'Mixed status' Tears Apart Families
By
Rich Pedroncelli, AP
Deportation split Julie Santos' family in 2001,
forcing her husband, an illegal immigrant, to
return to Mexico while she and their two U.S.-born
children remained in her hometown of Chicago.
George
Santos had worked and paid taxes in the USA for
15 years but is barred from ever returning because
he used false identity papers to claim he was
a U.S. citizen.
"He has said, 'Continue with your life and
forget about me,' but I can't," says Julie
Santos, 40, a real estate agent and secretary
of the Latino Family Unity Campaign. She calls
often and, whenever possible, visits him in Mexico
with their 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter.
About
2 million families nationwide face a similarly
gut-wrenching risk of deportation because the
children are U.S.-born citizens but at least one
parent is an illegal immigrant, according to the
Pew Hispanic Center. If deported, the parent must
decide whether to leave the kids with relatives
in the USA or take them along.
Many
"mixed status" families are created
because the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
grants automatic citizenship to all children born
in the country except those of foreign diplomats.
"It's
a nearly absolute birthright citizen, and in that
way, it's unusual. But it's not exceptional,"
says Peter Spiro, international law professor
at the University of Georgia School of Law.
He
says most countries have tighter limits on citizenship,
but several Western Hemisphere countries, including
Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, also grant
it to all children born on their land. He says
other countries are adopting broader U.S.-style
language.
As
Congress returns from a two-week recess and again
wrestles with the thorny issue of immigration
reform, some House Republicans have proposed limiting
birthright citizenship.
Rep.
Nathan Deal, R-Ga., and 83 GOP co-sponsors are
pushing a bill that would restrict automatic citizenship
at birth to children of U.S. citizens and legal
residents. He says he doesn't expect the measure
to be included in any broader reform package this
year but hopes it generates debate.
Mixed-status
families pose "a huge problem," says
Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, which backs Deal's bill. They "complicate
an already complicated issue."
At
least 3.1 million U.S.-born children live in families
headed by an illegal resident, the Pew Hispanic
Center estimates. They account for two-thirds
of all children of illegal immigrants.
Deal
argues that birthright citizenship is a magnet
for many illegal immigrants who use so-called
"anchor babies" to establish a U.S.
foothold. These U.S.-born children are eligible
for government services, and at 21, can petition
for their parents' residency.
Deal
says the 14th Amendment was not intended to include
these children.
Historians say the Amendment was ratified in 1868
to ensure the citizenship of freed slaves. "There's
no question" that it would have excluded
children of illegal immigrants had there been
many illegal workers at the time, says Peter Schuck,
professor at Yale Law School and author of Citizens,
Strangers and In-Betweens.
The amendment has been misinterpreted for more
than a century, says John Eastman, director of
the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at
the Claremont Institute. He argues that its authors,
in granting citizenship to "all persons born
or naturalized in the United States," meant
only those not owing allegiance to a foreign power,
not simply those born on its soil.
Whatever
its intent, birthright citizenship has been widely
accepted as applying to all children born in the
USA.
"There
are good arguments" for and against this
citizenship, says Schuck. He says some illegal
immigrants may take advantage of it, but "it
does not lead to a multigenerational, long-term
population of people who are not citizens."
Schuck
says Germany has had big problems because it has
many immigrants, particularly from Turkey, living
their entire lives there who weren't voting citizens
and felt alienated. As a result, he says, Germany
and France have broadened their citizenship laws
to include more immigrants.
Spiro
says children of illegal immigrants will likely
spend their entire lives in the USA. By depriving
them of citizenship, he says, "you'd have
a significant portion of the population being
legally subordinated on an inter-generational
basis."
Rep.
Howard Berman, D-Calif., member of the House Judiciary
Committee, says Deal's bill would create more
illegal residents. "It's unconstitutional.
It creates a larger underclass, and it's unenforceable,"
he says. "It does nothing to secure our borders."
For decades, the undocumented parents in "mixed
status" families have been deported. Some,
citing the plight of their U.S.-born kids, have
been spared.
Immigration judges decide whether a parent qualifies
for a waiver on a "case by base basis,"
says Ernestine Fobbs, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement. In fiscal 2005, she says
more than 162,000 people were deported from the
USA, but it's unclear how many had U.S.-born children
or spouses.
Waivers
are "much less frequent than in the past,"
says John Trasvina, interim president and general
counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense
and Educational Fund. He says Congress has tightened
the criteria since 1996, giving judges less discretion
to stay a deportation.
Currently,
deportation can be suspended for illegal immigrants
only if they have lived in the USA longer than
10 years, have no criminal record and can prove
their removal would cause "extremely unusual
hardship" to a close relative with legal
status.
Julie Santos says her husband, George, owned a
home and worked full-time as a furniture refinisher
in Chicago. She says he did not seek legal residency
because he did not want to admit to his employer
that he was in the country illegally.
They
considered moving the family to Mexico, but economic
conditions are too tough.
She tries to keep him connected to the family,
but it's difficult.
"Now sometimes it feels I'm talking about
a ghost," Julie Santos says.
There
are 6.6 million families in the USA in which a
head of household and/or spouse is an illegal
immigrant. In some of these families, the children
are U.S. citizens. Number of families with:
No children 3.9 million
Children are U.S. citizens 1.5 million
Children are not U.S. citizens 725,000
Some children are citizens, some are not 460,000
Sources: Pew Hispanic Center and U.S. Census Bureau