More of Arizona's finest bills..

[Berserker]

So Arizona is trying to pass a law that children who are born in the US which have parents that are illegal no longer get citizenship. They are not satisfied with the first bullshit law they passed, they want to pass more shit? That goes directly against the US constitution!! I thought that being a lawmaker meant that you at least had to have read the law once in your lifetime!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/15/arizon ... tml?hpt=T2

14th Amendment
Amendment XIV
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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[MorGrendel]

I have not seen the bill, and (at the moment) I am too lazy to look it up.

In the constitution, comas do not separate and declare distinct points that may be chosen at preference (sometimes the Supreme Court is wrong - The Constitution is NOT a "living document"). The clauses are not and/or expressions; they are ground-breaking legal documentation that strives to define a brand new concepts in the whole. They are indivisible. Though these concepts may seem familiar now, they were not back then, and much work was put into them to assure that every nuance was covered.

That said, I believe being born here should not be enough. As the admendment states, the jurisdiction of the residing state is key. It says, we have to know you are here to count you as an American for any rights to be granted, period.

If you are here illegally, you are not under the juridiction of the gov't or state. You are not to be afforded the rights as an American. If you are here, and you are not reconized as an American (whether you snuck in, came in on a work visa, diplomat, or forein military) then I believe your children retain whatever nationality the parents have. We will provide what aid we can in this time of emergency, but that is all this should be, a birth emergency. If an invader bears children on US soil, they should not be allowed to declare their offspring a de facto American, granted all the same rights and priveliges.

I guess I have an issue with this bill, because I don't think we should need it.

[Berserker]

Upon reading your points, I think you have a very good point when you say that the interpretation of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is key and will dictate if this bill is unconstitutional or not. That will have to come from the supreme court however, as this phrase has not yet been interpretated by the supreme court in how to deal with illegals and the entire sentence is currently taken to mean any child born within the territory of the US regardless how.

As the admendment states, the jurisdiction of the residing state is key. It says, we have to know you are here to count you as an American for any rights to be granted, period.

The bolded part is not true. It is simply your interpretation of the matter (not bashing the interpretation - it is your belief and I very much respect that - I'm just disputing the fact that you say it is an ultimate truth). There are a number of senators that believe the same as you and there were some who also believed that when the bill was passed (e.g. Senator Howard of Michigan who described the jurisdiction to mean that "US possessed a full and complete jurisdiction over the person"). However there were other senators at that time and also now, that believe that any child born in the territory of US is a US citizen. As such this will end up in the supreme court and they will have to make the interpretation.

Now on to my beliefs on the matter:

I personally disagree that a state should have the power to decide who gets to be a citizen and who doesn't. That should solely be the authority of the Federal Government (which I think it currently is if I'm not mistaken). Otherwise, you will end up with different standanrds across the various states which is bad. This bill does just that. (Arizona born babies of illegals won't be citizens, but if you cross over to Texas and they are born, then they are citizens)

I also have a problem with this bill as it stands because I feel that it targets specifically mexicans and I feel that it will open a can of worms. One way to lose your citizsenship is if you commited fraud in the naturalization process in which case you technically were never a citizen and the citizenship is simply voided. What will happen to the people that were made citizens but who's parents were illegal at the time of birth? Do they get the citizenship revoked? If yes, then what if the granparents were illegal, and then you strip their kids of citizenship (who btw, have their own kids now), do you remove the grandson's citizenship too? How far back do you go?

I also don't feel that this will solve any of the problems that Arizona has with the border. The people who illegially cross here to have a baby do it because they want a better life for their child. They are not the same mexicans that traffic drugs and weapons and that will end up dead or in jail.

To your point about invadors, I feel that's a very unlikely scenario. I assume by invadors you mean armed forces of another country invading the US. If someone successfully invades the US, then we have much bigger issues to worry about that what will happen to their babies. If you mean terrorists such as a terrorist that illegally infiltrates the US they are not likely to be pregnant and give birth. They are much more likely to go KaBOOM! ;)

I just feel this bill is misguided and only there for political gain, to stir controversy and give politicians airtime. But this is my belief. Perhaps if a similar law came as a means of the federal government I wouldn't be so opposed to it since I would feel that they would not try to single out a certain population (mexicans) and would be unbiased since the lawmakers would come from the entire US, not just from Arizona.

