Political Roundtable Part XXIII

[Induveca]

Nate. With respect, please tone it down. I appreciate a difference of opinion regarding immigration policy and even enforcement. But using terms like anchor babies and illegal aliens is a bridge too far.

I’m offended that your faux offense takes 50% longer to register as sarcasm.

Nothing faux here. I'm genuinely offended. Again, reasonable people can disagree on a complex issue like immigration.

But there is no excuse for calling a human being "illegal" or an innocent child an "anchor baby." Argue your position -- argue it with passion and conviction. But please leave this kinds of invective out of it.

I’m a son of immigrants and many of my friends/cousins are anchor babies. It’s not a personal thing, it’s just true. Amongst Dominicans it’s a joke, that’s how common the practice is...

And how is illegal alien a bad term? Extranjero ilegal is a common term in all Spanish speaking countries. Or immigrante ilegal. Just do a simple search in Spanish.

The person isn’t illegal but their status is? They agree to a contract when receiving a visa, break it and the status of the contract is no longer legal. It’s a legal term.

Anchor baby I get to a point, there are tens of thousand of Dominicans kids with this exact situation in NYC. But their parents knew exactly what they were doing, birth tourism is a common thing. Although even that term is new.

I’ve had family come up 3 months pregnant on tourist visas when not showing belly wise, and just stay. Or even more nefarious? Ask any Latino who has ties with the migrant community in Miami or NYC, there is a big trade in marriages. 10-15k, *usually* the migrant paying the us citizen.

Then there are the odd instances of the citizen paying the migrant in places like Colombia. They agree to go through the flights and paperwork to proclaim them as their love. Then agree to years of marriage to bring up extended family and help them get on government programs (housing, food stamps, healthcare etc). This is an old scam, and it requires a Spanish speaking Us citizen. The US consulate knows it exists but it’s hard to say they aren’t in love if the US citizen spends months at a time in the country and the guy flies back and forth completing the paperwork.

As a Latin immigrant (albeit arrived very young), I assure you the only reason the term can offend is because it’s actually revealing. It’s a perfect description, and jarring.

I’m only in the states for another day or so, but my few weeks back remind me how much I don’t miss the politically correct vibe.

[pancakes3]

History lesson aside, I just question the actual motivation of moving away from birthright citizenship.

People immigrate based on economic incentives, not political ones. The fact of having a kid while undocumented makes it easier to stay in America is icing, not cake. People will still risk entering illegally. The benefits of an "anchor baby" are completely overblown and don't actually anchor anyone - you have to be 21 in order to sponsor parents. And the other long con, is that people come to America illegally, gain citizenship for their child in the hopes that in the future, the child will be able to move back to America.

So what exactly is the fear here?

All this does is give the Government another tool at the expense of stripping the rights of ALL AMERICANS. This isn't so much cutting off a nose to spite the face but straight up hacking off a leg.

I'm open to discussing the immigration policies but whatever welfare anchor queen anecdote that Indu or others want to offer is a question of enforcing existing laws. Just because someone does something doesn't mean it's the law that's broken. We just don't have a gestapo large enough to go around demanding papers. Thinking that getting rid of birthright citizenship -> no more anchor babies -> no more poor people -> better economy is insane rhetoric.

[TGW]

Pancakes...100% agree. There are smarter, better ways to control immigration. The Trump Administration is just dogwhistling because they aren't smart enough to come up with better solutions.

[Jamaaliver]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them:

'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly

Glaciers in the Yukon territory are retreating even faster than expected in a warming climate, scientists warn



Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.

The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming “unprecedented”.

The Guardian

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.



And most people don't seem to care.

[I_Like_Dirt]

History lesson aside, I just question the actual motivation of moving away from birthright citizenship.

People immigrate based on economic incentives, not political ones. The fact of having a kid while undocumented makes it easier to stay in America is icing, not cake. People will still risk entering illegally. The benefits of an "anchor baby" are completely overblown and don't actually anchor anyone - you have to be 21 in order to sponsor parents. And the other long con, is that people come to America illegally, gain citizenship for their child in the hopes that in the future, the child will be able to move back to America.

So what exactly is the fear here?

All this does is give the Government another tool at the expense of stripping the rights of ALL AMERICANS. This isn't so much cutting off a nose to spite the face but straight up hacking off a leg.

