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Russell Pearce is a blight on democracy! How can a man who opens his arms to Neo Nazis have any power to legislate?
The 14th amendment has not been misinterpreted. As Americans, we have a unique system that has served us well, for centuries as a matter of fact. As Americans, born or naturalized, we all can strive for the same dreams. The 14th amendment, were it only meant to be relevant to slaves, as suggested by Pierce, would have been abolished years ago. Why, after 150 years then, does it still hold a special place in our Democracy. The impact of the 14th amendment cannot be overstated.
Nonetheless, the Fourteenth Amendment was the most important constitutional change in the nation’s history since the Bill of Rights.
The term anchor baby is abhorant to me. Children are not anchors, they are unique and special human beings. When I was a school counselor, I had the story of the starfish on my door, I wanted every kid that walked in my office to know I thought there was something amazing about each and every one of them.
Pearce seems to go back and forth between ‘native born Americans,’ doesn’t he?
I find it interesting that he wants to be his own activist judge and cherry pick what he feels the Constitution says and doesn’t say.
That isn’t how it works, Senator Pearce.
Ill watch the video in a few but I have to say I’m not really offended by being called an Anchor Baby. Hell, I call myself that in polite debate about immigration.
Words only hurt if you allow them to.
Interesting video. I think he can phrase his arguement a better way and even then he’ll have a tough sell on making it work. The US isn’t the only nation that has birthright citizenship.
I think the frustration that he feels clouds his arguement and takes away from it making it easy to pick apart.
Elena — Just a couple of true stories here directly from primary sources. I’m curious to get your reaction to them from a sociological and psychological standpoint.
(1) A gala birthday party at home for a young Hispanic girl who has just turned twelve. The girl’s mother is ecstatic and bouncing all over the place with joy. A guest asks her just out of curiosity why she is so ecstatic about this particular birthday. The mother replies: “Because my little girl is twelve. NOW she can have babies!!!” (You don’t have to explain to me the significance of the age of 12 in Latin America. I know. But this is not Latin America. It’s Northern Virginia.)
(2) An Hispanic teenager, a very promising student, is asked why she has been so sad of late. The girl states that she has learned she is pregnant. She does not want to be pregnant and have a baby at this time in her life. That is why she is so sad. Then she sighs despondently: “Anyway, at least my mother is happy.”
Personally, I think we have a whole generation of young immigrant girls who are often under intense sexual pressure while being sandwiched between two cultures. My Hispanic son-in-law has nearly come to fisticuffs in public places with Hispanic 30-something and even 40-something males trying to put the make on his adopted Latina daughter, going back to when she was just twelve and starting to develop.
Tell me what you think.
Well Wolverine, these are two very sad stories. I know of many sad stories having been a school counselor, and they did not have anything to do with Latino’s. Stories like the ones you shared and ones I have lived, are more about economic circumstances than anything else. There is alot of human growth that needs to happen in the world, I am appalled at what I read about on a daily basis. I was just reading about female mutilation here in the states, I was so disgusted that the practice still exists. Some of these young girls are sent home to their parents native countries to get mutilated and then return here to the states.
oh, and of course my comment would not be complete without also talking about the need for education for young girls so they know that their future is full of possibilities.
From what Mrs. W tells me, the battle goes beyond an adult trying to help a young immigrant girl one-on-one through education and advice about her future and her future alone. It seems sometimes that you are fighting against an entire culture and that you can expect no help beyond yourself and whatever additional resources a school can use to address the problem. She gets mighty discouraged by this. And that is something for her. She was an experienced medical nurse in Africa for many years and had to try to teach a radically different culture about the need for proper sanitation and precautionary procedures against hospital infections. That was tough in that cross-cultural climate. She thinks this is also a tough one, even on our home ground.
The problem described, not that I was asked, has everything to do with social economic conditions and generational poverty.
Certainly not all Latino mothers have that reaction. Many are very protective of their daughters. Some of the families I know come from a poverty that is impossible for Americans to understand. Poverty often generates a male dominate society also.
What cures that kind of thinking? Getting an education. It doesn’t happen over night or in one generation, as a rule.
Why wasn’t it abolished 150 years ago? Simple, illegal immigration wasn’t a problem 150 years ago! Duh
There isn’t one thing that Pearce said that doesn’t make sense. So, break into our country illegally, have a baby, and bam you’ve just won the equivalent of the million dollar lottery from a poor Mexican’s perspective. You get to stay in the country, your child is a US citizen, you don’t have to pay for the child birth costs, tons of lawyers and ethnic groups are there to defend you, and the government will support you and your new family with food and housing subsidies. Also, you now have the right to go out and parade around demanding respect from the country you just forced yourself upon. What a country!
Now tell me where I’m wrong!
@Second-Alamo
150 years ago, we were on the verge of a Civil War and we had slaves. Who would have wanted to come here illegally? And if they were here illegally, would anyone have known or cared? I doubt it.
Pearce is a would-be-Hitler. He needs to be squelched.
It sounds like some of you think Pearce is talking off the top of his head as a sheriff. I hear him trying to explain – in his own less articulate way – some very important legal distinctions from a more educated group of advisors regarding what the SCOTUS has, in fact, ruled and what the general PC reaction/practice has been. Sounds like it is time for a test case.
Why? What has Pearce done or said that makes him Hitler-esq?
I vote for getting Glendell Hill in to explain the Constitution to us here in Prince William County…yea that’s the ticket.
Maybe we could get the AG to take this case to the Supreme Court…yea that’s the ticket.
As for hugging the neo nazis…bet Elena could find that video. I think I might have put it on the blog even. This dude is an ignoramous.
