Can we simply respect all those folks who gave their lives in the Civil War to honor the constitutional 14th amendment please. Executive Orders do not cut it.
Good stuff here. I’m a bit on the fence with Reconstruction not being a failure though. I understand the extreme importance of the 13th,14th, 15th amendments and readily agree that their addition to the Constitution made all the difference. I teach my students that.
But I interpret Reconstruction in a wider sense as “nation-building” and discuss it in my post 1865 class as the first really big instance of our nation participating in “nation-building.” In that interpretation we can then compare Reconstruction to the later successes and failures of nation building in the 20th century. Using that metric or rubric then my class is able to better debate and consider the successes and failures of Reconstruction, which I usually argue was mixed with most economic and social changes ending up as failures or at best inept for at least the next 100 years.
A really nice piece, thanks. But you should know that the judge issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the implementation of this policy. The judge’s oral comments mean next to nothing as the case wanders down the road to the Supreme Court. This may not even be a case that Robert’s Court would want to take, but there will be others, eventually. As comforting as it is to see a Reagan appointed judge repeatedly slap the new head of the DOJ Civil Division in open court and suggest that he isn’t capable of being a lawyer, it is a cold comfort at best.
Thanks, Todd, but I did mention the judge's order. Overall, I tend to agree with you here, which is why I said that overturning the 14th isn't the goal, but rather paving the way to limit the idea of birthright citizenship to whatever extent possible.
(I can see how someone might call this off-topic. I don't think it is, but if I'm wrong, I apologize.)
> The Fourteenth Amendment
> protects all of us.
Yes. And this time, it seems to me, it will do so, as opposed to when its disqualification clause--pasted in below--got smothered last year, with consequences made more and more plain now, day after day.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
"Organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy approved textbooks and other materials that offered students a Lost Cause narrative of innocent white southerners at the mercy of 'scalawags' and 'carpetbaggers.'"
I vividly recall being taught that stuff at Granby Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1958--especially the terms "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers." I also recall the years, or maybe decades, thereafter during which I assumed it was all true. (Even today I think of "carpetbags" whenever I see certain pieces of luggage.)
That year was during the height of Virginia's Massive Resistance to the desegregation that had been ordered by the Brown vs. Board Supreme Court decision. Our fourth-grade Virginia History textbook has since become infamous as a crystalline example of Lost Cause propaganda inflicted on children.
Easy. I’ve not dove into this issue and don’t have a strong opinion although from my understanding of the 14th amendment the law is pretty clear. I thought I had heard or read that many countries don’t have birthright citizenship. Maybe that is mistaken.
It is worth some reflection on who is promulgating this false notion of birthright citizenship being rare, and why they might do it. On top of the fundamentally important consideration of the historical context that made it necessary to put it explicitly into our constitution by amendment after the Civil War.
If people don't like section 1 of the 14th Amendment and "birthright citizenship," they have a constitutional remedy. Propose a constitutional amendment, send it out to the states, and try to get it ratified. The notion that any president, with the stroke of a sharpie, can just eliminate part of the constitution should terrify every last one of us.
Thank you for writing this! The amount of Reconstructionist History going on today is mind boggling... FL putting in their middle school curriculum that "slaves learned valuable skills" was absolutely appalling.
There is a whole industry to bring pregnant women in to give birth in the US. This, coupled with those who are poorer and simply cross the bridge in El Paso (as well as other places along the border) to give birth in the US creates an incentive which appears troubling.
I wouldn't call that an "industry." Calling it an industry makes it seem much larger than it is. The majority of births by undocumented immigrants in the US are people that have been here for years. Most of them have been waiting to aquire citizenship the "legal way" or overstayed work visas which shows a lack of efficiency on the Governments part.
Sure there are some that cross over to give birth here but I can't fault a parent for wanting a better life for their child.
I really enjoyed reading this article that was published during Trump's last regime and his exaggeration of "Birth Tourism"
I read this report just now. It was a GOP attempt to throw shade on birth tourism. The gravamen: Why are you coddling these birth tourists? The State Dept responses: Um, have you heard of the 14th Amendment? Are you implying we should violate it?
