Most of the difficulties in resolving the illegal immigration problem are self-imposed. Securing a border is easy enough; fences have been around since before the time of Christ, as demonstrated by the Great Wall of China. Further, immigrants generally look, act, and speak differently than American citizens. A Vdare reader makes the point pretty cleverly:
It should be obvious that a National ID is merely a red herring proffered by those who would rather not enforce our immigration laws.
Most Mexican illegal aliens carry what is the equivalent of biometric ID: they have brown skin and they don’t speak English.
Any four-year-old can spot the unassimilable kind of illegal alien. The problem is not that we’re unable to identify them but that our masters in Washington choose not to remove them.
Speaking for myself, I am not opposed to National ID in all circumstances, but I am certainly very wary of it. We should at least exhaust tried and true common sense means of protecting the border and enforcing immigration laws before scuttling the rights to privacy and anonymity that ordinary Americans have long cherished. There’s no reason to adopt “comprehensive” and invasive solutions when ordinary ones will get us 90% of the benefit that we are seeking.
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Nothing at all, and I mean nothing, can be accomplished until the Constitution is amended to change the portion of the Constitution which states that “All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of the United States”> Ron Paul said all of our troubles were caused by a misinterpretation of this language, but I don’t see how it could be any plainer. The phrase” and subject to the jurisdiction thereor” could not have referred to the children of illegal aliens as there was no such thing at the time of its adoption. There was no such thing at that time and no immigration laws of any kind. To insist that the children of illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is idiotic. They are subject to it in every way. These”sense of Congress” resolutions which have passed the House are futile and can have no real effect on any federal court decision.
Yeah, the brown skin test works except in those cases of millions of Hispanic Americans who are U.S. citizens, whether born here or naturalized. Or those Indians, Asians, Native Americans, Africans, African-Americans, Pacific Islanders, etc. etc.
Come on. Someone as educated as you quoting that kind of junk?
It’s a two part test. Do you think American Citizen Hispanics can’t speak English? Can you read?
If you can’t speak English, and you’re an American Citizen, you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt as to your citizenship no matter what you look like, and your lack of English speaking ability presents a reasonable basis for further investigation by law enforcement.
“All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of the United States”–Randolph Fuller
That’s NOT what it says. It says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, ARE citizens of the United States….” (Emphasis added.) The passage is thus plausibly interpreted to refer only to people then in existence. Almost everywhere else, the Constitution uses “shall”; hence your confusion.
So…if a person does not have brown skin, and does not meet the first criteria of the test, does that mean they are excused? If you are born in this country to parents who do not speak English, then what? Are you subject to harassment from law enforcement every time you walk down the street? Are we to post immigration officials at the doors of every school in America to check hispanic children for their citizenship status?
If you are wary of National ID cards, you should be wary of what this posts suggests, and that is an equally intrusive police state that is constantly investigating the immigration status of people who walk down the street.
Any kind of greater immigration control is by its very nature more invasive. In my mind, we have two choices: liberty or security. You cannot have greater immigration control without it being more invasive.
Unless of course, you are suggesting that the color of a person’s skin excuses them from being subject to more invasive scrutinizing by immigration officials.
While I am not fully endorsing the idea of National ID cards, they do have the benefit of being more or less non-disciminatory: all people, regardless of whether or not they have white skin and speak English, are subject to them.
Profiling limits the impact of law enforcement on the majority. It triages resources and puts them where you are most likely to get a positive finding of criminality. The problem with your position is that it’s so concerned with equality and fair treatment, that more resources are used and with less effectiveness all in the name of a dubious concern for Americans who have not assimilated for one reason or another. Thus we end up with the farce of little old white ladies being shaken down in airport security.
Law enforcement should use sensible profiling to find lawbreakers. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are young men and young women from Mexico with little education, limited or no English abilities, and a distinctive appearance. It takes two seconds to figure this out from afar, and minimal discussion with a suspect reveals an illegal. ICE agents should be aggressively rooting out suspects from Home Depot parking lots, labor pools, construction sites, back rooms of restaurants, and anywhere else an illegal alien could be found. The idea that the rest of us must lose our freedom so that the false freedom for unassimilated minorities to be treated equally by law enforcement is confused and liberal in its origins, and, judging by the numbers of illegals living among us, totally ineffective.
And it will get worse if any one of the three current candidates for the nomination of Democrat or Republican parties wins and holds sway. They all intend to make medical care cost less by efficiency. Efficiency will be produced in particular by computerized medical records. Notwithstanding all the mis-steps that are likely in that kind of project, you will find your national ID must be a part of that system. Now that we have that new system on the planning table, you can bet there may be a few problems for the individual with that wonderful national database. Could something wrong get into it? Of course, not only with the doctor who sees you and the technician who takes your x-ray have to be able to access it, but the staff in their office must do so as well.
Wanna bet that members of Congress and other high-level govt officials will be exempt from it???? All traces of old records will be removed when one ascends to those august positions. Count on it.
Immigration enforcement is indeed the problem you have blogged about, but this “improvement” in “health care” is the camel’s nose under the tent and it is promoted by Senators McCain, Clinton and Obama.
The language of the Constitution regarding birthright citienship was adopted to deal with the decision in Dred Scott that held that blacks were not citizens and thus could not bring suit in federal courts. To say that it refers only to people already born at the time of its adoption is even more idiotic than the view that children of illegal aliens born here are not citizens.