The debate over birthright citizenship has focused on children born here to illegal aliens. Admittedly, this is a big deal, with more than 300,000 births a year to illegal-immigrants mothers, though I’m on record as skeptical that changing our citizenship rules should be a high-priority objective for immigration hawks.
But there’s a whole other part of the problem — children born here to legal, but temporary, visitors. Not green card holders, who as permanent residents are best seen as candidate-members of the American people and whose children should definitely be citizens at birth. The issue, rather, is about “non-immigrants,” foreigners here temporarily as tourists, students, workers, whatever. In this regard, the issue of birth tourism has gotten attention lately, as has the citizenship status of terrorists like Anwar al-Awlaki and Yaser Esam Hamdi, both born in the U.S. to visitors but raised entirely abroad, who’ve tried to use their nominal citizenship to protect themselves from justice.
But the number of such people never seemed likely to be that large, so what was the big deal? Well, a new CIS report by a pseudonymous government employee with extensive knowledge of such matters estimates that nearly 200,000 people are born each year in the United States to “non-immigrants” — i.e., foreigners here on some kind of temporary status. We have a piece upcoming on possible solutions, many of which wouldn’t require changing our interpretation of the Constitution, but the first decision policymakers face is whether they think it’s a good idea to give away United States citizenship promiscuously to any child born here to a Latvian tourist or Japanese student or a Mexican Border-Crossing Card holder, who then promptly leaves and raises the child in a foreign country.
How about we fine employers who hire illegals?
That would end 90% of the problem. Make the fines staggered but just sufficiently high enough to make hiring illegals not worthwhile.
I am sure anchor babies can be a problem, but not anywhere near as significant as turning a blind eye to illegal immigration and allowing them to work here.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Joe, that would do nothing to end birth tourism, which right now is perfectly legal. He's talking about legal visitors to the United States (tourists, students, etc.) who give birth while they're here.
It's hard to imagine who could be against stopping birth tourism, it's a good wedge issue for the Republicans if they can focus on it without getting distracted by Arizona-style anti-immigrant sentiment.
I'll be interested to see the possible solutions. Heavy fines to tourists who give birth? Lifetime bans on re-entry by the parents? Carving out a tourist exception to birthright citizenship (I think that would be reasonable)?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, if we can speak of the odd Latvian tourist or Japanese student who happens to give birth, I guess my experience is worth recounting too.
I am an Australian citizen who has lived legally in this country for over twenty years on a series of educational (undergraduate school, graduate school, law school) and work (non-ambulance chasing attorney in private practice) v. [sorry for the abbreviation--the commenting system for some reason considers the full word for the legal permission to enter a country to be "objectionable"]. My wife (also Australian) and I expect to finally, after many years of pain and effort, to finally receive our permanent residency status within the next few months.
However, two years ago when our babies were born, we were on E3A V [ditto]. These are Vs--similar to those available to Canadians--that allow Australian professionals to work in the U.S. Technically, they are temporary and last only two years. However, they can be renewed any number of times as long as you are employed in your profession.
But our babies received U.S. citizenship by birthright, so they are among those "nearly 200,000." We expect them to at least grow up in the U.S. and probably make it their home for life.
Is anybody--even among those hostile to high levels of immigration like Mr. Kirkorian--outraged at this particular outcome?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI sure hope the "solutions" don't include DHS officers playing doctor with pregnant women in airports.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCarlEdman, I think the solution would have to be crafted to isolate the practice of traveling to the United States specifically to give birth. "Birth tourism" doesn't refer to people such as yourself - as you say, you have been here on student and work visas, not tourist visas.
There is really no reason for a nine months pregnant woman to take a ten hour flight to the United States for a two week stay other than to take advantage of birthright citizenship, and Congress can bar the facilitation of these trips by American travel companies and their affiliated doctors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs in most cases, the devil is in the details.How could implementation possibly work?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBTW, the captcha is horrible.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou must admit, it turned out all right with Boris Johnson....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen I read about restricting birthright citizenship, I'm always amazed at how people who claim to support 'strict constructionist' judges can find this language needing new interpretation:
"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."
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat effect would ending dual citizenship have - forcing parents to choose one country only for the citizenship of their new child?
Policing this would also be difficult but it might put a damper on birth tourism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJason, I'm interested to know how "Congress can bar the facilitation of these trips by American travel companies and their affiliated doctors." How would this work, exactly?
Say a Honduran woman was issued a tourist visa two years ago and is planning a trip to the United States, so she buys her airline ticket on Expedia. Where, how and who would make the determination that she is fit or unfit to travel into the United States?
Would you simply have her check if pregnant or not on a form? She can lie. She can then have the baby and claim she didn't know she was pregnant, like that TV show. So would you have DHS perform a pregnancy test on the airport? An ultrasound to determine the age of the fetus? How many women would you subject to this and based on what criteria?
The truth is you can't isolate the practice of birth tourism in immigration control without being invasive and abusive. What must be done is find a legal way to exclude babies born to tourists from the constitutional right to citizenship.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy not make it illegal to arrange a delivery by a tourist that is not in the U.S? That way if someone is already in the U.S., medical care is not denied. But if someone in Honduras calls a doctor's office and says "I'll be in the U.S. next week on a tourist visa and would like you to deliver my child," the doctor can not legally make an appointment.