On its final page (39) it concludes: "The Committee’s investigation demonstrates the prevalence of birth tourism in the United States and how it demeans the naturalization process by monetizing the privilege of U.S. citizenship. The State Department and CBP should work together to better understand the breadth of birth tourism in the United States. Congress should also clarify the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude birth tourism as a permissible basis for temporary travel to the United States".
That's it. A priori assumption it "demeans" the naturalization process.
Half-reminds me of a set of right-wing screeds a conservative friend pressed on me in college. She gushed: IT REVEALS THE TRUTH behind LIBERAL LIES! BARRY GOLDWATER IS RIGHT! AND IT FOOTNOTES EVERY STATEMENT! Well, the footnotes were from some obscure St. Louis screed, figuratively, 1001 nightmares. The first one cited the screed, and the other 1000 were ibids and op-cits!
The other half of what reading this evoked was the book review we all had to write in grade school...ending up with "It was very well written and I enjoyed it very much". Raise your hands, fellow ex-children, if you remember this? GOP Senators need not participate.
The majority of the few pages detailed how the GOP members grilled the State Dept and quoted in depth State's responses. The responses resembled merely the ability of an agency devoted to diplomacy diplomatically dancing around answering with some accuracy loaded questions!!
Many pages are filed with irrelevant footnotes to lend credence or at least, heft, to its mostly irrelevant discussion of minimally-relevant other visa categories. There are a few honest gems: the old I-94 international passengers were required to fill out and return (purpose of travel, how much cash you carried) were discontinued because the travel companies generally failed to collect the I-94s when the travelers returned. I was an up-from-poverty-program (paid minimum wages to get office experience) federal civil servant who realized that in those pre-computer days, not even high school clerks were being assigned to process the I-94s -- and I started my career as a clerk in the State Dept who would have had to perform that task if State was bothering!
In sum, this "report" was unworthy of even a RINO when it was written as a MINORITY report attempting to discredit birth tourism. The companies serving Russian and Chinese (major targets) birth moms? Doing exactly what other firms serving rich clients did. (Are citizens of other less affluent nations, or even of America's allies doing birth tourism? You'd never know from Senator Portman.) Surprise, the companies also charged what the market would bear!
Getting huge discounts on hospital bills? If any pregnant mom walked into a hospital and promised to pay cash to get 90% off the "rack rate", they'd get the same discounts. If the hospitals then relied on Medicaid to grift more of their rack rates, don't blame the moms. Blame Portman for implying it's the tourists' fault!
My book report on this GOP Report: "It was very deceptively written and I snickered through out. I did skip a few score footnotes, however".
(Perhaps with this warmup, I can finally crack open "Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report: 300 pages! and the footnotes start on p 151.)
Of course it’s a MINORITY report. That hardly invalidates it. Now that Rs have a TRIFECTA, the Ds can write their own MINORITY report.
And if you want to compare what other countries are doing with birth tourism, perhaps you should look at requirements for citizenship in those countries. European countries have strict requirements and being born there is not enough. Even our military members who have children born abroad must submit proper docs which can quickly get complicated for their child’s US citizenship.
If you'd spent time, even as a 3-day tourist, in virtually any 3rd World (is this still a term?) area, you'd appreciate how desperate these folks are to get to a better life. If not for themselves, then for their future kids.
The US Supreme Court, when another San Francisco citizen claimed he was an American, emphatically agreed. We all now know his name: Wong Kim Ark. And by then, Asian immigration was a "problem".
My great-GF left Japan to work in Hawai'i in 1868. He told his govt that he was being treated like a slave and the governments let him return. However, 20 years later, his kids went to Hawai'i as farm labor, prospered via side-businesses, and as the Islands were then an American territory, my dad and his siblings were all Americans.
Eventually, Dad and a sister "re-emigrated" to California. His brother insisted they get ID cards showing their territorial birth in case anyone question their rights to be in the USA.
It wasn't birth tourism, but I know when plantations recruited the world's tired and poor to work, nobody thought those people (to quote a famous CSA general) would have children. Like enslavers of the 19th century, they just wanted cheap labor.
