Happy New Year! (Maybe)
Now that the Presidential Elections have taken place, many people in this
country are hopeful that 2025 will bring a new beginning with plenty of good news. Well,
I’m sorry for putting a damper on the happy moment, but the incoming government is
planning something that will affect many immigrant families.
For years, President-elect Donald Trump has been toying with the idea of
removing the United States birthright citizenship from children born to illegal aliens.
Usually, I don’t write about national subjects because my concentration is the immediate
Lawrence area, where there’s no access to local news, but this is a matter touching too
many families around here and all over the country. My purpose is educating the
community, not talking about politics.
The 14 th Amendment protects anyone born on American soil by granting them
U.S. Citizenship. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, “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.” Such a simple definition has
created confusion and different interpretations from the public.
One of them is the requirement that a person be ‘‘subject to the jurisdiction
thereof,’’ however, excludes its application to children born of diplomatic representatives
of a foreign state, children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, or children of
members of Indian tribes subject to tribal laws. In addition, the citizenship of children
born on vessels in United States territorial waters or on the high seas has generally
been held by the lower courts to be determined by the parents’ citizenship. That
appeared in the Texas Law Review: Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Aliens,
an Irrational Public Policy, by Lino A. Graglia, 2009.
That statement is not clear enough, and the country has been waiting for the
Supreme Court to issue an opinion since 1898.
Trump said he's looking to end birthright citizenship, as it complicates his
deportation schemes for people who immigrated illegally and then had children here.
In a 2023 campaign video posted to his campaign website, Trump said he would
sign an executive order to stop federal agencies from granting automatic U.S.
citizenship to children of undocumented immigrant parents.
Trump's website states the order would also deny granting the children of
undocumented immigrant parents automatic citizenship, passports, Social Security
numbers, or the eligibility for specific taxpayer-funded welfare and benefits.
The order would also "direct federal agencies to require that at least one parent
be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become
automatic U.S. citizens."
Trump also said the order would stop "birth tourism," a term sometimes used to
refer to pregnant women who cross the border into the United States to give birth.
That question has spurred quite a debate over the 14th Amendment lately, with
the news that several states—including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, and
South Carolina—may launch efforts to deny automatic citizenship to such children.
He is talking openly about it, and he’s had four years to know what he’s up
against. Groups protecting immigrants argue that to accomplish that, they will have to
change the Constitution, but an executive order will not be sufficient.
A constitutional amendment would be the most direct means of redefining
birthright citizenship. However, that process is very lengthy; the last constitutional
Amendment was ratified in 1992.
In multiple cases decided in the late 19th and the late 20th century, the
Supreme Court has recognized only three narrow exceptions to birthright
citizenship: diplomatic children, tribal Indians, and invading armies. The language
and logic of these cases suggest that children of “illegal aliens” are indeed
birthright citizens, and the broad legislative backdrop of the Amendment and its
intended application to all American-born slave children provide compelling
support for this conclusion.
Meanwhile, "border czar" Tom Homan in charge of border security policy, in an
interview with NewsNation, admitted that millions of mixed-status households created a
“difficult situation.”
The Center for Migration Studies estimates that at least 4.7 million households in
the U.S. are home to both documented and undocumented family members and that 5.5
million U.S.-born children live in homes with at least one undocumented person.
“As far as U.S. children, that’s going to be a difficult situation because we’re not
going to change your U.S. citizenship,” he told NewsNation host Ali Bradley. “Which
means they’re going to be put in a halfway house, or they can stay at home and wait for
the officers to get the travel arrangements and come back and get the family.”
The "border czar" offered no details into what “halfway houses” for millions of
American children would look like but told Bradley that mass deportation has no “price
tag.”
The above content was taken from the following articles:
Trump border chief: US-born children of undocumented immigrants "going to be
put in a halfway house"
Story by Griffin Eckstein, MSN.com
Trump Can End Universal Birthright Citizenship. The Constitution Never Required
It.
Amy Swearer | December 11, 2024
Amy Swearer is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III
Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
And the losers are… the People
What a way to begin the year! I guess I’m loaded with bad news this week.
On page 5, you’ll find an article sent by the Massachusetts Association of School
Committees (MASC) rejecting the idea of House Bill No. 5098, An Act defining a
governing structure for the Lawrence School Board upon the exit of state receivership.
This petition was presented to the Legislature by Representative Frank A. Moran
of Lawrence, Senator Pavel Payano, and Representative Estela A. Reyes (with the
approval of the mayor and city council) regarding defining a governing structure for the
Lawrence School Board upon the exit of state receivership.
I don’t understand how this happened and why it went so fast. The city council
approved this awful proposal, the Mayor signed off on it and our state delegation sent it
to the Legislature on November 6. How are they going to justify to this community what
they have done? They violated our right to select our local representatives on the school
committee.
To my surprise, Jeovanny Rodríguez, chair of the city council, wrote on his
Facebook page the following:
Isaiah 10:10: "Woe to those who make unjust laws and issue
oppressive decrees! They turn away from the poor and deny justice to the
afflicted of my people. They rob widows and rob the fatherless."
Jeovanny voted in favor of the Home Rule Petition and now he complains about
the injustice of taking away the people’s right to vote. What a hypocrite!
With this new plan, the committee will have seven members: three members will
be elected at-large throughout the city, and three of these members shall be appointed
by the City Council’s vote. The Mayor shall be the seventh school committee member
and, as its chairman, will have full power to vote.
The appointed members should have a background or expertise in either finance,
law, or education.
This measure, of course, will be a permanent change to the City Charter of 1983.
What caught my attention was that the first line speaks to the change in the
Lawrence School Board upon the exit of state receivership. Then, at the end, it read,
“This act shall take effect upon its passing.”
That means that on December 23 it went to the Governor’s desk for her
signature, which must be affixed by December 31. Otherwise, it will be delayed another
year to be handled by the incoming members of the Legislature.
What happens if the governor does not sign it into law by December 31?
Some residents are questioning why the School Department of the City of the
City of Holyoke was under receivership, and they are getting their schools back without
the need to go through this process of reorganizing their school committee.
I looked into that, and it was a different situation than Lawrence's, so there’s no
need to explain it now. The only similarity between the two cities is that the school
committees of both will have to undergo training and orientation to prepare for the return
of the schools.
I copied the following a long time ago and don’t remember where it came from. I
found it profound and appropriate for this subject, but I’m not taking any credit for it.
The most dangerous conditions humanity faces are “ignorance and
want.” Charles Dickens warned that of these two, “Ignorance” is “written on
the brow” of humanity. We now live in a world of pervasive ignorance.
There is nothing more destructive than “poverty of the mind.” Hope and
pray we overcome the impoverishment being “sold” to us as “social
progressiveness.”
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