Women do not fly to the US and then go through the yellow pages looking for a doctor, they make arrangements to deliver before they get here, and that activity can be barred by congress.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Jason: "Why not make it illegal to arrange a delivery by a tourist that is not in the U.S?"
Because it won't work. At all. First, the doctors will simply arrange deliveries unofficially ("Okay, I'm not going to write it down, but between you and me, I'll see you next week.") Second, people will just go to emergency rooms, which (rightfully) will not stop to sort through visas and call ICE before providing care.
Also:
"Congress can bar the facilitation of these trips by American travel companies and their affiliated doctors."
What precisely does this mean? Would these companies be completely barred from selling tickets to pregnant women? Would they have to ask their customers to sign statements certifying that they were not about to give birth? If someone lied on the document, would the companies be held to account?
I think the tourist exception is probably the safest bet. If you're born in the US, you're a citizen, UNLESS your parents (one? both?) are here as tourists. (If they're here on some kind of workers' visa or students' visa, no worries; you're a citizen.)
I'm not that familiar with the complexities with immigration, so I'm sure there's some problem I'm not aware of with this idea, but so far it seems the least unreasonable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCarlEdman,
I would not use the word outraged but I do think that this practice should be changed.
I am glad you and your wife are enjoying your life here. I am actually in favor of making it easier for people to immigrate to the US. But Neither of you IS a citizen or has committed to becoming a citizen. At least not from your comments.
If we change the birthright I do think that we need to make it easier for a person who was born and grew up here to formalize their defacto citizenship.
The solution is not to grant citizenship willy nilly, but to make the path to citizenship for folks like you and your children easier.
Even your country of origin(Didn't want to say homeland since you seem to consider the US your home) Australia doesn't grant automatic citizenship. Are you saying they should change their rules? I think they seem rather reasonable.
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One of the problems with birthright citizenship that Mark speaks of, including the type that CarlEdman describes, is the adverse selction problem. IOW, all the children of tourists, visting students, diplomats, etc. have the "right" to be considered US citizens if they so choose later on, but none have the attendant obligations.
For example, if the USA tried collecting income taxes from the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of citizens of countries in Europe, Latin America, etc. whose mothers happened to have been visiting here when they were born, I'm sure we'd get nowhere. Similarly, if we tried to require all such males born here to register with our Selective Service, we'd see zero compliance.
These aren't really hypotheticals. In fact, we don't and can't require English or Mexican or Thai or any other citizens who were born here to pay our income taxes and fight our wars (even when a draft is on) when they are living as citizens of their parents' countries.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLorraine,
CarlEdman's comments motivated me to look at the Australian rules with seem quite reasonable.
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If you are there legally on a long term basic(Perm Resident) then after ten years, your child born there gains citizenship if they have lived in the country most of that time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou might be right Lorraine, that birth tourism services aren't specific enough for congress to isolate. But I'm not suggesting a ban on selling tickets to pregnant women. I'm saying if someone calls an American travel company and says, "I want to see Mt. Rushmore on Thursday and give birth on Friday", the travel company can not legally make arrangements for giving birth, which involves booking hospital rooms, doctors, nurses, etc.
A single instance of that might be hard to prosecute, but someone in the birth tourism business would be doing that every day and the pattern would be incriminating.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@OB: That actually sounds fairly reasonable, in that it would reflect a commitment by the parents to the US, and citizenship would kick in early enough that the child would have all relevant rights (such as the right to vote).
Also, as for CarlEdman, he said that he was on his way to permanent resident (i.e., green card) status, which is part of the path towards citizenship. A delay of years, or even decades, is by no means unusual; our immigration law is so byzantine that it makes Byzantium look like Copenhagen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"Why not make it illegal to arrange a delivery by a tourist that is not in the U.S?"
It's much easier to simply change the law so that the baby in question is not made a US citizen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Roger Buck: The dual citizenship aspect is really the best approach, IMHO. Create a structure where those born here are required to state, at their majority (still 18, despite ObamaCare), which citizenship they will practice. If they choose to be an American, they re-affirm their citizenship through an oath; they are required to turn in all citizen/subject documentation related to any other country; they receive a US passport; they register for the Selective Service and any other citizen duties. Those actually living in this country for their entire lives, or whose parents became naturalized citizens are not required to re-affirm their citizenship with an oath.
Anyone who does not declare their US citizenship at their majority can still attempt to claim their citizenship. They must submit paperwork proving they were in some way unaware of their status, or that they were unable to contact an American consular officer to make their claim. That paperwork would go before a bureaucratic board that would have a limit on percentages allowed (or raw numbers). The bureaucratic nightmare involved should stifle all casual citizen wannabes.
Yes, you could claim to your heart's content all over the world that you are a US citizen. But it wouldn't mean diddly if you didn't do the work of making it true.
(Oh, and "birthright citizens" per above, would be prevented from bringing family members to the US, except for their immediate family. *Those* family members would not be allowed to bring *anyone* to the US.)
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