Anyone searching for an abject lesson in the power of framing need look no further than the home page of the Seattle Times, where a headline currently proclaims: “State lawmakers join debate on citizenship.” What’s wrong with this picture? Well, there is no serious legal debate on citizenship in the manner that the article suggests, at least not when it comes to the constitutionality of birthright citizenship.
Oh sure, there’s a debate over the merits of birthright citizenship, and based on its record, I wouldn’t put it past the Roberts Court to cast aside a century and a half of legal precedent in an effort to say that the Constitution says whatever the fuck the right-wingers on the Court want to say it says, but the 14th Amendment is pretty damn clear on the subject:
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That’s what the 14th Amendment says. That’s what it’s always said. And despite the Seattle Times‘ unchallenged regurgitation of State Rep. Matt Shea’s (Racistfuckingidiot-Spokane Valley) bullshit assertion that “the United States Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the issue,” that’s what the courts have consistently understood the the 14th Amendment to say since 1898, when the U.S. Supreme Court directly ruled on the issue of birthright citizenship in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
So by calling this racist, anti-immigrant campaign a “debate,” the Seattle Times, intentionally or not, is playing right into the hands of the anti-immigrant racists by reinforcing their frame, much in the same way that our media has been complicit in the Discovery Institute’s efforts to undermine science-based education in the United States, succumbing to their “teach the controversy” strategy in regards to so-called “Intelligent Design.”
No, the real news here isn’t that two Washington legislators, Shea and the equally hateful Republican wackjob Rep. Jim McCune, have “joined the debate on citizenship,” but rather that Shea and McCune are a couple of hateful, Republican wackjobs who would rather focus their energy on deporting natural born citizens of the United States, than actually doing the hard work in Olympia they were presumably elected to do.
Shea and McCune deserve scorn, both as legal scholars and as human beings. Instead, the Seattle Times gave these assholes exactly what they wanted, by joining their effort to teach a legal controversy that doesn’t really exist.
As we all know, corporations are neither People nor Citizens.
All else is a legal fiction designed to allow them to hire non-Citizens to fill jobs, and destroy the strong American Middle Class which is the sole hope for this nation.
Besides, I’m pretty sure Boehner is a citizen of Ecuador. Have you seen his tan?
Oh, God! Another post from this insufferable windbag.
I guess every single Western European nation is also racist, hateful, and anti-immigrant too then
I really am perplexed. Just because they don’t call themselves the KKK or John Birchers we should show their racist lies and bigotry respect?
I have news. The same bullshit just goes by the appellation Republican. Now they are debates instead of disgrace?
Random thought: To which country would one “deport” a natural-born resident, anyway?
You know what the #1 indicator of crime rates in an area are?
The presence of immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants.
No group has lower crime rates, particularly lower rates of violent crimes, than illegal immigrants.
Immigration has always made this country strong, creative, rich and productive. It still does, and always will.
I’d be more willing to listen to The Stranger’s constant and never ending diatribe against the Seattle Times if they didn’t have to link to them every day for their news stories.
the 14th Amendment is pretty damn clear on the subject:
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.
The words are clear but words in laws don’t always convey the intent of those who wrote them.
The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868. Was the intent of the 14th Amendment to protect the rights of native-born black Americans, recently-freed slaves whose rights were being denied? Or was the intent to provide citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. regardless of whether their parents arrived in the U.S. legally or illegally?
On behalf of the entire state of Arizona, you’re welcome. I know Washington had nothing better to do at all in 2011 than have its legislature caught up in racism, xenophobia, and fearmongering.
Glad we could be of help in wasting time and tax dollars!
Goldy, I’m so glad you don’t run a newspaper. It would read like a Soviet Russian Pravda. You’d be photoshopping you enemies out of photos and deleting the names of unpersons from the news archive.
These people are laughably wrong about what the 14th Amendment says, but they exist and the national Republican movement to take it to the Supreme Court is real.
In your world you’d have that fact declared unreportable.
4/Vince: their racist lies and bigotry
I don’t know anything about them except for this post by Goldy so I’m curious: why, exactly, are they racists and bigots?
What’s more gaseous and boring than a Seattle Times editorial/headline/news story? A Goldy screed about a Seattle Times editorial/headline/news story.
@7, nothing is more biteable than the hand that feeds.
Goldy, So by calling this racist, anti-immigrant campaign a “debate,” the Seattle Times…
As I said in my post to Vince I don’t know anything about these guys except for your post here but a couple general questions for you…
1. Is a person who is anti-illegal-immigrant also anti-immigrant?
2. Is a person who is anti-illegal immigrant a racist?
@14 if all they ever talk about is the fact that it’s Mexico that concerns them and “build that wall,” then yes, they are, to both questions. If they are simply hard-line against ALL immigrants, regardless of whether they came from Canada, the UK, France, Mexico, French Polynesia, Japan, India — then no, they’re not racists, at least, as long as they’re targeting everyone that isn’t born here or without a valid claim to residency.
@8,
Who gives a fuck? If the original authors wanted their “intent” to come through, they should have been more specific.
@8:
Intent-schment. If Congress and the states had wanted to make an exception in the 14th Amendment for native-born children of illegal immigrants, there was certainly nothing stopping them. Granted, the issue of illegal immigration probably wasn’t nearly as contentious in the mid-to-late 1800’s, but it wasn’t exactly new either, as strong anti-Chinese immigrant sentiment was rampant in the country at the time, just to cite one example.
