By Ann Coulter
Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when youre 8 1/2 months pregnant give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind a sacred constitutional right as old as the 14th Amendment itself.
The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades.
In fact this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when no one was looking and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Courts Dred Scott decision which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: 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 drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers back in those days people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not the massive welfare state operating as a magnet for malingerers frauds and cheats that it is today its amazing the drafters even considered the amendments effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan expressly said: This will not of course include persons born in the United States who are foreigners aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians -- because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years that was how it stood with only one case adding the caveat that children born to legal permanent residents of the U.S. gainfully employed and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark 1898.)
And then out of the blue in 1982 Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe asserting that no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment jurisdiction can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful. (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennans authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes the Clement L. Bouve -- the one youve heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator not an elected official certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.
So on one hand we have the history the objective the authors intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants.
On the other hand we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who Im guessing was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper.
Any half-wit including Clement L. Bouve could conjure up a raft of such plausible distinction(s) before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties contagious diseases and have some qualification to be here other than lives within walking distance.
But most important Americans have a right to decide as the people of other countries do who becomes a citizen.
Combine Justice Brennans footnote with Americas ludicrously generous welfare policies and you end up with a bankrupt country.
Consider the story of one family of illegal immigrants described in the Spring 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:
Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan Mexico in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa plus three children aged 19 12 and 8. Felipa ... gave birth to a new daughter her anchor baby named Flor. Flor was premature spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300000. Meanwhile (Felipas 19-year-old daughter) Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby Cristian. ... The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12000 for being anchor babies.
In the Silverios munificent new hometown of Stockton Calif. 70 percent of the 2300 babies born in 2003 in the San Joaquin General Hospital were anchor babies. As of this month Stockton is $23 million in the hole.
Its bad enough to be governed by 5-4 decisions written by liberal judicial activists. In the case of anchor babies America is being governed by Brennans 1982 footnote.
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
By Ann Coulter
Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when youre 8 1/2 months pregnant give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind a sacred constitutional right as old as the 14th Amendment itself.
The louder liberals talk about some ancient constitutional right the surer you should be that it was invented in the last few decades.
In fact this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it snuck in when no one was looking and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to overrule the Supreme Courts Dred Scott decision which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: 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 drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers back in those days people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not the massive welfare state operating as a magnet for malingerers frauds and cheats that it is today its amazing the drafters even considered the amendments effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan expressly said: This will not of course include persons born in the United States who are foreigners aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.
In the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not even confer citizenship on Indians -- because they were subject to tribal jurisdiction not U.S. jurisdiction.
For a hundred years that was how it stood with only one case adding the caveat that children born to legal permanent residents of the U.S. gainfully employed and who were not employed by a foreign government would also be deemed citizens under the 14th Amendment. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark 1898.)
And then out of the blue in 1982 Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe asserting that no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment jurisdiction can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful. (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennans authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes the Clement L. Bouve -- the one youve heard so much about over the years.) Bouve was not a senator not an elected official certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.
So on one hand we have the history the objective the authors intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children born to illegal immigrants.
On the other hand we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who Im guessing was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper.
Any half-wit including Clement L. Bouve could conjure up a raft of such plausible distinction(s) before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties contagious diseases and have some qualification to be here other than lives within walking distance.
But most important Americans have a right to decide as the people of other countries do who becomes a citizen.
Combine Justice Brennans footnote with Americas ludicrously generous welfare policies and you end up with a bankrupt country.
Consider the story of one family of illegal immigrants described in the Spring 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:
Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan Mexico in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa plus three children aged 19 12 and 8. Felipa ... gave birth to a new daughter her anchor baby named Flor. Flor was premature spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300000. Meanwhile (Felipas 19-year-old daughter) Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby Cristian. ... The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12000 for being anchor babies.
In the Silverios munificent new hometown of Stockton Calif. 70 percent of the 2300 babies born in 2003 in the San Joaquin General Hospital were anchor babies. As of this month Stockton is $23 million in the hole.
Its bad enough to be governed by 5-4 decisions written by liberal judicial activists. In the case of anchor babies America is being governed by Brennans 1982 footnote.
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