I'm open to discussing the immigration policies but whatever welfare anchor queen anecdote that Indu or others want to offer is a question of enforcing existing laws. Just because someone does something doesn't mean it's the law that's broken. We just don't have a gestapo large enough to go around demanding papers. Thinking that getting rid of birthright citizenship -> no more anchor babies -> no more poor people -> better economy is insane rhetoric.

Absolutely. Try to solve the problem rather than ban it. That's the same sort of argument I made for abortion. This idea that we can keep criminalizing and policing everything like that is an unworkable situation. We've seen it with the war on drugs and extending it to immigration, abortion, or whatever where we're dealing with people rather than inanimate objects like drugs will be even worse. If people legitimately have a problem with any particular situation, and there are reasons to have issues with any number of them, but building walls and that kind of thing won't be very effective and will be a massive economic cost. Europe doesn't have birthright citizenship and has all sorts of fences and walls in different countries and they were met with huge waves of immigration they simply couldn't stop and had to figure out how to deal with it (and they're still struggling to accept that reality).

Creating international situations where people aren't going to make the kinds of risks they're currently making to emigrate so far away into such a different society than they're used to should be a prime issue for anyone who feels immigration is a problem. And you don't even have to solve everyone's problems - that isn't realistic anyway. You just have to support others in working together rather than viewing things as a zero sum game and actively sabotaging them. Having a strong, thriving Mexico should be first on America's priority list if they want to start seeing a reduction in immigration. They would serve as a massive buffer where would-be immigrants would potentially stop along the way and potentially see the kinds of reverse migration we have already seen where people return there after first moving to the US.

[nate33]

There were a lot of agnostic responses to the issue of birthright, along the lines of "the Constitution has an ambiguity and SCOTUS will tell us if birthright is guaranteed in the U.S. or not"

Birthright citizenship (legally referred to as Jus Soli - right of the soil, as opposed to Jus Sanguinis which is right by blood) was the law of the land even before the 14th amendment. A person born in the U.S. was a citizen even if his parents were, say, British citizens. There were no statutes stating this, and no supreme court cases expressing it, but there were many state law cases upholding Jus Soli as the law of the land.

The obvious caveat to this, were slaves. Not just slaves, but anyone descendant from slaves. In the infamous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that negroes, categorically, even freed, could not be citizens and had no standing to bring cases in Federal court. Dredd Scott also said that slaves were property, not people. Dredd Scott was decided in 1857.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 stated that "all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power..." are citizens.

The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, stated that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." are citizens.

Contemporary records show that the original intent of these words (and the slight difference between these wordings) was concerning children born in circumstances where they are subject to powers of a foreign nation - such as children of diplomats, or occupying military forces. However, the *real* concern was whether or not these protections extended to Native Americans, who operated on U.S. soil but still retain their own sovereignty. This was naturally brought up in Elk v. Wilkins in 1884, and the Court upheld that Native Americans were not citizens because of the "subject to jurisdiction" language. Fortunately, this case, though still valid (not overturned), was rendered moot 50 years later by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted citizenships for Native Americans.

It makes no sense to view "subject to the jurisdiction" to mean people other than diplomats, foreign military, or sovereign native americans. To say that children of immigrants without status are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States concedes that you can't exert other powers over them because you don't have jurisdiction over them. They can't be arrested, they can't be taxed, they can't be sued, etc. It's just a very dumb argument.

The issue of the 14th Amendment as it applies to immigrants has been tested in SCOTUS already. First in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, where a natural born Chinese-American, was detained in San Francisco. If you believe contemporary, out-of-court records, using Chinese Americans in light of the Chinese-Exclusion Act, was a concerted effort to test Jus Soli, and force a shift to Jus Sanguinis. The Court upheld Jus Soli.

To give you an idea of the sensibilities of the Fuller Court, the same Court went on to uphold "separate but equal" in schools 1 year after Wong, and upheld literacy tests in Jim Crow Alabama 1 year after that.

There is a fact of note that both of Wong's parents did have legal status, just were not citizens.

The subject to jurisdiction clause wasn't solely for children of diplomats. The debate over the Amendment at the time included lots of discussion about "persons born in the Unites States who are foreigners or aliens". Also, if the 14th Amendment applied to foreigners and people subject to other jurisdictions, then why was the Indian Citizenship Act necessary? There is certainly enough ambiguity on the issue for the Supreme Court to review it.

