Posted by I’m a natural-born US citizen because my mother came to this country (well, Brooklyn actually), stayed with friends, gave birth to me and then a month or so later went back to Nigeria. My oldest sister was born in Nigeria and my middle sister in Bangladesh. My mom wanted access to better facilities for her third child. I don’t think US citizenship was on her mind but I quite like having the Blue Passport.
Issues of immigration hit right at the heart of my family so I wanted to examine Mitt Romney’s positions on immigration. One of things that I liked about President GW Bush was his practical approach to immigration. He never got anything done besides more manpower for border patrols because Republicans today go ballistic if anything close to amnesty is even proffered. I just don’t see the practicality in their positions. Let’s go to the transcript.
We’re going to have to stop illegal immigration. There are 4 million people who are waiting in line to get here legally. Those who’ve come here illegally take their place. So I will not grant amnesty to those who have come here illegally.
Ok, that’s fair enough. My family immigrated here legally. What is he going to do about those 12,000,000 here illegally? Forced deportation?
Now, let me mention one other thing, and that is self-deportation says let people make their own choice. What I was saying is, we’re not going to round up 12 million people, undocumented illegals, and take them out of the nation. Instead let people make their own choice. And if they – if they find that – that they can’t get the benefits here that they want and they can’t – and they can’t find the job they want, then they’ll make a decision to go a place where – where they have better opportunities.
No forced deportation. And self-deportation is a choice. So illegal immigrants are going to choose to leave the country to which they came for better opportunities. To go where… back to Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Chile where they didn’t have jobs or other economic opportunities? And what of those (apparently few) who won’t leave. Remember, no forced deportation.
But I’m not in favor of rounding up people and – and – and taking them out of this country. I am in favor, as the president has said, and I agree with him, which is that if people have committed crimes we got to get them out of this country.
Sure, sure, let’s kick out the convicted criminals. That’s going to take a huge chunk out of the illegal immigrant population. In short, Romney’s plan is to do nothing about the illegal immigrant population besides further strengthening the borders, which we’ve been progressively doing under Presidents GW Bush and Obama. He won’t forcibly kick them out, nor will he give them a path to citizenship (amnesty!).
But here’s what kinda pissed me off.
The kids of those that came here illegally, those kids, I think, should have a pathway to become a permanent resident of the United States and military service, for instance, is one way they would have that kind of pathway to become a permanent resident.
There are an estimated 4,000,000 children in this country born to illegal immigrant parents. That’s less than 1 percent of the total population. So children are punished because their parents are here illegally. But it’s take a certain amount of distance to be able to demonize children, hence the term anchor babies. Anchor babies are abstract. They’re created expressly so their parents won’t be able to be deported. Their parents probably don’t even love them.
It doesn’t end there though. Republicans have talked about repealing the 14th amendment, which provides for birthright citizenship. Essentially, they’re talking about revoking my citizenship. But since many of their parents were likely already citizens, you know it won’t apply retroactively to them; birthright citizenship until the country starts getting too brown.
