re: #105 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Because our immigration and naturalization system is such a clusterfuck it breeds issues like that.

If we can reform that, then birthright citizenship is a non-issue.

NB: I live in a country where nationality was determined by the nationality of the Father until 200. That means that my oldest daughter was born in Germany but not German.

The law was amended in 2000 to allow birthright for all children born to legal residents. So her siblings were born German, and the oldest daughter was given a chance to apply retroactively.

But that is serious apples and oranges, there is no comparing the situation here and the one between the US & Mexico.

Then focus on reforming that. Making a compromise on birthright citizenship basically just gives concession to the idea that there are some weird, threatening invasive forces trying to take advantage of us with evil sleeper cell Anchor Babies. Especially considering the ‘Anchor Baby’ panic is so unevenly done with an obvious racist bent. You have a literal industry of rich Russians having timeshares so they can have their children in the US for dual citizenship, but all the panic is over ‘ILLEEEEEEGALLS’ crawling over the border to breed us out or some paranoid shit. Which is conflated with hispanic families who have been in the US for generations because the border jumped THEM back in the 19th century.

Between US interference in Latin America that’s kept things destabilized and an labyrinthine immigration system that’s being tilted even more toward the rich and well connected, birthright citizenship is the only thing about the system that works without prejudice, and prevents the creation of stateless children, as well as punishing children for the ‘Sins of the Father’ as it were, something. And especially since immigration and asylumship has been trending downward, the sheer paranoid panic of invasive brown folks trying to cheat the system for citizenship is the ultimate distraction. Making that a concession you’re willing to make is validating the fears about ‘scary brown border jumpers’.