And on a practical basis, the notion that we should be forever welcoming of an ever-increasing supply of immigrants ended the day we started implementing welfare, imposing dramatic costs attributable to non-productive and minimally-productive citizens. From that point forward, any responsible steward of this country should evaluate the economic benefit of additional immigrants relative to their potential cost. We, as citizens, pay for that welfare state. We get to decide who gets the benefits. I want those benefits to go to ourselves and our posterity, not to the over 1 billion people in the world who would gladly come here tomorrow if we let them.

[nate33]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them:

'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly

Glaciers in the Yukon territory are retreating even faster than expected in a warming climate, scientists warn



Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.

The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming “unprecedented”.

The Guardian

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.



And most people don't seem to care.

I don't care.

First, every climate model has been wrong so I'm not inclined to believe them.

Second, even if the Earth is warming, the rate is slow and it's much easier to adapt to it than it is to try and end all carbon emissions.

Third, the Earth was much warmer in the past. We survived. Indeed, we thrived. Most of the planet's landmass is in frigid areas. Global warming is likely to help more than it hurts.

Fourth, if we ever decide that the Earth is in fact warming at an unacceptably rapid pace, the solution isn't one-world government that imposes dramatic energy production sanctions on everyone, paid for mostly by the West. The solution is technology. There are already theoretical means of cooling the globe that we could implement far easier than restricting carbon emissions. If the need arose, we could put those theoretical means into practice easily. You could just pump a bunch of ocean water up to a nozzle in a balloon hovering above the equator to create cloud cover and increase the Earth's albedo. Heck, painting parking lots and rooftops white would go a long way toward solving the problem.

[pancakes3]

There were a lot of agnostic responses to the issue of birthright, along the lines of "the Constitution has an ambiguity and SCOTUS will tell us if birthright is guaranteed in the U.S. or not"

Birthright citizenship (legally referred to as Jus Soli - right of the soil, as opposed to Jus Sanguinis which is right by blood) was the law of the land even before the 14th amendment. A person born in the U.S. was a citizen even if his parents were, say, British citizens. There were no statutes stating this, and no supreme court cases expressing it, but there were many state law cases upholding Jus Soli as the law of the land.

The obvious caveat to this, were slaves. Not just slaves, but anyone descendant from slaves. In the infamous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that negroes, categorically, even freed, could not be citizens and had no standing to bring cases in Federal court. Dredd Scott also said that slaves were property, not people. Dredd Scott was decided in 1857.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 stated that "all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power..." are citizens.

The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, stated that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." are citizens.

Contemporary records show that the original intent of these words (and the slight difference between these wordings) was concerning children born in circumstances where they are subject to powers of a foreign nation - such as children of diplomats, or occupying military forces. However, the *real* concern was whether or not these protections extended to Native Americans, who operated on U.S. soil but still retain their own sovereignty. This was naturally brought up in Elk v. Wilkins in 1884, and the Court upheld that Native Americans were not citizens because of the "subject to jurisdiction" language. Fortunately, this case, though still valid (not overturned), was rendered moot 50 years later by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted citizenships for Native Americans.

It makes no sense to view "subject to the jurisdiction" to mean people other than diplomats, foreign military, or sovereign native americans. To say that children of immigrants without status are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States concedes that you can't exert other powers over them because you don't have jurisdiction over them. They can't be arrested, they can't be taxed, they can't be sued, etc. It's just a very dumb argument.

The issue of the 14th Amendment as it applies to immigrants has been tested in SCOTUS already. First in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, where a natural born Chinese-American, was detained in San Francisco. If you believe contemporary, out-of-court records, using Chinese Americans in light of the Chinese-Exclusion Act, was a concerted effort to test Jus Soli, and force a shift to Jus Sanguinis. The Court upheld Jus Soli.

To give you an idea of the sensibilities of the Fuller Court, the same Court went on to uphold "separate but equal" in schools 1 year after Wong, and upheld literacy tests in Jim Crow Alabama 1 year after that.

There is a fact of note that both of Wong's parents did have legal status, just were not citizens.

