Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Rand Paul lies about babies.

According to the  AP: Paul opposes citizenship for babies of illegals

“We’re the only country I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen,” Paul told RT, an English-language station, shortly after his win over GOP establishment candidate Trey Grayson. “And I think that should stop also.”

Mr Paul obviously knows zilch about countries other than the US.  Which is not surprising, giving his propensity for spouting jingoistic rhetoric.

Photobucket

His statement is far from the truth but that doesn’t stop him from lying in his obvious efforts to target Mexican Americans, and to whip up a frenzy of ethnocentrism.

Let’s look at some facts.  

Jus soli is the legal term for citizenship by birth.

Let’s look at a definition.

Jus soli Law & Legal Definition

Jus soli is a Latin term that means law of the soil. In some countries, jus soli system or birthright citizenship is followed. According to this principle, citizenship of a person is determined by the place where a person was born. Jus soli is the most common means to acquire citizenship of a nation. The system through which a person acquires citizenship through their parents or ancestors is called jus sanguinis. In the U.S., jus soli system is followed to determine citizenship. This means whoever is born in the U.S. and is subject to its jurisdiction is automatically granted U.S. citizenship.

Pursuant to 8 USCS ยง 1401, the following persons can acquire citizenship by jus soli:

   * A person born in the U.S., and subject to its jurisdiction.

   * A person born in the U.S. as a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe.

   * A person of unknown parentage found in the U.S. while under the age of five year. The person can remain a U.S. citizen if it is not shown before s/he attains twenty five years that the person was not born in the U.S.

   * A person born in an outlying possession of the U.S. (i.e., including Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, Panama, the Virgin Islands and Guam.) of parents, one of whom is a citizen of the U.S. who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person.

Here is a list of countries that observe jus soli:


   * Antigua and Barbuda

   * Argentina

   * Barbados

   * Belize

   * Bolivia

   * Brazil

   * Canada

   * Chile (children of transient foreigners or of foreign diplomats on assignment in Chile only upon request)

   * Colombia

   * Dominica

   * Dominican Republic

   * Ecuador

   * El Salvador

   * Fiji

   * Grenada

   * Guatemala

   * Guyana

   * Honduras

   * Jamaica

   * Lesotho

   * Malaysia

   * Mexico

   * Nicaragua

   * Pakistan

   * Panama

   * Paraguay

   * Peru

   * Saint Christopher and Nevis

   * Saint Lucia

   * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

   * Trinidad and Tobago

   * United States

   * Uruguay

   * Venezuela

Other countries have a modified version (see link)

Many countries, including the US also use Jus sanguinis to determine citizenship.


Jus sanguinis (Latin: right of blood) is a social policy by which nationality or citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having an ancestor who is a national or citizen of the state. It contrasts with jus soli (Latin for “right of soil”).

Paul is clearly in favor of right wing efforts to deny right of birth here, and has decided that babies born of Mexicans will obviously (to him) be born Democrats.

Legislation dubbed the Birthright Citizenship Act was introduced in the House last year seeking to prevent citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants even though the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizenship to everyone born in the U.S. More than 90 lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors.

Paul told the TV station that partisan politics may be at play in not stopping illegal immigration.

“I’m not opposed to letting people come in and work and labor in our country,” Paul said. “But I think what we should do is we shouldn’t provide an easy route to citizenship. A lot of this is about demographics. If you look at new immigrants from Mexico, they register three to one Democrat, so the Democratic Party is for easy citizenship and allowing them to vote. I think we need to address that.”

Racist David Duke of KKK fame has a webpage supporting the Birthright Citizenship Act. No link provided to avoid sending you to filth.

Here are the legislators who  signed on to xenophobia:

Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 (Introduced in House)

HR 1868 IH

Mr. DEAL of Georgia (for himself, Mr. BILBRAY, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. JONES, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GINGREY of Georgia, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. BROUN of Georgia, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. KINGSTON, Mr. HELLER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. JORDAN of Ohio, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. WHITFIELD, Mr. LINDER, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. HERGER, Mr. AKIN, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. CALVERT, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. ROYCE, Mr. SMITH of Nebraska, Mr. TAYLOR, Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California, Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. ROHRABACHER, Ms. FOXX, Mr. KING of New York, Mr. DUNCAN, Mr. POE of Texas, and Mr. PRICE of Georgia) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

Paul, Glen Beck, and the rest of the cabal who spout about liberty and freedom have opted to ignore the US constitution, as have the elected officials who signed on to this bill.

Link to Jack Conway’s Act Blue Page.

(cross posted at Daily Kos)

 


Categories: General.

/ 36 Comments

36 comments

  1. DTOzone

    My little sister was born in England and was not born a British citizen (rather an American citizen as she was the child of British parents), although she was entitled to it as my parents were permanent residents, but they had to apply for her to get it and never did since we always assumed we’d return to the States.

    I can’t believe the Birthright Act would be Constitutional. I’d oppose it on Constitutional grounds. I’d be willing to hear arguments for a Constitutional amendment modifying birthright similar to how European countries do it though, honestly.  

  2. HappyinVT

    Instead of taking effective steps to confront illegal immigration these 90 morons and Rand Paul take the easier way (so they cannot be labeled racists because we all know this would be applied evenly to non-Hispanic babies as well  {{{rolls eyes}}}).

