What type of citizenship criteria should the US use?

[Gatsby]

I'm curious...why does it matter where a US citizen lived? Many citizens do travel, live abroad, work abroad, are in the military, etc. If a US citizen, they are a US citizen...would there be other conditions on citizens? Because this seems to invent one.

OTOH, placing the identity criteria on the person born in another country is pretty clear. "Yes born in another country. To one or both US citizen parents." No one has to track down the residencies of the parents over the yrs.

The main reason to limit citizenship for people born abroad to US citizens, is to prevent multi-generational families with no connection to the United States from getting US citizenship. For example, let's say an American man living in Japan in the early 1900s had a son with a Japanese woman. And the son gets US citizenship despite living in Japan. OK, fair enough. But let's say this (culturally Japanese) US citizen son never even visits America and has kids with another Japanese woman, and this continues for four generations. We would have gigantic numbers of US citizens living abroad with only the most tenuous connection to the US, with no end in sight. Which would not be ideal.

Putting a residency requirement on children born abroad to US citizens is one way to break the chain and prevent this from happening.

One interesting thing is that it could severely limit the rights of a military person in another country who produces a child (man or woman) with a foreign national. Some of our service members are 18-20 yrs old. That was brought up by someone earlier, about their rights to the kid.

I'd be fine modifying it to 18 years instead of 20, and/or treating US military stationed abroad as a special case with different rules.

 

[Lursa]

The main reason to limit citizenship for people born abroad to US citizens, is to prevent multi-generational families with no connection to the United States from getting US citizenship. For example, let's say an American man living in Japan in the early 1900s had a son with a Japanese woman. And the son gets US citizenship despite living in Japan. OK, fair enough. But let's say this (culturally Japanese) US citizen son never even visits America and has kids with another Japanese woman, and this continues for four generations. We would have gigantic numbers of US citizens living abroad with only the most tenuous connection to the US, with no end in sight. Which would not be ideal.

Putting a residency requirement for children born abroad to US citizens is one way to break the chain and prevent this from happening.

OK and that makes sense. But I thought that your post said that the father/mother of the kid had to have specific residential criteria?

 

[Ahlevah]

Then you agree that the Constitution can be overridden.

Overridden? No. Expanded? Yeah. Congress can grant citizenship to Native Americans or even non-Americans who weren’t granted U.S. citizenship by birth.

 

[StillBallin75]

The entire concept of "citizenship" should be abolished.

All it does is serve as a divide and conquer tool of class warfare, a tool of depriving people of basic rights by setting completely arbitrary thresholds for who qualifies.

Case in point - at the founding, "citizen" referred to a subset of rich, landowning white males.

 

[Gatsby]

OK and that makes sense. But I thought that your post said that the father/mother of the kid had to have specific residential criteria?

Yes. If a child is born abroad to two US citizen parents, the parents would need to have lived in the US in order for the child to inherit their US citizenship. If they have only a tenuous connection to the US themselves, that's fine, they can keep their own US citizenship but they can't pass it down to their offspring born abroad.

I'd also be fine with exploring an Ancestry green card like some other countries have...maybe the non-citizen child of two US citizens decides they want to move to America and become an American when they grow up. Assuming they pass the normal background checks, maybe we could have a special green card and pathway to citizenship for them.

 

[cpwill]

Please explain your answer...your reasoning, the pros and cons, the benefits and consequences, etc.

We have a legal process for changing the definition in the 14th Amendment...so should we do so? Why not have a national discussion and see what's best for the US? Please start discussing it here.

I am open to changing it to having one parent being a US citizen but would like to know more to see if that would be better.

Please do not rehash the discussions in other threads on the current text of the 14th. It can be changed...the question is...should it be?

A good structure to the question.

I chose the option "at least one parent" because I think birthright citizenship has created poor incentives in a world of easy travel, but think the notion of requiring two parents kind of ridiculous.

I also chose "born anywhere in the world" because it seems stupid to expect Americans to rush back here to have birth if living overseas. Our military members, for example, are stationed overseas for years at a time.

It also makes sense to assign a kind of presumptive citizenship to the children of those who are *legal* permanent residents in this country.

We should additionally retain the naturalization process, though I would tweak it to focus more on talent and work, v endless family chain migration. Honorable service in the US military ought to be sort of a given, for example.

 

[Jason Warfield]

I see no reason to change it for two reasons.

First, so called anchor babies where mothers specifically come to the US to have their kid for the purpose of benefits of the child born in the US is not on the same level of illegals who cross the border illegally or over stay their visas.