The subject to jurisdiction clause wasn't solely for children of diplomats. The debate over the Amendment at the time included lots of discussion about "persons born in the Unites States who are foreigners or aliens". Also, if the 14th Amendment applied to foreigners and people subject to other jurisdictions, then why was the Indian Citizenship Act necessary? There is certainly enough ambiguity on the issue for the Supreme Court to review it.

And on a practical basis, the notion that we should be forever welcoming of an ever-increasing supply of immigrants ended the day we started implementing welfare, imposing dramatic costs on non-productive and minimally-productive citizens. From that point forward, any responsible steward of this country should evaluate the economic benefit of additional immigrants relative to their potential cost. We, as citizens, pay for that welfare state. We get to decide who gets the benefits. I want those benefits to go to ourselves and our posterity, not to the over 1 billion people in the world who would gladly come here tomorrow if we let them.

- I never said it was solely for diplomats. In fact, I thought I made it pretty clear that diplomats and soldiers were thinly veiled pretext for not wanting to grant citizenship to Native Americans.
- The Indian Citizenship Act was necessary because Elk v. Wilkins said that the 14th Amendment didn't apply to Native Americans and eventually, the Nation decided that it'd be a good idea to grant citizenship to Native Americans.
- No, taxpayers pay taxes. In fact, I'm sure there's a green card holder who's furious that he has to pay taxes but is not eligible for all the benefits that citizens have, and cannot vote.

On a practical basis, whatever you think is the best way to allocate resources has very little to do with birthright citizenship.

[Pointgod]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them:

'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly

Glaciers in the Yukon territory are retreating even faster than expected in a warming climate, scientists warn



Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.

The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming “unprecedented”.

The Guardian

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.



And most people don't seem to care.

I appreciate the attempt but I’m resigned to the fact that this world is screwed. People have been electing right wing anti science and climate denying governments at all levels throughout the world. I know you think I’m unnecessarily hard on the right wing but it’s for good reason. Extremely partisan right wing governments are useless. We’re at a point where the world needs to come together or we’ll be facing catastrophic events in all our lifetimes yet for some reason we keep electing people that tell us not only do they not care about the problems they’ll proudly exacerbate it.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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Read on Twitter

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[Jamaaliver]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them:

'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly

Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.

The Guardian

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.

And most people don't seem to care.

I don't care.

I grow more disillusioned with people by the day. Particularly those who can spend countless hours arguing over immigration, economics, politics and sports.

But won't give a thought to world at large beyond their borders.

Spoiler:

...even if the Earth is warming, the rate is slow and it's much easier to adapt to it than it is to try and end all carbon emissions....

The UN report found that the the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

CNN

[dckingsfan]

The point of removing automatic birthright and familial immigration for skills based/demographic based immigration should be obvious from an American economic standpoint.

Adding skilled based workers increase the productivity of all workers (in general), leading to increased GDP and increased revenue (unless you have a really stupid tax policy - oh, wait). Back filling immigrants will also take care of the demographic cliff we are facing.

But - are Trump's statements dog whistle statements - yep. Is he trying to solve the problem - nope. Does he have an overall strategy that he can articulate - nope.

I think you can agree with part of his statement but also understand he doesn't have a solution.

[TGW]

Nate the W.S. only cares about what scientists have to say when they're talking about genetics/IQ. When it comes to climate science, the scientists are making it up in some grand conspiracy.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Wait, you don't believe any climate models... except the one that painting rooftops and streets white would make a significant difference. Without even considering where all that reflected light would actually wind up (think people's eyes) or the fact that all the parts of glacier/snow-covered earth is receding would cause a lot more earth to not be covered in white. And the evidence that a hotter world becomes a more violent world.

I do agree with you on technology being the solution, though. So let's give technology a chance rather than forcing it into a David vs Goliath battle for survival from the start. The details are definitely subject to negotiation but the general idea to find a new path shouldn't really be in dispute at this point, despite all your talk of how humans have thrived in warmer times when we don't actually have evidence of anything like that and people and times have changed.



I don't actually know what the fallout will look like but it isn't looking good and I wouldn't be so quick to suggest that it's going to be less costly to deal with than to take more drastic measures right now. Climate models definitely aren't perfect but they also aren't necessarily wrong in any particular direction. Sometimes they actually understate the significance of the issues at hand. It isn't a case where it can just be dismissed as overstating the situation.

