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I caught a debate on The O'Reilly Factor last night about Elvira Arellano. I'll post more about it when the transcript is available, but the general idea is that Arellano is now saying that her illegal activities were the fault of the U.S. for not securing our borders well enough.
Yes, I kid you not - it's our fault that she's a felon!
That got me thinking. One of the real problems with this debate (one that makes Arellano's case somewhat sticky) is the so-called 'anchor baby' phenomenon. Basically, illegals sneak over the border just in time to have a baby; the child, born on U.S. soil, is automatically granted U.S. citizenship. At that point, the illegal alien can play the sympathy card: don't rip apart my family, you have to let me stay here (i.e. the baby becomes an anchor). The sticky part is that we definitely want intact families, but it's illegal for the parent to be here.
We need to clarify the piece of the Constitution that grants citizenship in this way. The 14th Amendment was originally intended to grant citizenship to slaves born in the U.S., giving them equal rights as Americans. The 'Equal Protection' clause has been misinterpreted to allow anyone born on U.S. soil that same right. This clause has been abused mightily by people from all over the world for a very long time. I firmly believe we need to clarify that amendment to eliminate this misinterpretation. Removing the incentive of anchor babies would have an effect similar to that of removing the incentive of jobs.
If you agree, take action. Right Truth has linked to a petition in support of this change. House Resolution H.R.1940, ending birthright citizenship, was introduced in the House by Congressman Nathan Deal of Georgia. Sign the petition here, and contact your Congressmen to ask for their support. Given the Democrat leadership of the House right now, it isn't very likely that the bill will come up for consideration, but support is increasing in the current political climate in America. Everyday people swamped the Senate this summer, demanding accountability on illegal immigration; we can make it permanent with actions like this.
There's my two cents.
***UPDATE: Here is the transcript of the interview I mentioned. It begins with a clip of Arellano making a statement from Mexico:
The United States is the one who broke the law first by letting people cross over without documents. By letting people pay taxes. For me it has been very hard, but I know I am not alone.
Guest host Michelle Malkin then talks with Reverend Walter Coleman, the pastor who gave sanctuary to Ms. Arellano in Chicago. One of his statements, when asked whether Arellano's son would rather stay in the U.S. or return to be with his mother, is:
[H]e's 8 years old. And that's what he wants. He wants to continue his life in this country. And he wants to be with his mother. And I think that as a country, we have to take responsibility. We, for years, left our borders open. We invited people to work. They worked. We invited them to pay taxes. They paid taxes. And then all of a sudden, we're swept with a little bit of fear and hate and see the numbers multiplying. And let's see, well let's kick them all out of here. Well, we've got families here that are mixed status. Husbands and wives and U.S. citizen children. And we've got to take responsibility to fix the law.
Malkin points out that federal authorities are trying to fix the problem by actually enforcing our laws. Coleman protests that Arellano never had a chance to argue her case, but Malkin points out that Arellano was caught, processed through deportation hearings, deported, caught again (this time after stealing an American's identity), and ordered deported again.
Coleman said Arellano's sanctuary was an "act of civil disobedience against an unjust law".
I have to say that this conversation disgusts me. It's amazing how our laws can be ignored whenever it is convenient for them (i.e. when entering illegally, or through "civil disobedience"), but then they turn around and hold up the citizenship of an anchor baby as the end-all-be-all authority on what happens to her and her son. This double standard is yet another example of why so many (legitimate) Americans are outraged by illegal immigration.
According to Arellano's logic (and I use the term loosely here), if I steal something from my neighbor, it's actually his fault because he didn't adequately protect his house from illegal entry.
Yeah, that makes sense.
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