[MorGrendel]

The bolded part is not true. It is simply your interpretation of the matter ... As such this will end up in the supreme court and they will have to make the interpretation.

Well, we will agree to disagree. However, I will point out that the 14 Amendment is more than just one section, and in particular I was thinking about Section 2. Section 2 talks about determining how to count people for representation (we need to know who you are); Section 3 speaks of enemies of the state, and Section 4 discusses the cost of freeing slaves, And Section 5 is the Almighty Fed pushing its way into state rights.

I will also point out that Section 1 has some funny business because congress ammended it to add the "Born" clause so that if the Supreme Court could not overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1866. So SC can not find that the Constitution is unconstitutional. Also being born (Section 2) here does NOT gaurentee Indians Natural Citizen status, nor does an Indian gain Citizenship should he/she recind Indian affliation.

However, I will admit I was wrong, I thought Section 3 discussed diplomats and forien parties as well but it does not. I maybe mixing interpretations with other admendments and SC rulings.

I personally disagree that a state should have the power to decide who gets to be a citizen and who doesn't. That should solely be the authority of the Federal Government (which I think it currently is if I'm not mistaken). Otherwise, you will end up with different standanrds across the various states which is bad. This bill does just that. (Arizona born babies of illegals won't be citizens, but if you cross over to Texas and they are born, then they are citizens)

Well, you speak to the authority granted in Section 5. I disagree with this abuse of power. The 9th Amendment states that the Fed Must enumerate everything, or else it falls to the states to decide, and if not the states then the people. So to your first point, if no clear Fed law exists, then why not let the states decide? And why do we presuppose that it would be bad for the states to make such a decision? Also if the states must all be the same cookie cutter cut-outs then why have states at all?

(I so want to make a Russia joke here )

[Berserker]

We will agree to disagree =) I think we've both put very eloquent points forth and I will not debate them further in this post (we can always debate them more in person if you want to).

----

Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. "I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage," says the first. "I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying," says the second. "I am here because I got to work on time every day," says the third, "and they charged me with owning a western watch."

----
A romanian twist (Ceausescu was the communist dictator in Romania):

A man is driving his truck on a country road in Ceausescu's Romania. It's late, he's tired, the brakes don't really work, so when he finds a huge pig in the middle of the road he can't avoid to hit the animal. He jumps out of the truck, tries to see if the animal's hurt really bad, and in the process he gets blood on his hands and pants.

The pig dies quickly. The man, horrified, sees that there's a farm nearby, and being a decent man decides to go in and take responsibility. He knocks on the door, an old Rumanian farmer opens the door.

The guy goes: "I killed the pig"

The farmer smiles, happier than he's ever been, hugs the man, and asks him to come in, "Let's celebrate! Do you need help? A hiding place? And even most important, did you manage to kill his fucking wife, too?"

[MorGrendel]

True enough. It was not much of a debate since niether of us are proponents of the bill.

[ahrimen]

Laws are rarely retroactive and any crime commited before it is a law is not actualy a crime

[MorGrendel]

More on this story . . .
Fed sues AZ, and OK, UT, SC to pass AZ-type law.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

[Berserker]

Yup. We'll see what happens in court now. And of course, we'll see what congress comes up with. They will have to pick up immigration sooner or later, too many people a pushing them in that direction for them to ignore it for too much longer.

On another note, reading the article, I am a little scared. A lawmaker of one of those other states was saying that they want to go even further than what Arizona did:

"seize property from businesses that knowingly employ undocumented immigrants."

And that is a statement from a republican! So much for protecting our rights and shit..(and i'm not disputing that businesses that break the law should be penalized, fined, etc, but seizing their property by the government is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge break in our rights in my oppinion).

[MorGrendel]

Yeah, that jumped out at me to.