    Paul doesn’t mind folks coming here to work and labor just as he doesn’t mind them making significantly less or being paid under the table or working under the threat of deportation or in poor conditions.  Instead of addressing those issues it’s far easier to suggest that all the crimes are being committed by illegals or their offspring.  Or, all the gang members are illegals or their offspring.

    (I saw a poll at TPM late last week that had Paul’s poll numbers among Dems and Indies lower while, unfortunately not a huge surprise, they went up among Republicans.)

  3. canadian gal

    as a citizen and born to one of the member countries that observe jus soli (i just learned a new term) its hard for me to believe that the US doesn’t. i’m actually at a loss for a how it couldn’t be.

    as to the idea that this would be unconstitutional – again, i think this is reverse day.

  4. creamer

    Paul has framed this in a way that insures GOP and TP support. And he’s right, with current mind set of the GOP, Americans of Hispanic decent are going to grow up to vote Democratic. If for no other reason than that of survival.

     Yesterday I picked up ( and put down) a book entitled: Why the South was Right. I blamed Lincoln and the North for the war, claimed an inequity in tarrifs was a prime reason for war. And while it stated that slavery was vile, also seem to imply that slaves were mostly happy. Also that because Illinois and Indiana had laws prohibiting escaped slaves from staying the South was in good company.

    I googled the title and found numerous groups and reviews praising the authors for correcting history.

    The need of white American christians to defend their view of America baffles me. It would seem they have a huge identity problem.

    It would seem that conservatives are working their way towards recreating history in their own image. And that image doesn’t contain any color.

     

  5. rfahey22

    many U.S. citizens have at least one ancestor who did not emigrate here legally.  Would he be in favor of retroactively stripping citizenship from such people (possibly including himself)?

  7. GMFORD

    How would this be handled per Rand Paul’s position?  

    A couple comes to the U.S. legally with the intention of becoming citizens.  Before that happens they have a baby.  Is the baby an American citizen?

    If not, when the couple become citizens does the child (now in grade school) automatically become a citizen?  How does the child get into grade school prior to that without “papers”?

    If not, does the child have to wait for adulthood and then apply for citizenship?  If denied, where would the child be deported to?

  8. sricki

    to fear brown people — principal among them, the fact that they are losing their votes, and will only lose more in the years to come, which is especially terrifying to Republicans as non-whites become a larger and larger percentage of the voting populace. The funny thing is, Republicans are only damning themselves further with positions like these, and with similarly outlandish remarks about how they wouldn’t have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Republicans aren’t incapable of getting Hispanic American/African American/Asian American/Miscellaneous American votes — the party just needs to revise some (a lot) of their positions to appeal to people other than rich, white, older men. The problem is, the party isn’t willing to change. They are going further and further in one direction, and very few vocal Republicans seem to be looking back — the only nervous ones appear to be among the rank and file, and those individuals simply aren’t loud enough to have their voices heard among the shrieking crazies.

    Republicans have a real gift for confusing the public — that’s largely because a pretty good percentage of the public is either straight up ignorant, or is unwilling to do any fact-checking on their own. So Republicans can say things like, “The US is the only country that allows brown babies who are born here to immigrant parents to become citizens at their birth.” They can say, “Reconciliation being used by the Democrats is an unprecedented abuse of power.” They can pretend, “Obama has never provided proof of his American birth.” Whatever — it ought to be no big deal from an opposing perspective because people ought to either know better, or go to the trouble (slight though it is) to uncover and familiarize themselves with the truth. It’s not like the information isn’t out there and readily available. But that just isn’t what happens much of the time. The issue is that the uninformed often do not have any interest in becoming informed. And of course, a lot of people will trust whatever you tell them, so long as it supports something they already believe (e.g., “Mexicans are gonna overrun the country and take our jobs! And the ones who don’t take our jobs are gonna sell drugs to our kids!”) That’s why Faux Entertainment Channel is so popular, and why people like Rand Paul can get away with dribbling bullshit out of both sides of their mouths. People like Paul would not be able to be such lying, manipulative, racist/xenophobic assholes if “regular people” out here on Main Street would fact check like they ought.

    But I suppose… how much sense is there in lamenting what the ignorant “ought” and “should” do when we know that their ways are not likely to change. This type of ignorance should be fought at every turn — and legislation that continues the trend of institutionalized racism should be opposed with every measure we have available to us. But when it comes down to the root cause of these sorts of controversies — bigotry and fear and ignorance — I sometimes believe that the only thing which may heal them is time. Time, and with its passage, new generations of people who, to put it simply, just fucking know better.

  9. John Allen

    is all about strict constitutionalism, until they don’t agree with the Constitution. The same applies to their antipathy towards ‘activist judges’. To use the same phrase again, it’s funny how they don’t see Scalia, and Roberts as judicial activists.

    O/T: I’ve been working 10-12 hours per day for awhile now. It’s tough to find the energy to comment on the Moose after writing code all day. Let alone, dealing with the eye strain of staring at a monitor that long. I’m wrapping up one project, so I should be able to cut back to a more reasonable schedule. I may not have been posting, but I’ve been trying to keep up with the comments. I’ll be back as my annoying self only too soon.

  10. alyssa chaos

    I’ve ignored all politics for the past couple of months, and had heard of this Rand Paul fellow recently and now I can officially say that I dont like him.

    many thanks.

Comments are closed.