Argument Against Birthright Citizenship : Chain Migration

Andrei Codrescu author of Notes of an Alien Son: Immigration Paradoxes, informs us of what and how immigrants who come to America feel about moving away. The move across land of ocean can feel overwhelming, and after reading Codrescu essay I can understand why some immigrants do move to America. Change must happen with countries that don’t hold respect for their own people. You hear over and over again in the media that sadly owns America and the world about how thousands upon thousands of immigrants from all over the world are making their way to the edge of America.

Contrary to this, others believe that illegal immigrants threaten the United States HealthCare System, Madeline Pelner Cosman stated, “In 1994, 74987 anchor babies in California hospital maternity unit cost $215 million and constituted 36 percent of

Another controversial assumption made by advocates who want to see a change in birthright citizenship is that unauthorized immigrants and their U.S. born children place a drain on many social resources. When an unauthorized immigrant has a child born in the U.S., that child has access to all the social resources that U.S. children born to legal citizens are entitled to. It is believed that undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes and come to America with the sole intentions of living on welfare. Evidence provided by the Social Security Administration, contends that there are taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers. This is also known as a “suspense file” and it has grown by twenty billion dollars in recent years. Migrants and undocumented immigrants contribute more in taxes and social contributions than they will ever receive in individual benefits (Van Hook and Fix 2010). Immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, they pay about $90 billion a year in taxes but only use roughly $5 billion in public benefits (Van Hook and Fix 2010). In

The argument for making these children legal is that it is not fare to the child that was born here by their parents and has no other home that they have known to call their own.

Opponents of illegal immigrants receiving healthcare services do not believe that illegal immigrants should have access to healthcare when so many Americans are uninsured. Illegal and undocumented immigrants, according to opponents, do not have a right to healthcare because it is a benefit that they do not deserve and that taxpayers cannot afford. Furthermore, illegal immigrants, who seek publicly funded healthcare services in the United States, cause a financial drain not only on the healthcare system but also the national economy. For example, FAIR (Federation for American Immigration) estimates that the cost of reimbursed medical care in California in 2004 was about $1.4 billion and $.85 billion in Texas, with one of the frequent costs to U.S. taxpayers being the delivery of babies to illegal alien mothers.

Many pregnant immigrant women are illegally coming into the country just to have their babies. These women get free medical attention for themselves and the baby. This is costing the U.S. millions of dollars every year.

It is estimated that between 287,000 to 363,000 anchor babies are born a year, and there could be countless more because hospital workers can not inquire of patients' legality. California provides free natal care and delivery to all pregnant mothers no matter of citizenship and it costs the state 215.2 million dollars a year. Californians voted to end the program, but at the state government session, the president of Mexico provided an argument to strike the vote down.

There are three proposed actions to resolve the birthright debate issue: legislating change at a federal level, amending the constitution to revoke birthright citizenship, and getting the Supreme Court to change its interpretation of the 14th amendment. There are arguments for and against each proposed action. Legislating change at the federal level has already been attempted, in 2009 the Birthright Citizenship Act was proposed which specified that in order to be considered a citizen, a child must have at least one parent who is a citizen of the Unites States, is a legal permanent resident, or is an undocumented immigrant serving in the armed forces. Since its proposal the bill has not moved, it remains stagnant in subcommittee (Tuttle 2015); experts doubt its ability to survive court challenges if it were to become law and that it would quickly be struck down as unconstitutional. Those who oppose the law argue that it is fueled by anti-immigrant sentiments, and that putting such stipulations on natural citizenship is unconstitutional and is in direct conflict with the 14th amendment. There is the fear that if congress can pass a law that conflicts with the 14th amendment, it can pass

As expected, the U.S. born children of the aliens that outstay their visas or illegally cross the borders receive multiple health benefits as they burden hospitals with many unpaid bills. As per The Wall Street Journal, the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center “estimates that about 7.5% of all U.S. births per year (300,000) are to illegal immigrants”. Consequently, “Medicaid alone paid about $2.2 billion last year to partially reimburse hospitals for unpaid illegal alien delivery bills…” (Hayes). Medicaid is funded by health insured taxpayers, and these unpaid costs

Today the Society is split into three separately minded groups. In no specific ordering, the first is determined to believe that any one person born in the United States is a citizen and which means their parents should become citizens along with them. These are the ones whom obtain “birthright citizenship” (Raul). The second are firm believers in the only ones that should be citizens are the ones who go through the proper process of becoming a citizen and according to the article in “USA today,” it states that illegal immigrants are “having babies as a way to obtain citizenship,” which too many Americans “cheapens the whole idea of being American”. The last group is the “other” the ones whom are completely neutral or believe in the

The immigration policy center calculates the cost to the US economy of delayed immigration legislation. They have calculated that the federal government has spent 186.6 billion dollars trying to enforce immigration since 1986, which has failed to control the number of immigrants coming into the US. The number of illegal immigrants has tripled over the last two and a half decades to over eleven million. Since 1993, the budget for Border Patrol, along with the US Mexican border, has increased from 360 million to 3.5 billion. The budget for Customs and Border Protection has increased from 5.9 billion to 11.9 billion. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone from 3.3 billion in 2003 to 5.9 billion in

Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them. If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion. Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status — what most illegal aliens would become — can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments. Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77 percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent. The fact that legal immigrants with few years of schooling are a large fiscal drain does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a net drain — many legal immigrants are highly skilled. The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.

With the significant growth of immigration to the U.S. over the last few years, fully understanding the economic influence of immigration is having. As Blanco states, it cost ICE an average of 10,854 dollars to deport one immigrant, there are 37 million immigrants in America. The DREAM Act provides security and stability for a better future by allowing them to get a higher education that will inevitably aid the economy.

The cost of immigration has run from $30 billion to $50 billion a year. America's need for immigration ended a century ago. The huge immigration flow harms both our country and the countries that are sending immigrants here.

One of the first root causes seen in Which Way Home is migrating to the United States (U.S.) to get a job and to financially help their families. Fourteen year old Kevin from Honduras wanted to go to the U.S. so he could find a job and help support his mom. Kevin’s step dad did not want him and his step dad beat his mom, as well. Kevin felt that by migrating to the U.S. he would be able to support his mom and his siblings. Many child migrants feel that they have no opportunities in their home countries and that if they move to the U.S. they will have more job opportunities and they will be able to help support their families financially. Kevin traveled with his friend Fito, who wanted a better life for himself, which is another root cause.