Discussion: America Has Freaked Out Over Birthright Citizenship For Centuries

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Discussion for article #239608

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Notice that the entire history of opposition to birthright citizenship is racism, including the GOP stance today. It is a racist policy platform and has no business even being considered in 21st century America.

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Not only that, the Fourteenth Amendment was clearly intended to grant citizenship to the single class of unauthorized migrants which did exist: namely, the children of slaves brought to the United States in violation of the federal law prohibiting the slave trade. A far better reading is that the amendment means what it says.

None of the current racists running for president know this or care to know this as they blather about amending or repealing or something…

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Japanese-Americans who were born here were interned during WWII because the racial pot had been stirred up for many years before Japan was even threatening war. Those racists knew they were no threat to this country’s security but jingoistic pols capitalized on it.

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Thank you for explaining a difficult and important topic.

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May I say, NOT all Americans.

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Life begins at conception. But citizenship when you get a handgun and a Reagan tattoo.

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Note that citizenship is still not granted to residents of American Samoa - they get passports designating them as “US nationals”, but not full citizens. This leaves them in sort of second-class status.

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Kudos to Gabriel Chin. He is the acknowledged expert in this area.

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Birthright citizenship is the only part of our immigration system which actually meets the moral requirements of our democratic ideals, and makes sense based on our capitalist ideology. Our modern liberal democratic ideals make the enfranchisement of all adult members of society a moral obligation. More glibly, no taxation without representation. If we removed birthright citizenship, the very real result would be a multi-generational underclass with no legal citizenship. It is immoral to deny the right to work, and the right to vote to a person born and raised here because of the status of his or her parents. Our capitalist ideals suggest, further, that it makes no sense to ignore a potential worker who could contribute to the growth of the economy.

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