Who is a Natural Born Citizen? Me, You, Obama, Cruz? Perhaps we have never asked the Question!

OK, here we go again taking on a very large topic with just some good old common sense and easy to follow references.  One of the largest problems confronting us today is the "undocumented people and economy" which is created when participants are not in the system.  Most specifically I think of illegal immigrants and drug sales.  We will get to the drug sales in a future column but today we are focusing on what we now refer to as "Illegal Immigration" and "Birthright Citizenship". 

By some sources, there are 11,000,000 - 25,000,000 "illegal aliens", "undocumented immigrants", "criminals" whatever you want to call them here right now.  In addition, some 8% of the babies born in America right now are born to illegals.  The point of this discussion is not to illustrate all the negatives this creates in society (that has been done well by others and is pretty obvious in general), but to look at it more simply in terms of common sense and a general "why would we tolerate this" analysis.  The Founders likely did not contemplate that the government would abdicate its duty and allow a problem like this to develop into such  gigantic problem.   

Since everyone originally was an immigrant the Founders came up with language and a process to address citizenship.  As always I like to start with that pesky Constitution.  Let's have a look at it.  First we have to read the actual language as written in the Constitution Article 2 that relates to this "citizenship issue" and of course it does not directly relate to this illegal problem we are discussing.

The Constitution does not outright declare what an American Citizen is.  It does define who you need to be in terms of birthright to be President and it is from this clause that most discussions begin.  We are all in agreement that the Founders were adamant to prevent a British Citizen (themselves excluded perhaps) from ever being President.  So let's continue from there.

"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Whew.  That is quite a mouthful.  But these Founding Fathers were men of letters and wrote the rules very consciously and specifically (they were not just sneaky lawyers and lobbyists like we have today).  Sometimes it is tricky to figure out what they meant and in a couple instances we have had to fix things that were wrong or unclear.  In this instance, this terminology has not really been vetted by the highest courts.  Most Courts with the opportunity have chickened out including the Supremes.  But at CitizenBill.com we never chicken out.  Let's take this one on, seems kind of simple to me.

 

First we can strip that original phrase down to remove any language that could not apply to today or is not needed because we do not have any argument with.  Here is again:

"No person except a natural born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President ... and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

So there we have it, we have stripped down a harder to grasp clause into something very simple that we can further dissect into its final components.  Then we can apply that knowledge/conclusion to the argument at hand.  And seems to me we can get rid of the fourteen years as long as we adequately provide for it in our final argument.  Seems simple enough the founders did not want you to move away most of your life and come back to be President.  So lets let rid of that.  Now we are down to:

"No person except a natural born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President". 

Now all we have to do is define "natural born" and "Citizen" and we should have our answer.  Let's start with natural born.  I don't think the founders were actually contemplating "in vitro" or test tube babies so that cannot be what they meant.  In fact, in the First Naturalization Act of 1790 there was a "probationary period" where fellow citizens would determine if you have the correct character to be an American.  Later we codified it more with the 14th Amendment. 

The Fourteen Amendment defined Citizens.. "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."  Let's look at that one again and emphasis one clause that seems missing from the present discussion.

"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."

Are "illegal aliens" (ok undocumented immigrants for the politically correct Obama crowd) "subject to our jurisdiction"?  I would make the argument that their very illegality makes them NOT subject to "our jurisdiction thereof".  And if the parents are not here legally and subject to our rules and jurisdiction, then so to their children would not be subject to it either.  Thus in this scenario which is playing out every day in America, in no way can they be conferred "Citizen" status solely by virtue of the physical location of their birth. 

 

Does it make sense that the Founders would allow for citizenship by parents who are acting illegally?  They mere fact that someone could sneak in illegally or swim a river does not mean they can "squat Americans" simply by sneaking in or getting to the other side or the river?  I do not believe that is what anyone past or present, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal ever intended.  And since these numbers represent a significant amount of our people (10% of the workforce in a land of 25% unemployment), I think it is time we had the honest discussion and clarified this language (for those taking advantage of it and honestly saying it was not clear).  Both Parties seem to be weak hoping for votes or in todays system no negative publicity ("do nothing" is a safe course of action for political types).

