Citizenship
by Birthright Up for Debate
NewsMax.com
Wires
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
NORCROSS, Ga. -- Laila Montezuma
was 16 when she sneaked across the Rio Grande
from Mexico with her mother, only to be abandoned
by the smuggler paid to get them into the United
States. They had to hire another "coyote"
to reach Houston.
But
Montezuma's own daughter will be spared those
struggles. Even if Montezuma and her husband are
both deported for being illegal immigrants, little
Alma could eventually return to enjoy the opportunities
her parents sought here.
"She's
not going to have to fight for anything for the
simple fact that she was born here," Montezuma
said as her infant daughter played in a waiting
room at a pediatrics clinic in suburban Atlanta.
About
2 million families face the risk of being split
up because the children are U.S.-born citizens
but the parents are illegal immigrants. At least
one lawmaker has proposed ending citizenship by
birthright, restricting automatic citizenship
at birth to children of U.S. citizens and legal
residents.
The
United States has one of the most liberal citizenship
policies in the world, granting citizenship to
anyone born on U.S. soil based on an 1868 constitutional
amendment. About 3.1 million children are U.S.
citizens by birth, even though one or both of
their parents are here illegally, according to
estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Supporters
of that measure say it is the only way to fully
integrate immigrants.
"A person has a stake in the society where
they are, and you can't beat that as an integration
measure," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president
of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington
think tank.
But
critics who want to eliminate the right insist
it is a magnet for illegal immigration and an
obstacle in efforts to deport millions of illegal
immigrants.
"It's
not as large a magnet as jobs, but it will be
easier to solve the problem of illegal immigration
if we avoid the mixed-family situation,"
said Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., who tried unsuccessfully
to revoke the citizenship-by-birth right in the
immigration bill passed by the House in December.
Deal
and other advocates of stricter controls say immigrants
come to the U.S. in part to have "anchor
babies" - children who can offer their parents
some immunity from deportation and then petition
for them to receive green cards after turning
21. But just how many immigrants do so is unclear.
Border
Patrol agents rescue one or two immigrants in
labor every year.
Daniel
McClafferty, part of a Border Patrol medical team,
found an 18-year-old woman in shock with her newborn
daughter last month about 20 miles north of the
border in the desolate foothills of the Arizona
desert.
A
fellow immigrant had helped deliver the baby,
cutting her umbilical cord with a nail clipper.
McClafferty helped evacuate the mother on a helicopter
and carry the baby to the closest road, four miles
away.
Alejandro
Ramos with the Mexican consulate in Tucson, Ariz.,
said the mother had asked for a U.S. birth certificate
for her daughter, but her whereabouts were unknown.
Immigration
and Customs Enforcement officers try not to separate
families but they do "arrest and remove people
every day who have dependents in the U.S.,"
said agency spokesman Marc Raimondi.
Immigrants
who are ordered deported can ask a judge to let
them stay if, among other things, they are able
to prove their deportation would be an "extremely
unusual hardship" to a U.S.-citizen spouse
or child.
Immigration
judges typically consider whether children can
speak the language of their parents' native country,
whether they have enough money to survive and
whether they have serious health problems, said
Elaine Komis of the Executive Office of Immigration
Review, which runs federal immigration courts.
Even
though Luz Maria Medrano of Las Vegas was ordered
deported along with her second husband, the couple
won permanent residency after a six-year legal
battle when a judge found her 7-year-old, U.S.-born
son would not receive proper treatment for his
learning disability in Mexico.
She's
especially happy for her other 17-year-old son,
who was born in Mexico. She carried him across
the Arizona desert when he was 12 months old to
flee an abusive ex-husband. "I felt very
responsible," said Medrano, a 40-year-old
real estate agent.
"It was for him that I would have suffered
more if they had sent us to Mexico. Now the future
for him will be grandiose. Here, whatever you
do, you'll be successful at."
Back at the suburban Atlanta clinic serving Spanish-speaking
families, Irma Baldonado recalled being two months
pregnant when she immigrated illegally to California.
She left her first-born daughter in El Salvador
with her mother and has not seen the child in
seven years. She hopes her two children who were
born here will one day get papers for their 10-year-old
sister to join them.
"It's
what I wish for the most," Baldonado said.
"Then it will all have been worth it."