I still have Dad's ID card; I just realized: soon, I might need it, too.
My Italian grandfather immigrated. Legally. He had a sponsor and came through Ellis Island. My mother, born in the US from two Italian born immigrants cannot claim any citizenship to Italy. Countries have the right to determine who can become citizens.
A good part of the rightward swing in Europe is due to unfettered immigration of a culture that does not assimilate and does not have western values. The citizens are tired of it.
I lived in Turkey for two years. They loved everything American. I don’t blame them. Come in legally.
Oh come on -- the impetus for Trump's policies is to Make America White Again -- as immigration restrictionism always has been. (Changing definitions of "white" as time goes on.) In the words of Adam Serwer, "cruelty is the point."
The underlying reason for most of our immigration laws has been: racism.
From time to time, even Norwegians were not considered white enough in Minnesota to be welcome. As recently as in WW1 nativists denounced them as "hyphenated Americans" and tried to ban vernacular newspapers. Its governor participated in a campaign against them. A college history course (1960s) contained a reference to a 19th century mother scolding her daughter for playing with "filthy Norwegians".
Speaking as an Asian American, that's only a tinnny bit comforting. In WW2 future civil rights liberal Earl Warren ran for California governor pillorying my community. (In his posthumous memoir, Warren included a brief, half-hearted apology for that.)
Can we simply respect all those folks who gave their lives in the Civil War to honor the constitutional 14th amendment please. Executive Orders do not cut it.
Good stuff here. I’m a bit on the fence with Reconstruction not being a failure though. I understand the extreme importance of the 13th,14th, 15th amendments and readily agree that their addition to the Constitution made all the difference. I teach my students that.
But I interpret Reconstruction in a wider sense as “nation-building” and discuss it in my post 1865 class as the first really big instance of our nation participating in “nation-building.” In that interpretation we can then compare Reconstruction to the later successes and failures of nation building in the 20th century. Using that metric or rubric then my class is able to better debate and consider the successes and failures of Reconstruction, which I usually argue was mixed with most economic and social changes ending up as failures or at best inept for at least the next 100 years.
Hi Boyd,
Looks like you are doing a fine job teaching this material to your students.
A really nice piece, thanks. But you should know that the judge issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the implementation of this policy. The judge’s oral comments mean next to nothing as the case wanders down the road to the Supreme Court. This may not even be a case that Robert’s Court would want to take, but there will be others, eventually. As comforting as it is to see a Reagan appointed judge repeatedly slap the new head of the DOJ Civil Division in open court and suggest that he isn’t capable of being a lawyer, it is a cold comfort at best.
Thanks, Todd, but I did mention the judge's order. Overall, I tend to agree with you here, which is why I said that overturning the 14th isn't the goal, but rather paving the way to limit the idea of birthright citizenship to whatever extent possible.
(I can see how someone might call this off-topic. I don't think it is, but if I'm wrong, I apologize.)
> The Fourteenth Amendment
> protects all of us.
Yes. And this time, it seems to me, it will do so, as opposed to when its disqualification clause--pasted in below--got smothered last year, with consequences made more and more plain now, day after day.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
"Organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy approved textbooks and other materials that offered students a Lost Cause narrative of innocent white southerners at the mercy of 'scalawags' and 'carpetbaggers.'"
I vividly recall being taught that stuff at Granby Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1958--especially the terms "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers." I also recall the years, or maybe decades, thereafter during which I assumed it was all true. (Even today I think of "carpetbags" whenever I see certain pieces of luggage.)
That year was during the height of Virginia's Massive Resistance to the desegregation that had been ordered by the Brown vs. Board Supreme Court decision. Our fourth-grade Virginia History textbook has since become infamous as a crystalline example of Lost Cause propaganda inflicted on children.
I wonder why other countries don’t recognize birthright citizenship?
Easy. I’ve not dove into this issue and don’t have a strong opinion although from my understanding of the 14th amendment the law is pretty clear. I thought I had heard or read that many countries don’t have birthright citizenship. Maybe that is mistaken.
It is worth some reflection on who is promulgating this false notion of birthright citizenship being rare, and why they might do it. On top of the fundamentally important consideration of the historical context that made it necessary to put it explicitly into our constitution by amendment after the Civil War.