[closg00]

So Trump is quadrupling down on stoking fears and making appeals to his bases racism in the final week before the mid-terms, pathetic!!! The troops to the border is what he wants everyone to see before they hit the voting booths.

[pancakes3]

The point of removing automatic birthright and familial immigration for skills based/demographic based immigration should be obvious from an American economic standpoint.

Adding skilled based workers increase the productivity of all workers (in general), leading to increased GDP and increased revenue (unless you have a really stupid tax policy - oh, wait). Back filling immigrants will also take care of the demographic cliff we are facing.

But - are Trump's statements dog whistle statements - yep. Is he trying to solve the problem - nope. Does he have an overall strategy that he can articulate - nope.

I think you can agree with part of his statement but also understand he doesn't have a solution.

you can't divorce the family component from immigration policy.

like, you can't tell the brilliant nobel prize winner that he's welcome to our country but he can't bring his wife and kids. that's just not how immigration works.

[pancakes3]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them:

The Guardian

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.

And most people don't seem to care.

I don't care.

I grow more disillusioned with people by the day. Particularly those who can spend countless hours arguing over immigration, economics, politics and sports.

But won't give a thought to world at large beyond their borders.

Spoiler:

...even if the Earth is warming, the rate is slow and it's much easier to adapt to it than it is to try and end all carbon emissions....

The UN report found that the the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

CNN

I think I wrote a few months back when that even if global warming wasn't happening, cutting emissions is STILL the right thing to do because pumping particulates into the air is clearly a bad thing. You don't have to go back eons to see the difference in air quality from the 70s to today, and you can even see it in real life by hopping on a plane and flying to Beijing.

I just don't get the resistance of moving to renewable fuels. Everything from Trump taxing the solar industry to death to rolling back pollution regs... it's pure unadulterated evil.

[nate33]

Wait, you don't believe any climate models... except the one that painting rooftops and streets white would make a significant difference. Without even considering where all that reflected light would actually wind up (think people's eyes) or the fact that all the parts of glacier/snow-covered earth is receding would cause a lot more earth to not be covered in white. And the evidence that a hotter world becomes a more violent world.

I do agree with you on technology being the solution, though. So let's give technology a chance rather than forcing it into a David vs Goliath battle for survival from the start. The details are definitely subject to negotiation but the general idea to find a new path shouldn't really be in dispute at this point, despite all your talk of how humans have thrived in warmer times when we don't actually have evidence of anything like that and people and times have changed.



I don't actually know what the fallout will look like but it isn't looking good and I wouldn't be so quick to suggest that it's going to be less costly to deal with than to take more drastic measures right now. Climate models definitely aren't perfect but they also aren't necessarily wrong in any particular direction. Sometimes they actually understate the significance of the issues at hand. It isn't a case where it can just be dismissed as overstating the situation.

Zoom out a bit:

[Jamaaliver]

And while the humans argue over policy and hypotheticals, the world is literally burning around them.

While short-sighted men engage in petty squabbles ...the white walkers are coming.

And most people don't seem to care.

I don't care.

Spoiler:

Zoom out a bit:

When even conservative news can't deny it:

4,000 years ago, climate change caused massive civilization collapse

The mysterious fall of the largest of the world's earliest urban civilizations nearly 4,000 years ago in what is now India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now appears to have a key culprit — ancient climate change, researchers say.

"Our research provides one of the clearest examples of climate change leading to the collapse of an entire civilization," Giosan said. How Weather Changed History

Fox News

[dckingsfan]

The point of removing automatic birthright and familial immigration for skills based/demographic based immigration should be obvious from an American economic standpoint.

Adding skilled based workers increase the productivity of all workers (in general), leading to increased GDP and increased revenue (unless you have a really stupid tax policy - oh, wait). Back filling immigrants will also take care of the demographic cliff we are facing.

But - are Trump's statements dog whistle statements - yep. Is he trying to solve the problem - nope. Does he have an overall strategy that he can articulate - nope.

I think you can agree with part of his statement but also understand he doesn't have a solution.

you can't divorce the family component from immigration policy.

like, you can't tell the brilliant nobel prize winner that he's welcome to our country but he can't bring his wife and kids. that's just not how immigration works.

Notice my point/words - automatic/prioritize. I am not saying you don't allow any familial based immigration.

You would give flexibility to maximize talent/age based immigration. As the demographics shift, that would allow for more familial based immigration.