14 States Support Bill to Prevent Birthright Citizenship

Interesting.

Unconstitutional. That is all.

Seriously, these people keep complaining about this, yet they continue to send people to Congress who refuse to deal with the problem.

If you're in a country illegally, it could be argued that the jurisdiction of the nation's law were not presently applying in full to you. Jus soli is stupid anyways.

Funny how the number of states opposed to birthright citizenship is equal to the number amendment that created birthright citizenship.

Making it so that certain people do not have equal protection under the law would only serve to create an outlaw system, which if you've studied any history at all, you'd be able to see how much of a terrible idea that is. That's why the fourteenth amendment was created in the first place.

edited 4th Jan '11 2:27:51 AM by EnglishIvy

History also mentions howw dying empires are often finished off, besides disastrous total wars, after having critical civil/military/demographic indicators dominated by adversarial cultural groups. Rome, after they turned over national defense to Germanic "barbarians". The Ming after turning over defense of the Capital Region to the Manchu. And the Manchu Qing shortly after massive Chinese immigration to Manchuria.

Anyways, any federal change to birthrate citizenship would probably pass constitutional muster. Though it really depends which state gets their law challenged. If it's any Western state, we might have a huge fracas. But if it's in pretty much any other state, the challenge will probably just die in the local Circuit of Appeals.

edited 4th Jan '11 2:40:49 AM by Tsukubus

You'll be happy to know that none of that is happening today, and that your analogy with the fall of Rome is completely paranoid. Immigrants do not form an overwhelming majority of any of those things you've listed.

These laws are in flagrant violation of the fourteenth amendment. They only "pass constitutional muster" after the courts have been filled with right-wing hacks. Anyone who was not blinded by ideology would see that these laws are unconstitutional.

And your Freudian Slip in birthrate/birthright is quite amusing.

edited 4th Jan '11 2:50:45 AM by EnglishIvy

Well, the analogy is kind of off, since Germanic barbarins only really formed a significant auxiliary of the Roman army, but weren't as strong on the demographic aspect, while in modern times, large swathes of California are indistinguishable from the poorest regions of Mexico, except perhaps being arguably worse.

Most of the "compromise" nominees would probably retain a birthright citizenship prohibition. Which is why it'd pass muster in every Circuit of Appeals except the 9th. And if national consciousness increases to the point where the mass populace percieves a threat to their national/territorial integrity, even those legally opposed will find...pragmatic solutions, as a lot of wartime rulings have shown us.

That's making a lot of assumptions on your part. My knowledge of American law making is only so-so but to change the constitution wouldn't you need the president's approval for it? I doubt Obama would sign such a thing into law.

The Ming and the Romans didn't have a problem from immigration but from handing over important government functions to foreign political units

Constitutional Amendments need to pass 3/4ths of the states. That's way more than 14.

Not gonna happen.

Changing the Constitution requires two steps.

1) An amendment must be proposed by either:

a) Two-thirds of both Houses of Congress (that's sixty-seven votes in the Senate, which has issues getting just sixty on minor issues and issues with massive public support, let alone THE LOOMING SPECTER OF IMMIGRATION)

b) A Constitutional Convention requested by two-thirds of the state legislatures (has never happened, and very possibly will never happen)

2) The amendment must then be approved by either:

a) Three-fourths of the state legislatures (the usual method, requiring thirty-eight states. That requires only thirteen states to refuse to ratify in order for the motion to fail. Just start counting the New England states/the Southern states depending on the issue at hand and you'll see why this is difficult)

b) Conventions called by Congress in at least three-fourths of the states (meets the same issue as above, though on issues with extreme public support it can bypass the innate conservatism, in the sense of 'resistance to change,' of a legislature)

So, basically, it's ridiculously difficult to change the Constitution, and it requires massive support on the federal and state levels, as well as massive public support.

edited 4th Jan '11 5:34:12 AM by Chalkos

No court in the USA has ruled on whether the 14th amendment mandates birthright citizenship. As such, there's nothing unconstitutional about abolishing it by legislative means. Of course, the courts can also strike such legislation down as unconstitutional, but I doubt it.

edited 4th Jan '11 7:56:02 AM by Tsukubus

The moment someone tried to rule on it, the courts would then rule it unconstitutional.