I appreciate the follow up. Perhaps next time it might be best to do a little research before leaving a comment. Thank you.
What are you talking about? Plenty of other countries recognize birthright citizenship.
https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/birthright-citizenship/global.php
Even that doesn’t matter, it’s in the Constitution whether Everett likes it or not.
If people don't like section 1 of the 14th Amendment and "birthright citizenship," they have a constitutional remedy. Propose a constitutional amendment, send it out to the states, and try to get it ratified. The notion that any president, with the stroke of a sharpie, can just eliminate part of the constitution should terrify every last one of us.
Well said, Ken.
Thank you for writing this! The amount of Reconstructionist History going on today is mind boggling... FL putting in their middle school curriculum that "slaves learned valuable skills" was absolutely appalling.
We certainly have a ways to go, but I am also encouraged by the good work that is going on in history classrooms across the country.
Thanks for the kind words.
There is a whole industry to bring pregnant women in to give birth in the US. This, coupled with those who are poorer and simply cross the bridge in El Paso (as well as other places along the border) to give birth in the US creates an incentive which appears troubling.
What are your thoughts on this?
I wouldn't call that an "industry." Calling it an industry makes it seem much larger than it is. The majority of births by undocumented immigrants in the US are people that have been here for years. Most of them have been waiting to aquire citizenship the "legal way" or overstayed work visas which shows a lack of efficiency on the Governments part.
Sure there are some that cross over to give birth here but I can't fault a parent for wanting a better life for their child.
I really enjoyed reading this article that was published during Trump's last regime and his exaggeration of "Birth Tourism"
https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-birth-tourism-bogeyman/
Here’s a better source: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/2022.12.20-%20Final_Birth%20Tourism%20Report.pdf
Truly neither of us can claim numbers on this problem since they don’t collect the data as per this report.
Medicaid is used often for these births.
I read this report just now. It was a GOP attempt to throw shade on birth tourism. The gravamen: Why are you coddling these birth tourists? The State Dept responses: Um, have you heard of the 14th Amendment? Are you implying we should violate it?
On its final page (39) it concludes: "The Committee’s investigation demonstrates the prevalence of birth tourism in the United States and how it demeans the naturalization process by monetizing the privilege of U.S. citizenship. The State Department and CBP should work together to better understand the breadth of birth tourism in the United States. Congress should also clarify the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude birth tourism as a permissible basis for temporary travel to the United States".
That's it. A priori assumption it "demeans" the naturalization process.
Half-reminds me of a set of right-wing screeds a conservative friend pressed on me in college. She gushed: IT REVEALS THE TRUTH behind LIBERAL LIES! BARRY GOLDWATER IS RIGHT! AND IT FOOTNOTES EVERY STATEMENT! Well, the footnotes were from some obscure St. Louis screed, figuratively, 1001 nightmares. The first one cited the screed, and the other 1000 were ibids and op-cits!
The other half of what reading this evoked was the book review we all had to write in grade school...ending up with "It was very well written and I enjoyed it very much". Raise your hands, fellow ex-children, if you remember this? GOP Senators need not participate.
The majority of the few pages detailed how the GOP members grilled the State Dept and quoted in depth State's responses. The responses resembled merely the ability of an agency devoted to diplomacy diplomatically dancing around answering with some accuracy loaded questions!!
Many pages are filed with irrelevant footnotes to lend credence or at least, heft, to its mostly irrelevant discussion of minimally-relevant other visa categories. There are a few honest gems: the old I-94 international passengers were required to fill out and return (purpose of travel, how much cash you carried) were discontinued because the travel companies generally failed to collect the I-94s when the travelers returned. I was an up-from-poverty-program (paid minimum wages to get office experience) federal civil servant who realized that in those pre-computer days, not even high school clerks were being assigned to process the I-94s -- and I started my career as a clerk in the State Dept who would have had to perform that task if State was bothering!
