Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Arizona: More WTF

They're called anchor babies. Not a nice term; conjures up all sorts of images, but in Arizona--and other places--that's how the children, born in the United States, to illegal immigrants parents are described. Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona--and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution--to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican of course, from Mesa, one of Arizona's most conservative districts, in a state filled with arch-conservatives. Pearce was the architect of SB 1070, which allows law-enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists--things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop. Now, he targets children. His new anti-anchor baby legislation will keep children, who, under the Constitution are US citizens, from obtaining their citizenship papers. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the anchor and leave. But the question becomes whether or not Pearce's new attempt at legislating bigotry violates the Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that "All persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been "hijacked" by illegal immigrants. "They use it as a wedge. This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we've created." Then how about working to reform the welfare system instead of punishing these innocent children? How about starting an amnesty program for illegal immigrants to pay a fine and work toward citizenship so they can become legal? We opened the door to illegal immigration decades ago, and turned our eyes away as people from Mexico, and other places, because illegal immigrants are not all Mexican, and now we want to punish them? We practically invited them here to work in our fields and mow our lawns and wash our cars and work in our restaurants and now we say Go Home. This is home. And let's be clear, if you want to fight illegal immigration, then look beyond the brown-skinned, Hispanics; there are Norwegians, and Canadians, and Iranians, and English, and French illegals in this country. Pointing out, and arresting, only the brown-skinned ones, with the broken English, and the nervous glances is racism. Plain and simple.

3 comments:

  1. Listening to this argument yesterday on tv. Apparently there is only one other country that allows babies born in country to be automatic citizens. All other countries deny citizenship. That other country? Canada. So I'm kindof jazzed to be an Anchor Baby. My parents lived in Canada a total of 13 years at two different times. So that would make me a YoYo Baby the second time we lived there? I'm getting dizzy.

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  2. Anonymous12:16 PM

    The immigration thing is what tore it for me concerning my father.

    My ancestry is Italian. My great grandparents came here from Italy. My father insists they were LEGAL immigrants.

    I hated to break it to him, they were undocumented aliens. My great grandmother birthed my grandfather in 1918. She didn't naturalize until 1937!

    The interesting part of this though is that I can claim Italian citizenship (And by that EU citizenship) because of the solid provenance I have.

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  3. Montana1:29 PM

    The Tea Bag Party are just “haters not debaters” or as others have dubbed them “screamers not dreamers”, with their failed attempts at stopping Healthcare reform, they say they respect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence but they do not mind passing laws, through weak Governors (no one voted for this crazy) who only cares about getting elected Governor, on the backs of undocumented workers, that will not pass Constitution muster.

    Brewer signed into law;

    1. S.B. 1070,
    2. No permit conceal weapons law,
    3. The famous Birthers law,
    4. Banning Ethic studies law,

    5. Could she be behind the Mural in Prescott, Arizona, ordered to be whiten,
    6. On deck to pass, no citizenship to babies born to undocumented workers,

    7. If she can read she should look up Arizona’s House Bill 2779 from two years ago (which was un-constitution and failed when legally challenged),
    8. The boycotted Martin Luther King Day, what idiots don’t want another holiday? Yes, you guessed it Arizona.

    Well Arizona, you can boycott new holidays and keep passing crazy laws and the rest of us will continue to challenged them in a court of law and continue to add cities to our Boycott of your state.

    I real cannot believe anything that comes out of Brewer’s mouth, in an interview she first said her father had died in Germany fighting the Nazi in World War II (war ended 1945) but of course we find out the truth that father was never in Germany and died in California in 1955. But we are suppose to believe everything else she says, right!

    As for the Tea Bag Party, their phony patriotism is sickening; they are just racists going by another name. We all know you are just itching to put a sheet on their head? Let’s face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, energy (remember Cheney’s secret meetings with oil companies where loosening regulation and oversight were sealed), climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. It appears that the Republican Party is only good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. The Republicans party will continue turned inward to their old fashion obstructionist party (and their Confederacy appreciation roots) because they continue to allow a small portions (but very loud portion) of their party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to rule their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that perform abortions).

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