The fact that no one has tried to make a low that is DELIBERATELY unconstitutional-and as thus, the courts have never had to rule on it-does not mean that it is unconstitutional.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

It really doesn't get any simpler than that.

Oh wait, that's right-you were arguing that they're not actually subject to the jurisdiction thereof. But that's blatantly false-if you can be arrested by the police, you're subject to the jurisdiction. Unless you're saying illegal aliens are essentially given diplomatic immunity.

edited 4th Jan '11 7:58:23 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Common law doesn't really work like that. If we interpreted every single law based solely on the text, there'd be no such thing as Schenk v. US, or Miller v. California.

Tsukubus, Common Law doesn't work that way, but The US Constitution does. That's what it's there for. You're basically just saying to ignore the whole damned thing-like chicago tried to ignore the 2nd.

It's unconstitutional. And sometimes the courts will ignore that for a while, I'll grant you that, but I seriously doubt you'd get away with something like this on a real scale for any prolonged length of time.

^^ That's where the concept of implied powers of the Constitution comes from. The strictest of interpretations of just the text (I mean even stricter than strict constructionists of the early 1800s held) would not allow for things like Miller vs California.

But implied powers has its own question: How far away do the implications go? How vague can you imply? The court settles things in that regard. Scholarly level or debate can use some of the writings of the The Federalist Papers for additional input on what the creators meant but the court goes based on how far could you reasonably assume the implied power.

For example Lopez vs United States. The Congress passed a gun ban on school campuses forbidding all firearms on school grounds. The implied power was that since schools can have an effect on the local economy, the commerce clause allowed such measures. Unfortunately for proponents of that law, the court wildly disagreed and struck it down setting precedent that the implied power of the commerce clause goes a lot shorter than people thought.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:04:17 AM by MajorTom

US courts, which operate under common law, have exclusive jurisdiction over application of the US Constitution. So that IS how the US Constitution works. Common law, unlike civil law, is based off of equity, not text. From a solely textual interpretation, a handgun ban seems unconstitutional, but there clearly are arguments against that because text isn't as important as precedence and equity.

If a state refused to issue birth certificates to the children of illegal immigrants, there would be absolutely no way that precedent would establish it as unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit (lol) likely would and not issue a stay, but the SC would almost certainly overturn that decision in a short while. And almost every other circuit would uphold it.

^^ Right. But that's the thing-the constitution limits state and federal powers, and errs on the side of limiting them. Saying "No you're not a citizen" as a state law is an attempt at power by the state; implied powers are limited, so it's safe to say that the power to pass such a low is basically a no-go.

^You're naive if you think that the SC would rule against a word for word violation of the 14th amendment. This is not a case of ambiguity-like with what "Freedom of Speech" means, or what "arms" people have the right to-this is a case where something very specific is outright stated in the US constitution and states are attempting to erect laws to violate that very statement. There's no room for debate here: The state laws are wrong, and any judge who isn't just caving to public pressure would see that.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:08:59 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

^^ A handgun ban *is* unconstitutional. Did you not see the last two SCOTUS cases regarding firearms laws? Precedent saying such things are unconstitutional was established twice using the same logic.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:07:04 AM by MajorTom

You'll be happy to know that none of that is happening today, and that your analogy with the fall of Rome is completely paranoid. Immigrants do not form an overwhelming majority of any of those things you've listed.

Except in California, jesus, I want to yank my hair out in rage when I drive through parts of town that don't have any signs written in English.

Current precedent establishes such. But there is certainly a legally valid argument to uphold the constitutionality of handgun bans, which I personally agree with. If law was just a "read the law, that's what it is", for one, I'd need to find a new vocational field, and that argument wouldn't even exist.

Not all laws are simple and clear. Citizenship for those born or naturalized in the United States is simple and clear. I'm not entirely sure where you think your argument stands here.

The handgun thing is a bit more unclear, though I still think most bans on ALL weapons (rather than just background checks etc) are flat-out unconstitutional.

besides...

edited 4th Jan '11 8:12:56 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

An illegal immigrant is by definition not under the absolute jurisdiction of United States law or else he would not be in the country. It seems pretty clear-cut to me. Most precedent agrees. Congress has already constitutionally used its power to grant/deny citizenship (mostly in relation to Indigenous Americans), so it's pretty clear-cut to me.

Except read the case I just linked you to where Texas made that exact argument and the SCOTUS rejected the notion.