Bloomberg (Editorial)
August 25, 2015
The
"biggest magnet for illegal immigration" to the U.S. is not, as Donald
Trump says, birthright citizenship. The main draw is and always has been
economic
opportunity. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of birthright citizenship, Trump is giving Americans a useful reminder -- of their
nation's principles and their Congress's dereliction of duty.
Birthright citizenship really isn't about immigrants; it's about equality. A
product of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution,
ratified in 1868, it extended citizenship to blacks. Thirty years
later, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S.-born children of Chinese
residents could not be denied citizenship, as their parents had been.
Immigration Reform
Yet
birthright citizenship is not merely a remedy for racist policies of
the past. For a nation that scorned royal bloodlines, basing citizenship on where
you are instead of who your parents are is a powerful statement. It
expresses a distinctively American aspiration to openness and equality.
In
some instances, such as "birth tourism," in which wealthy women travel
to the U.S. to give birth, birthright citizenship is subject to abuse.
But such cases
are so rare that they shouldn't undermine a valuable American ideal and
a longstanding constitutional right.
There
are costs to this right, of course, as to others. One way to diminish
those costs is for Congress to advance sensible immigration reform -- or
merely
to resurrect the bipartisan bill, then supported by current candidate
Marco Rubio of Florida, that the Senate passed in 2013. If the goal is
to deal with illegal immigration, that would be the best, and most
obvious, course: rationalizing the undocumented
population in the U.S. while strengthening enforcement to dissuade new
unauthorized arrivals.
With
Trump seizing the initiative, there's no running from this debate -- so
candidates might as well make the most of it. Jeb Bush, even as he has
gotten
bogged down in terminology, for example, has started challenging
Trump's "unrealistic" proposals.
Immigration
has long been a difficult issue for Republicans. By ceding to Trump's
nativist nonsense, they only make it harder for themselves.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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