What type of citizenship criteria should the US use?

Lursa said:

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.

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Lursa said:

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.

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Gatsby said:

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.

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Napoleon said:

Then you agree that the Constitution can be overridden.

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Lursa said:

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?

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Lursa said:

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?

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Visbek said:

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.

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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.

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StillBallin75 said:

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.

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Safiel said:

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

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Lursa said:

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.

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