GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Friday he would deport the children of undocumented immigrants with their families, despite them already being U.S. citizens.
“There are legally contested questions under the 14th Amendment of whether the child of an illegal immigrant is indeed a child who enjoys birthright citizenship or not,” Ramaswamy said after a town hall in Iowa.
Ramaswamy is not the only GOP candidate to question U.S. citizenship rules. Former President Trump announced in late May that on his first day back in office, he would seek to end birthright citizenship by way of an executive order.
But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
If the child has at least one parent that’s a citizen or permanent resident, they’re a citizen. So there would be no issues there.
If both of the child’s parents are from a foreign country and are just here temporarily, they’d still be citizens of their parents’ home country. There’s no reason to extend US citizenship to a child who won’t be here for long.
If one or both of the parents establish permanent residency in the US, they can establish the same for the child as well, giving the child and the descendants a path to citizenship.
If both parents are here illegally, then the child shouldn’t be granted US citizenship (at least until at least one parent establishes lawful residency in the US). Neither should the descendants. Allowing them and the descendants to establish citizenship and give those who would otherwise be denied lawful residency is one of the biggest incentives for illegal immigration in the first place. These would be the only people affected by removal of birthright citizenship in the first place.
There wouldn’t be any ambiguity. It’s very simple. Was the child born on US Soil? If so, does the child have at least one parent that is a citizen/lawful resident? If the answer to either one of those questions is yes, the child is automatically a citizen. Yes, there are those who could abuse the situation as you described, but those people would do that no matter what. And no matter what your personal position is on birthright citizenship, both sides can say that the other side can be used for political advantage; eliminating birthright citizenship could lead to cases as you described above, where people try to deny others of lawful citizenship for political purposes. But the same can be said in the other direction: allowing automatic birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and is advantageous to Democrats because minorities tend to skew heavily left when they become of voting age.
Regardless of politics, I just don’t think that people should be rewarded for doing illegally what they couldn’t or did not want to do legally. It sucks for the kids, but that’s the parents’ fault, not the US government.
But the same can be said in the other direction: allowing automatic birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and is advantageous to Democrats because minorities tend to skew heavily left when they become of voting age.
Hmmm I wonder why that is 🤔🤔🤔
It sucks for the kids, but that’s the parents’ fault, not the US government.
This isn’t the kids’ fault, why should they be punished by being denied citizenship? Their parent’s country is not guaranteed to give them citizenship if they are born abroad. Also if we start making things like this legal then, for example, what’s to stop debt from being legally able to be transferred from parents to children upon death? It’s their parents fault they are in debt the first place, sucks for the kids but that debt has gotta be paid somehow, ya know?
Allowing them and the descendants to establish citizenship and give those who would otherwise be denied lawful residency is one of the biggest incentives for illegal immigration in the first place.
Citation needed. Economic uncertainties and climate change are pretty big reasons for illegal immigration, afaik, and those are much more short-term survival considerations… it’s not necessarily a plot to have anchor babies in most cases.
If both parents are here illegally, then the child shouldn’t be granted US citizenship (at least until at least one parent establishes lawful residency in the US). Neither should the descendants
This is insane and cruel and a just society would punish you by stripping your citizenship
Of the countries that have birthright citizenship, many have similar or the exact same restrictions I’m mentioning here: One parent must be a citizen or have some form of long-term residency in the country. I am not suggesting anything here that isn’t being done by literally every other first-world nation on Earth. Unrestricted birthright citizenship is almost nonexistent in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Austrailia.
Since you decided to delete your comment before I posted it mine appeared up thread, I’m reposting it here
You do realize that birthright citizenship is almost entirely nonexistent in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Austrailia, right?
at no point in the history of america has “but yurop does it” been a suitable justification for a policy. We are specifically trying to do better than europe