The concept of children born within the territorial boundaries of a nation becoming a citizen by virtue of location (jus soli) is neither new, nor exclusive, and it wouldn’t have been terribly difficult for the framers of the Amendment to include exceptions for the purpose of limiting who could become a citizen or how. That they deliberately did not address the other predominant (and at the time far more common) means of determining citizenship, by virtue of descent, would seem to indicate that there was no strong inclination to deny children born on U.S. soil the right of citizenship, regardless of the status of their parents.
15/Joe: @14 if all they ever talk about is the fact that it’s Mexico that concerns them and “build that wall,” then yes, they are, to both questions
Does the U.S. have a significant illegal immigration problem with people from countries other than Mexico (or other countries south of our border)?
*
16/keshmeshi, it’s hard to be specific when you have no idea what the future will bring. If illegal immigration was not an issue at the time the 14th Amendment was passed and ratified and no one predicted it would become an issue, it’s perfectly reasonable that there wouldn’t be any specific language addressing children born to illegal immigrants and their right to citizenship.
17/Comte: The concept of children born within the territorial boundaries of a nation becoming a citizen by virtue of location (jus soli) is neither new, nor exclusive,
Nor, apparently, commonplace (at least among “developed” countries.) From the Times article: The U.S. and Canada are among few developed countries that grant birthright citizenship. No Western European country does.
But…but…they so want it not to mean that, unambiguous though it be…. Don’t the wishes of Real Americans today directly channel the intent of the legislators, who back then were all Real Americans?
!9:
Hence my use of the term “not exclusive”, along with my further clarification that the more common method of determining citizenship was based on the citizenship status of the parents (jus sanguinis).
@20:
You mean “Real Americans” like those folks who had to ask a bewigged actor at a colonial-era theme park about the intent of the framers of the Constitution?
Comte, you had written that determining citizenship by virtue of descent was at the time far more common. I was just pointing out that it, apparently, remains far more common.
Furthermore, I have to disagree with your assertion that because that means was not addressed in the 14th that it would “seem to indicate that there was no strong inclination to deny children born on U.S. soil the right of citizenship, regardless of the status of their parents. To me, all it indicates is the likelihood that the intent was to protect the rights of native-born black Americans, specifically recently-freed slaves.
@23 – the 14th amendment was clearly targeted at the freed slaves, but don’t you think it’s at all meaningful that nothing about slavery is mentioned?
By contrast, look at the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which specifically gave former slaves the rights granted later by 14th amendment. They could easily have put that same slavery-specific language into the 14th if that was the only injustice they had in mind.
I’m sure they could have constructed the 19th in such a way that did not refer to the sex of the voter and achieved suffrage. But it’s in there because that’s exactly what they meant.
Roma on December 30:
Tell that to Bull Connor and the little girls murdered in church bombings a century later.
It’s clear you have NO clue as to what it is like to live as other than a white person in this country. A good thought experiment for you, perhaps.
@25 We have forgotten so much and our view is so narrow.
I’m crying.
Roma
I see no reason for not wanting people born here to be natural citizens. None. They blend into our society. They have no other allegiance. They speak the language. They get their education here. They work here. They pay taxes here. They raise families here. What reason could there be for wanting to exile them from the place of their birth? Loyal citizens thrown away for what? Please give me a logical reason for violating people’s constitutional rights because, for the life of me, other than racism, I see no reason.
25/kk: It’s clear you have NO clue as to what it is like to live as other than a white person in this country.
And it’s very clear that you have NO clue about what it’s like to be sent to war, to bleed to death from a cannonball that ripped your guts out, just because your president thought it was necessary to “preserve the Union.” And it’s equally clear that you have NO clue about what it’s like to have a son die in war. You’re the kind of person who’s all gung-ho for war, as long as it’s other people who get killed and maimed.
Vince, I’m in favor of people coming to this country legally. I’m not in favor of people coming here illegally by choice, whether they come from Mexico or Guatemala, France or Australia. I see no reason why a child of parents who are here illegally (or who are here as tourists) should automatically be granted citizenship simply because he/she happened to be born here. Likewise, I see no reason why a child of Americans who are in France illegally (or as tourists) should automatically be granted French citizenship. I see nothing “racist” about that.
The issue with slaves was different. They didn’t, of course, choose to come here illegally. They were forced to come here. In that case, it was fair and just to consider any descendants of slaves born here to be citizens — the intent of the 14th Amendment — and for any slaves brought from Africa to be citizens as well.
Birthright citizenship is, apparently, observed by less than 20% of the world’s countries, with the U.S. and Canada being the only countries the in the “developed” world. Since, as I’ve observed from your posts, you seem to love to hurl the word “racist” at people, I imagine you’d consider the countries in that 80% to be filled with racists.
15/Joe: @14 if all they ever talk about is the fact that it’s Mexico that concerns them and “build that wall,” then yes, they are, to both questions
Does the U.S. have a significant illegal immigration problem with people from countries other than Mexico (or other countries south of our border)?
Since this question went unanswered, let me address it.
No, the U.S. does not have a significant illegal immigration problem with people from countries other than Mexico (or other countries south of our border.) The reason people talk about Mexico concerning them is due to geography and economics, not racism (for the most part.) Geography: we share borders with only two countries: Mexico and Canada. Economics: Mexico is very poor vis-a-vis the U.S.; Canada is not. Therefore, we get illegal immigration from Mexico (and countries which can get to the U.S. through Mexico), not Canada or Nigeria or Sudan or India. If Mexico was a country filled with poor white hillbillies, who came to the U.S. by the thousands illegally, most people opposed to illegal immigration would be just as opposed to them coming here as they are to Mexicans.
Nicely done, Goldy.