Citizenship at Birth

[Typhoid]

Game, why don't you address the other parts of his question to you?

I'll re-pose it to you, for him.

but getting into the nitty gritty, what are the criteria for being born a citizen? One parent must be a citizen? Two? That sounds awfully harsh to legal immigrants here.

Maybe one or both of your parents must be at least legal residents? In that case, forgery would I guess be an easy workaround.

What is the solution that is fair to legal residents but also has any teeth to keep illegal immigrants from figuring out how to illegally game the system? They're already illegally here, I can't imagine illegally forging documents to get citizenship for their kid would be a big hindrance. Then, once a kid has citizenship by forged documents, would it be right to take away that citizenship because of the parents doing wrong?

Anyways, I'll re-iterate that I think it's stupid because it's not solving a problem. It's not even trying to fix the problem. It's just removing a reason. The problem isn't people birthing children in the country. The problem is people getting into your country illegally. This will still occur after removing the citizenship incentive. People don't just move to new countries to pound off some new kids. All this will do is also deter legal migrants from wanting to go there to have a family.

And you're acting like if they remove the incentive there is no way to circumvent it.

"1) People who have at least one parent who is a citizen"

That will just spark a bunch of people getting married for green cards, essentially. Which already happens. Fake marriages to people from out-of country so their kids are accepted. That happens already. It will happen much more. It's not hard to pay some dude from Alabama to pretend to be married to some Spanish chick so she can have a kid in the country.

"America is one of very few countries that make citizenship a birth right based on where you're born, while ignoring the status of your parents."

But why should the status of your parents matter? That's the thing. Are you your parents? I'm sure not my parents. To detain, punish, deter, harm, hurt, or hinder a child solely because of the parents, is wrong. How can you not admit to that, or see that. Why not just throw kids born to criminal parents in prison? Because it would be retarded to punish an infant for a parent.
I wholeheartedly agree with the "birth right of country" thing. Maybe because I'm Canadian and it's like that here, and we're right above the US - and it's like that there. Maybe because I find it ridiculous to expect a child to do a citizenship exam despite being born in a country.

[Professor S]

Typh, I'm not sure why you are equating citizenship with child punishment. Lets say that a vacationing French couple, of means, is vacationing in the US and gives birth while here. Does that make that child a US citizen even though they plan on going back to France? Is the child not a French citizen, because he/she was born outside of their country? The more I think about it, the more the parental argument makes more sense than location.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Typh, I'm not sure why you are equating citizenship with child punishment. Lets say that a vacationing French couple, of means, is vacationing in the US and gives birth while here. Does that make that child a US citizen even though they plan on going back to France? Is the child not a French citizen, because he/she was born outside of their country? The more I think about it, the more the parental argument makes more sense than location.

That child would be American, until going back to France and becoming a dual citizen on the basis his parents are French, yet he was born in another country. When he becomes a dual citizen, he can totally omit being American.

But for example, one of my sisters has 3 kids.
My sister was born in Canada, lived in England, Germany and Cyprus.
My brother-in-law lived in England, Germany, and Cyprus.

They had a child when they were in England. He is English.
They had a child when they were in Cyprus. He is Cypriot.
They had another child when they were in England - so he is too, English.
The Cypriot child is a dual citizen of England and Cyprus, because his residence is England, yet he was born in Cyprus.

I stand firm on my "You are where you're born" statement. It's probably pretty clear I won't budge on that.
If you started existing in Country A, even though your parents are from Country B, or C - you are country A. Country A is all you've ever been, seen, heard and smelled. You were born there, and you are it.


Edit: The reason I'm talking so much on the topic, is because A) there are easy ways to circumvent the not being born a citizen thing, and B) It's not solving the problem of people getting in illegally. If people break into your house you should want to stop them, not remove items of value so they have no reason to get in.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Edit: The reason I'm talking so much on the topic, is because A) there are easy ways to circumvent the not being born a citizen thing, and B) It's not solving the problem of people getting in illegally. If people break into your house you should want to stop them, not remove items of value so they have no reason to get in.

I don't think this is a fair comparision for a couple reasons.

1) People do avoid keeping things that are TOO valuable in their house. That's what Banks are made for.

2) The measures of protection you can take on a single house (in america) is a lot more harsh then you could ever do for a country... I mean, yeal lets gate off all the borders and the beaches with barbed wire tips, and put guard dogs at every corner. And if someone happens to jump over, lets shoot and kill them on the spot. Especially the pregnant lady who tries to come in, that'll teach em.

I mean, like I said... unless you want us to be a country of Arizonas. I just think there are other ways to slow the bleeding.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Game, why don't you address the other parts of his question to you?

What question did I not answer?

The only thing I didn't directly address is the question about forged documents, but he followed that up with asking how other countries handle it.. It's possible that in that situation it would fall under naturalization or the child should definently be elgible for registration. But that wouldn't change the fact that they're not a citizen.

As for the rest of your arguement, you're not giving any realistic resolution. You just keep re-enforcing that changing this method is bad, even though more then 90% of countries out there, and most countries in the free world force you to have at least one parent who is a citezen to be one from birth. (Including England, so unless your sister or brother is an English citizen, the kids had to have been registered or went through the naturalization process.)

Nobody is saying that removing this one incentive is the end-all be-all answer for immigration. Of course there's gonna be other reasons for them to want to come, and possibly ways made to bend the rules eventually... but I think it addresses the real problem, which is the incentive to move. Because once they have no good reason to step onto this land illegally, then the problem resolves itself.