Second…be careful what you wish for. One thing we’ve noticed about MAGA making demands is that the outcomes aren’t quite what they expected, and not in a good way. Also, before one starts to demand changes to the amendment, one should make sure of their own situation and the family members as well.

Side note: depending on which choice is theoretically possible as a change, you will have to take into account a grandfather clause to make sure it doesn’t affect people like Barron Trump in a negative way. That is a consideration to make whatever choice may come to pass.

 

[StillBallin75]

1) If you're rich enough to buy a 5 million gold card.

2) If you're a white person from a majority non-white country who can bamboozle the sitting President into believing that you're a refugee from "white genocide" (while the regime assists Israel in conducting an actual genocide) but yet Palestinians and their allies are rounded up.

 

[slick]

No.

America is, by design, a nation of immigrants. Sadly, this periodically encourages outbursts of racism and xenophobia, like we see today. So far, this has always faded. I see little reason to drastically alter the Constitution, and fabric of the nation, to indulge America's worst impulses.


Because the people who want to change the 14th Amendment aren't interested in any discussion. All they want to do is ram their racist policies down everyone else's throat, by any means necessary. They aren't even trying to amend the Constitution.

We also see how the xenophobes almost always make their claims in bad faith. Many are themselves descendants of immigrants, who faced exactly the same kind of discrimination they impose upon others. We see how the xenophobes recycle the same lies over hundreds of years -- e.g. the Know Nothings of the 19th Century also claimed that migrants caused crime and would Destroy The Nation. We see how they piously claim to care deeply about immigration law, then gleefully trample the law and the Constitution in order to get their way. The list goes on.

Many people can have rational discussions about the structure of, and potential changes to, existing immigration law. However, I refuse to pretend that racists are open to any such reasoned debate.

America is, by design, a nation of immigrants? Not the way the founders saw it

In 1790 a year after Washington became president US citizenship
was opened up to “free white persons” of ‘moral character.’ No others need apply!

For 350 years our immigration laws were written with one goal, to preserve the
European character of this country. Italians, Irish, Germans & Slavs are & were European.

Lefties always are saying 'Italians, Irish, Germans, Slavs, etc emigrated here en masse and were not welcome by bigots' Perhaps true in
a few instances but they were welcome by the country as a whole being that they passed the criteria for citizenship;

 

[Safiel]

Constitutionally, I would stay with jus soli citizenship.

However, Constitutional type is only one type, with jus sanguinis being provided for by statute.

8 USC 1401 provides:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:

(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;

(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;

(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;

(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;

(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person (A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or (B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and

(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States.

Subsection (a) simply restates the Constitutional requirement and subjection (b) ended the exclusion of native Americans as they were previously considered semi-sovereign and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Subsections (c)(d)(e)(g) and (h) provide for jus sanguinis citizenship.

Subsection (f) provides a safeguard of jus soli citizenship if an abandoned child is found.

I would keep the current system as is, both constitutionally and legally.

 

[Safiel]

I voted the first option in the poll, since the poll refers specifically to CONSTITUTIONAL citizenship requirements, not statutory.

 

[Felis Leo]

The entire concept of "citizenship" should be abolished.

All it does is serve as a divide and conquer tool of class warfare, a tool of depriving people of basic rights by setting completely arbitrary thresholds for who qualifies.

Case in point - at the founding, "citizen" referred to a subset of rich, landowning white males.

It should be abolished, but it cannot, unfortunately. To do so would require the abolition of the nation state. But, I think it should be made incredibly easy to become a citizen of the United States. As far as I am concerned, it should be no more difficult than obtaining a Driver's License.

 

[Parrish]

Those seeking asylum. Employed, taxpayers, no felonies, children born abroad or in the US included. The bill agreed upon before the election would be a good start.

 

[Lursa]

I voted the first option in the poll, since the poll refers specifically to CONSTITUTIONAL citizenship requirements, not statutory.

Good point but I really am interested in what would be the best choice for the country. Is birthright citizenship best? More about the why? The pros and cons of that or any other.

The Const can be changed and that's probably what it's going to take if that's what TACO wants.

 

[Safiel]

Good point but I really am interested in what would be the best choice for the country. Is birthright citizenship best? More about the why? The pros and cons of that or any other.

The Const can be changed and that's probably what it's going to take if that's what TACO wants.

Jus soli is the best choice. It is the easiest to administer. Jus sanguinis is needed as a "backup" plan, if United States Citizens are forced to have a child while overseas. But that can be left to statute, as is currently the case.