Politically Correct Deflections

By William L. Garvin

Having been born in a less confusing time, my birth certificate simply listed “Father” and “Mother.”  In its search for equality and all things created equal, political correctness now dictates change from the traditional to “Parent #1” and “Parent #2.”  Our courts have yet to decide how the order of listing will be determined, i.e., who comes in first and who comes in second.  I smell a Supreme Court case in the offing!

The same conundrum surfaces with marriage certificates.  My mom and dad were identified as “Husband” and “Wife.”  Now we have the devolution to “Spouse #1” and “Spouse #2.”  Dad would have liked to be #1 but in his heart, he knew he was #2.  Mom, being traditional, knew she was #1 but would have been more than happy to wear the #2 appellation.  Probably it’s a pile of “Number Two” to all but a pc few.

This foolishness matters only to those who prefer symbols over substance.  There is however a dangerous element to the pc police when it comes to serious issues.  For example, look at the current controversy over the term “anchor babies.”  The pc police (bullies) have now determined, by the power invested in them (?), that the term is offensive and even “vulgar” according to the Democrat National Committee chairwoman.  Erstwhile political pundits and presidential hopefuls of all stripes have bloviated that the matter is already settled and that the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers “birthright citizenship” on anyone born in the United States.  The purpose of the vitriolic pc attack is to stifle debate and reasonable discourse about important subjects.  Just as anthropomorphic climate change is not “settled science” (which is why global warming advocates continually fudge their “science”!) so must the competing views on whether or not the 14^th amendment confers “jus soli” or automatic citizenship at birth to anyone born on U.S. soil be directly adjudicated.

For context, the Pew Hispanic Center puts the estimate of babies gaining birthright citizenship at 340,000 per year.  There are countries that openly run birth-tourism industries on the internet.  Earlier this year, federal agents broke up over twenty locations in Southern California where Chinese women on fraudulent visas paid up to $80,000 so their babies would be born U.S. citizens. The estimates are that 4.5 million children under 18 are living with at least one undocumented immigrant in the U.S. 

Now name another industrialized nation (besides the U.S. and Canada) that grants birthright citizenship.  If you named one, you are wrong.  In fact, only 33 countries on this earth have such a policy.  Australia and New Zealand?  Nope.  Sweden, Finland or Norway?  Nope.  France, Germany, England, Ireland, or Italy?  No.  Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Spain, Portugal, or Switzerland…all no and on and on.  Why is that?

The heart of the debate centers on the first sentence of Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment:  “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  History shows this was an amendment designed to protect the rights of native-born freed slaves in the years following the Civil War.  Senator Howard Jacob clarified the intent in 1866:  “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”  Native-Americans were also specifically excluded from citizenship at this time.

Talking heads ignore “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and proceed to cite the United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision of SCOTUS in 1898.  Of course, Wong was the child of legal resident aliens.  “The Supreme Court has never ruled directly on the question of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens,” according to University of Texas law professor Lino A. Graglia.  “The court recognized that even a rule based on soil and physical presence could not rationally be applied to grant birthright citizenship to persons whose presence in a country was not only without the government’s consent but in violation of the law.”

Section 5 of the 14^th Amendment:  “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”  In 1993, Senator Harry Reid introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act to end birthright citizenship.  Today, H.R. 140, the Birthright Citizenship Act, addresses the same issue.  For once, Congress needs to do its job, pass the legislation, and fast track the constitutionality issue to the Supreme Court.  It is absurd to believe the Constitution ever intended to award citizenship on the basis of whose mom was best at playing hide and seek with the Border Patrol.  Stop the madness.