In sum, this "report" was unworthy of even a RINO when it was written as a MINORITY report attempting to discredit birth tourism. The companies serving Russian and Chinese (major targets) birth moms? Doing exactly what other firms serving rich clients did. (Are citizens of other less affluent nations, or even of America's allies doing birth tourism? You'd never know from Senator Portman.) Surprise, the companies also charged what the market would bear!
Getting huge discounts on hospital bills? If any pregnant mom walked into a hospital and promised to pay cash to get 90% off the "rack rate", they'd get the same discounts. If the hospitals then relied on Medicaid to grift more of their rack rates, don't blame the moms. Blame Portman for implying it's the tourists' fault!
My book report on this GOP Report: "It was very deceptively written and I snickered through out. I did skip a few score footnotes, however".
(Perhaps with this warmup, I can finally crack open "Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report: 300 pages! and the footnotes start on p 151.)
Of course it’s a MINORITY report. That hardly invalidates it. Now that Rs have a TRIFECTA, the Ds can write their own MINORITY report.
And if you want to compare what other countries are doing with birth tourism, perhaps you should look at requirements for citizenship in those countries. European countries have strict requirements and being born there is not enough. Even our military members who have children born abroad must submit proper docs which can quickly get complicated for their child’s US citizenship.
https://www.findlaw.com/military/family-employment-housing/military-children-born-abroad.html
I consider this industry an abuse of our naturalization requirements.
I am not aware of it, but I thank you for bringing it to my attention.
At any rate, Kevin, this is the impetus for Trump’s actions.
Absurd. The executive order also claimed that children of immigrants that are here legally are not citizens. We all know what this about.
Specialized cases of temporary visas and such. Pls don’t conflate. It’s about not handing citizenships out like candy.
If you'd spent time, even as a 3-day tourist, in virtually any 3rd World (is this still a term?) area, you'd appreciate how desperate these folks are to get to a better life. If not for themselves, then for their future kids.
The US Supreme Court, when another San Francisco citizen claimed he was an American, emphatically agreed. We all now know his name: Wong Kim Ark. And by then, Asian immigration was a "problem".
My great-GF left Japan to work in Hawai'i in 1868. He told his govt that he was being treated like a slave and the governments let him return. However, 20 years later, his kids went to Hawai'i as farm labor, prospered via side-businesses, and as the Islands were then an American territory, my dad and his siblings were all Americans.
Eventually, Dad and a sister "re-emigrated" to California. His brother insisted they get ID cards showing their territorial birth in case anyone question their rights to be in the USA.
It wasn't birth tourism, but I know when plantations recruited the world's tired and poor to work, nobody thought those people (to quote a famous CSA general) would have children. Like enslavers of the 19th century, they just wanted cheap labor.
I still have Dad's ID card; I just realized: soon, I might need it, too.
My Italian grandfather immigrated. Legally. He had a sponsor and came through Ellis Island. My mother, born in the US from two Italian born immigrants cannot claim any citizenship to Italy. Countries have the right to determine who can become citizens.
A good part of the rightward swing in Europe is due to unfettered immigration of a culture that does not assimilate and does not have western values. The citizens are tired of it.
I lived in Turkey for two years. They loved everything American. I don’t blame them. Come in legally.
But back to birth tourism. It is an abuse.
You should maybe read the EO again. It's includes people here on work and student visas. Kamala Harris would not be a US Citizen under this EO.
All the better. “Specialized cases of temporary visas and such” covers these areas.
Oh come on -- the impetus for Trump's policies is to Make America White Again -- as immigration restrictionism always has been. (Changing definitions of "white" as time goes on.) In the words of Adam Serwer, "cruelty is the point."
The underlying reason for most of our immigration laws has been: racism.
From time to time, even Norwegians were not considered white enough in Minnesota to be welcome. As recently as in WW1 nativists denounced them as "hyphenated Americans" and tried to ban vernacular newspapers. Its governor participated in a campaign against them. A college history course (1960s) contained a reference to a 19th century mother scolding her daughter for playing with "filthy Norwegians".
Speaking as an Asian American, that's only a tinnny bit comforting. In WW2 future civil rights liberal Earl Warren ran for California governor pillorying my community. (In his posthumous memoir, Warren included a brief, half-hearted apology for that.)