being detained. It's also a very controversial topic in Korea and Taiwan.

I though we already solved that problem by limiting the automatic birth citizenship to legal resident immigrants? Since tourist are not residents problem solved. Second how did you come up with the half of the births from non residents are from tourist as opposed to students, temporary workers, and political types?

[ArmorPierce]

Yes because someone that was born here and lived here their entire life and never knew another country or anyone in another country should be denied citizenship if his parents are illegal and expelled out of the country (which is currently done to people who came as children illegally) never to come back. That's so humane.

What would you do in circumstances where one parent is legal and the other is not? (I was the product of thus)

As for anchor babies, yes it is annoying. Alternative is to give the parents the choice of giving up the child or going home with it. But is that going to be better and more cost effective than having the parents raise it themselves?

[Pelranius]

I though we already solved that problem by limiting the automatic birth citizenship to legal resident immigrants? Since tourist are not residents problem solved. Second how did you come up with the half of the births from non residents are from tourist as opposed to students, temporary workers, and political types?

I specifically said that a ban on illegal immigrants' children gaining automatic should include the children of tourists. Try reading more carefully again.

[Cecelia5578]

I was specifically talking about "tourists" who come here via tourist visas to give birth on soil so their children get US citizenship and are exempt from conscription in the RoC or RoK. It actually happens a lot, especially with the upper classes over there. Being a legal tourist doesn't make one an immigrant, at least far as I can tell. Should have been more clear earlier to avoid the confusion.

Yeah I call bullshit on that. Please provide evidence for your claim. If this is as big a problem as you say, the DPRK and PROC wouldn't allow pregnant women to travel, problem solved.

I vaguely learning about this when I was studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute. By vaguely I mean "listening to Korean news stories in Korean about this topic and translating into English."

FWIW (not very much) it does trigger something in the back of my mind, so Pelranius wasn't just pulling it out of his rear end.

[eion]

Yeah I call bullshit on that. Please provide evidence for your claim. If this is as big a problem as you say, the DPRK and PROC wouldn't allow pregnant women to travel, problem solved.

I vaguely learning about this when I was studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute. By vaguely I mean "listening to Korean news stories in Korean about this topic and translating into English."

FWIW (not very much) it does trigger something in the back of my mind, so Pelranius wasn't just pulling it out of his rear end.

The Korean news also regularly report on deaths by sleeping in rooms with fans, so I remain unconvinced by your vague recollections.

The number of "birth tourists" is surely so low as to be mostly ignorable. Wealthy people will always find and exploit every loophole in the law. Any law removing birthright citizenship from any class of people will invariable creates a class of stateless people.

[Pelranius]

The number of "birth tourists" is surely so low as to be mostly ignorable. Wealthy people will always find and exploit every loophole in the law. Any law removing birthright citizenship from any class of people will invariable creates a class of stateless people.

My position is that under any restriction of birthright citizenship, tourist visa parents and the like should be restricted just as illegal immigrants, regardless of their actual number. And what's wrong with shutting down a loophole for rich people in the first place?

Note that no where I have indicated that restricting citizenship by birthright is desirable. What I am saying is that in the interests of fairness, tourist visa holders should be subject to the same restrictions as illegal immigrants concerning birthright citizenship. Clear?

[General Zod]

The number of "birth tourists" is surely so low as to be mostly ignorable. Wealthy people will always find and exploit every loophole in the law. Any law removing birthright citizenship from any class of people will invariable creates a class of stateless people.

My position is that under any restriction of birthright citizenship, tourist visa parents and the like should be restricted just as illegal immigrants, regardless of their actual number. And what's wrong with shutting down a loophole for rich people in the first place?

Note that no where I have indicated that restricting citizenship by birthright is desirable. What I am saying is that in the interests of fairness, tourist visa holders should be subject to the same restrictions as illegal immigrants concerning birthright citizenship. Clear?

If your entire point was over some "interest of fairness", it would help if you used an example that would have an equally sizable impact. Otherwise it's completely meaningless.

[Pelranius]

If your entire point was over some "interest of fairness", it would help if you used an example that would have an equally sizable impact. Otherwise it's completely meaningless.

So why leave the loophole for tourists open while shutting the door to illegal immigrants? It certainly won't cost us anything.

[eion]

My position is that under any restriction of birthright citizenship, tourist visa parents and the like should be restricted just as illegal immigrants, regardless of their actual number. And what's wrong with shutting down a loophole for rich people in the first place?

Note that no where I have indicated that restricting citizenship by birthright is desirable. What I am saying is that in the interests of fairness, tourist visa holders should be subject to the same restrictions as illegal immigrants concerning birthright citizenship. Clear?

And if the father of a "birth tourist" is a citizen, is the child a citizen?

What if the mother is a citizen but the father conceived the child while here on a tourist visa?

What if the citizen father is not married to the mother, but the mother is married to another man?

etc.

You see how complicated this can become quite quickly. Requiring ANY proof of legal residency, or restricting what sorts of legal residency are eligible for birthright citizenship will lead only to more problems than the few births a year are worth. Must I go back and prove that my great grandparents where here under legal means in order to justify my citizenship? What if I should discover that my legal father is not my birth father? Would I be deported, and to where (I have only U.S. citizenship)?

[eion]

It certainly won't cost us anything.

According to the LA Time article it would cost that one hotel at least $500,000 a year

[Alyeska]

Birth tourism isn't a loophole. I believe it should stay. Those children are not a burden on the United States. And their citizenship could encourage them to move to the United States after they have grown up. I hear people who have a solution in search of a problem.

[Pelranius]

Birth tourism isn't a loophole. I believe it should stay. Those children are not a burden on the United States. And their citizenship could encourage them to move to the United States after they have grown up. I hear people who have a solution in search of a problem.

And again, if one takes away citizenship from illegal immigrant's children, then isn't the point to restrict birthright citizenship to citizens and legal immigrants who wish to stay in America on a long term basis? That reasoning is the position of the immigration control nuts as I understand it and banning birth tourism along with withholding citizenship from the children of illegal immigrants would be the logically consistent thing to do. Note that I am not advocating doing either.

And if the father of a "birth tourist" is a citizen, is the child a citizen?

What if the mother is a citizen but the father conceived the child while here on a tourist visa?

What if the citizen father is not married to the mother, but the mother is married to another man?

etc.

You see how complicated this can become quite quickly. Requiring ANY proof of legal residency, or restricting what sorts of legal residency are eligible for birthright citizenship will lead only to more problems than the few births a year are worth. Must I go back and prove that my great grandparents where here under legal means in order to justify my citizenship? What if I should discover that my legal father is not my birth father? Would I be deported, and to where (I have only U.S. citizenship)?

I believe that American law has citizenship extending from citizens to their children, provided one has been a citizen for two years. The problems that you mention are emblematic of the whole 'revoke unconditional birthright citizenship'. For the umpteenth time, I am not advocating banning blanket birthright citizenship.