Op-Ed: Birthright citizenship restrictions are ‘a dangerous solution’

3

In an editorial, North Bergen resident Eric Dixon gives his take on how birthright citizenship restrictions are “a dangerous solution” to illegal immigration.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Birthright citizenship has been blamed for the nation’s illegal immigration problem for at least three decades. Cutting it back, however, is a dangerous solution which also ignores the real problem.

First, the danger. Any reduced scope in birthright citizenship, whether statutory or arising from judicial interpretation or constitutional amendment, changes the “bright line” rule determining citizenship.

Presently, place of birth determines American citizenship. Once that is eroded or eliminated, then a new rule must take over.

There will be a basis for citizenship, but you should be afraid of what the rule will be, who will determine the rule, and then who will enforce the rule.

(Think about how efficient the Post Office and Motor Vehicles Commission are, for starters. Are you comfortable with that?)

Take note, citizens: Once any status other than birthplace becomes the rule for some, it can become the rule for all.

Because change sometimes happens incrementally (when it does not happen suddenly and violently in revolution), erosion today helps lead to erosion tomorrow.

If and once citizenship depends on parentage, your parents can control whether you are a citizen or not. What happens if your parents are dead, missing or deny your ancestry? What happens if you’re an orphan?

You’re stateless, that’s what. Welcome to the new Palestine. You comfortable with that?

If there’s some other basis, then expect the corruption and inequities that come from commoditizing a right (or is it now a privilege?) to remain in this country. Is it wealth? Education? Being skilled in a certain industry or trade? Age? Fertility?

All can be gamed, and all bases will exclude significant portions of the population. Any such basis will expose tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, to an uncertain legal status.

Once a government has the ability to arbitrarily determine citizenship, you no longer have a right, you have a license, and it can be revoked at any time for good, bad or no reason.

The government’s ability to expel you is a core feature of historical tyrannies, and it is the presence of birthright citizenship which has uniquely protected the American people and made United States citizenship as treasured as it is.

Perhaps, to be cynical, that is precisely the object. There are those who dream of creating a more perfect society, in which they are the creators and you and I have no place. Except, perhaps, as the serfs or cannon fodder.

The seriousness of the scope of illegal immigration, estimated to be 10 million under the Biden Administration alone and perhaps 30-35 million if you go back decades (that’s 10% of the U.S. population!), cannot be understated.

We have a compassion-exploitation industry sucking up taxpayer funds going into non-government entity “charities” which evade all the government reporting laws.

There are too many opportunities for mischief, too much money to be made from the poverty of “the migrants.” If no one was profiting, there would be no migrant problem today.

As for the argument that “something must be done” to address illegal immigration, the problem is that the “something” can be even worse than the problem. It can always get worse.

The core problem is the government’s unwillingness to enforce federal immigration laws in place since the 1980s.

Enforcement, and border security on the level practiced in most of the rest of the world, are better solutions, not sending us all down a road jeopardizing the right of hundreds of millions of born-and-bred-here citizens to stay here.

Sincerely,

Eric Dixon
North Bergen resident


Warning: A non-numeric value encountered in /home/hcvcp/public_html/wp-content/themes/Hudson County View/includes/wp_booster/td_block.php on line 353

3 COMMENTS

  1. Eric uses a smoke screen technique to muddy the waters. All these samples are extreme, yet almost all of Europe has parent restrictions for at least 100-200 years. Somehow, continent did not collapse.

    Eric leaves main issue out: rampant fraud. 400 000 anchor babies per year. At public expense, including subsidizing housing. While there is no money for our own citizens, including veterans.

    It is sick, that we are even willing to consider people claiming political asylum who clearly seeking handouts. They take valuable spaces from those legitimate cases for whom the system was set up.

    It is well established in international law that you must apply for asylum in first safe country. My school geography might be fuzzy, but I do not recall USA bordering Tanzania, nor India, nor Kazakhstan. Even in case of India, US court declared that applicant can move at will safely to another location in a very big country:

    PDF https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/03/22/22-211.pdf

    Notice: this fraudster waited in USA almost 4 years in “fear for his life” and applied for political asylum only when he was about to be deported.

    In the end, birth”right” citizenship fraud needs to be publicly discussed and addressed.

  2. Say what you want, it was smart move on part of whoever advises Trump. Forcing Supreme Court to decide by issuing an executive order. In the meantime, a bill was just introduced in Congress to define 14th Amendment in detail excluding abusers. Case of birth tourism industry in Saipan was cited, where Chinese and Russian mothers outnumber local women.

    Will see where it goes.

LEAVE A REPLY