Until we fix this (which I think could be done easily with a stroke of the pen.. use one of those Executive Orders we seem to flop about daily) our borders are worthless and legal immigration a waste of time (god bless the good folks who when through the system the correct way).  We need to fix this ambiguity in the language and legalize the folks already here.  Anyone so legalized can never vote, and can participate in social security, medicare etc to the extent of their contribution just like Americans.  But I will flush this plan out elsewhere.  That is all the Labor for today! 

 

God Bless Citizen Bill, his Family and all his Friends.

Operation "Hot Tamale!"

OK this one will again be controversial but I have come up with a real solution to the economy and immigration all at the same time (with a Post Office bonus on top of that).  Most would not undertake comprehensive reform on a such a grand scale but that is what sets this plan apart from all the rest.  Big solutions for big problems I say.  OK, here is the plan...

We need to immediately focus our entire military and domestic might on a quick invasion of Mexico.  That’s right, I said it, America Invades Mexico!  Ola mi amigo! 

I call it OPERATION: Hot Tamale.  Now before you go getting all politically correct and reject this idea out of turn, hear me out.  I think I can make a great case for this. 

Right now in the State of Texas they (we) are spending $25 billion to build a fence across less than 100% of the border.  While the “hole” in this fence plan is obvious, it is being done to make a political statement that we need to do something.  Combine that with the fact that 60+% of the “illegals” in American are from Mexico and the “fence lobby” and you can see why we might have gone off track.  But forget all that for just a minute.  If we invade and Mexico becomes the 51st State then we just guard that little strip of border down at the bottom around Belize and Guatemala.  How much could that cost (we can hire Mexicans duh!).  Or how about I smell states 52 & 53 and more beachfront.    Ola mas amigos!

Now certainly Mexico is a proud country and this “colonization” is not meant to take away from that or in any way demean their society, history or culture.  This is entirely about survival on planet earth as we go forward and this change in “government structure” is necessary to prepare both social economies for the challenges of the 21st Century.  This task will require great minds to figure out how to integrate the existing government structure and take the best from both to form the amalgamated Congress that goes forward, think how hugely powerful this new society (Meximerica, Amerimex?) would be?  Throw Canada and in there and you would have a world powerhouse like no other. 

OK, but I am not done yet.  Once Mexico is a “state”, we will have 50+ million more taxpayers in the system as well as all the savings in eduction and healthcare from everyone contributing. In addition to the $25B we save on a fence, the costs of immigration reform and actual enforcement (we go from 12 million illegals to 4 million overnight) are also significantly decreased.  In many places in America, life becomes safer with more pronounced community.

Another issue of the present system is the border states “narco terrorism” associated with the illegal drug trade.   And while most drugs are certainly not good for you, some are perhaps no more harmful then legal alcohol or junk food.  So I say we legalize “the weed”, and sell it as a government service (like State Liquor Stores up north).  We could tax it fairly substantially and I think the size of the industry would amaze most.  Not to mention the fact that we arrest 800,000 folks annually for smoking weed and we can refocus all that effort to something more dangerous to society (like boyfriends.. that one will make sense in a future column).

And lastly, now that we have a legalized product, we need to deliver it via the United States Postal Service (not sure what the Mexican side of this is but sure it is something similar).  This $8 BILLION a year government money loser could be saved altogether by this action (in this new future Postman are paid lots of money but have to take drug tests).  This “new product” would breathe life and prosperity back into the 1,440 convenient local post offices across  America.  And if you can wait for the mail, they will even deliver. 

I cannot even add up all the savings to society here for what is minimal risk.  Of course this plan might not be the best one but the argument I am really trying to make is we cannot continue along the old worn out paths we are.  I put something out there, what about you. 

God bless us all and Citizen Bill and his family.