[ed. note] Comment taken down. Impersonation. See comment below. This is NOT Taxpayer’s fault.
Ethnic cleansing ??? — waaayyy over the top.
No. He has a 1A right to say what he want as inarticulate as (I judge it to be) it was. I can’t nor should I ever try to ever take away his right to speak his mind. He may call me an anchor baby or a jackpot baby or whatever other name he can think of but it does not give me the right to ever sqelch him. That’s the lesson that we sometimes forget – that America is about freedom and liberty and sometimes that means making bad choices, wrong decisions (current administration is a GREAT example of such), or saying things that make peoples blood boil.
I thought this guy was a State Senator not a Sheriff?
Sheriff’s I hold in high regard. They are elected (in Virginia) as our Constituional police authority. They are the highest ranked law enforcement officer in a county. They represent my interests and when they don’t – we elect them out of office with someone that will. They are beholden to me as an elected official and not as an apointee.
I think all of the PWCPD should be folded into the Sheriff’s Department and we go back to a one agency system.
As to changing the 14A there is an established way of doing so – lets follow the Constitution. But, for right now birth right citizenship is the law of the land.
@Posting As Pinko
HEY! MH, check your security. Someone is posting as me. The comment I am responding to is NOT ME!
@PWC Taxpayer
This is the real me, and my answer is “because he embraces neo-nazis.”
Free speech is not the same as being in an elected position to affect change.
Marin, I lived in PWC when there was just a sheriff’s dept. You actually don’t know what you are wishing for. We are large enough and metrolpolitan enough that we need a police dept, not a Mayberry good ole boys network. I suggest Faquier County if longing for the good old days is that powerful.
@marinm
This is the real me saying there are ways to squelch something evil without infringing on freedom of speech. Expose him and let the good people do something about it. Don’t let a man like this get in power!!!!
@Moon-howler
MH, please email me ASAP.
Let’s sit and think about this for a moment. To many people, President Obama presents an ‘evil’ arguement in that government will encroach into many aspects of people’s personal and private lives (e.g. healthcare). Should his speech be squlched? No, I do not support that. Because no matter how crack pot his ideas are he should have a right to put it out there.
Free speech IS the same as being elected and being able to affect change. What is speech afterall but conveying an idea to others to motivate or inspire so that change can be made. It’s a central reason that President Obama got elected, was it not? That his speeches motivated a large sector of this country that were unpleased with it’s direction and moved them to vote for ‘change’. Because a person is elected does not mean he should have his right to speech removed or censored. That elected official has the same rights as you and I as he’s equal to us both.
Stafford has a Sherrif’s office only. I’m surprised that you didn’t use that as an example when you basically told me if I don’t like something…leave. It’s an interesting response for sure.
The 14th Amendment WAS interpreted incorrectly, in that the people who wrote it explicitly did not intend it to be interpreted as it was. It’s long overdue for a run through the courts.
“Stories like the ones you shared and ones I have lived, are more about economic circumstances than anything else. ”
Yeah and I don’t think that absorbing tens of millions of uneducated poor will have a good effect on our nation’s future. Nor that ignoring our sovereignty is a particularly effective method to promote charity or social progress.
“There is alot of human growth that needs to happen in the world”
Yeah and I don’t think that encouraging lawlessness, and creating an America where wages are low and half the nation doesn”t pay federal taxes in but many get money back, is the way to build in that direction either.
This is serious. And the person who is doing this needs to listen VERY CAREFULLY.
Someone is posting to here as Posting as Pinko and it isn’t Katherine. I have traced the IP address to Fairfax Public Schools. I have also given Katherine the IP address that was being used to impersonate her.
If this happens again, I will file a complaint with FCPS as a blog owner and do what every is necessary to protect the integrity of this blog and its users. Meanwhile, Katherine is certainly free to use the information I gave her to do with as she wishes.
I expect if either of us makes a phone call, someone will be fired for violation of acceptable use policy.
This is the one and only warning that will be issued.
I have taken all Pinko remarks made from that IP address.
It’s due for a run through the courts. Way overdue. It’s not appropriate for government beauraucrats make such decisions.
I watched the clip. Pearce is so right. He’s trying to get to root cause and actually fix the system (not paper over it as Obama is and as Bush did). I applaud it. I look forward to this bill and to the politcs around it.
Pearce has no issue with hanging out with a recognized neo-nazi, I have a serious, VERY serious problem with that alliance. I don’t need to debate the intent of the 14th amendment when the person who is proposing its very intent sends out anti Jewish e-mails and hangs out with nazis…..PERIOD.
Geez, even ALIPAC, (americans for legal immigration)withdrew from an Arizona rally planned on June 5th due to nazi ties!
http://www.alipac.us/article5271.html
Why are we talking about Pearce rather than the issues or the bill?
Because it does matter, to me, the background of the person proposing the legislation, especially if you can confirm there is a serious character flaw. We ARE dealing with race when it comes to immigration enforcement, lets not pretend otherwise. I liken it to campaign contributions, we all SHOULD care who gives to our politicans because money clearly influences policy. Ideas and ideology influence law, and I see that clearly in the context of this legislation.
As if he’s the only American that would propose this?
As I see it this debate (illegal immigration) is all about race, certainly. It’s about whether we can or should enforce a law if it affects one ethnic group disproportionately. I.e., whether we have become so “politically correct” and sensitive to charges of bias that we are unable to maintain an orderly society.
I submit to you Elena that nearly every good idea as well as bad ones has proponents and advocates who others will see as unseemly.
this debate about illegal immigration has nothing to do with race, that’s just what the proponents of illegal immigration say to get patriotic americans who are interested in preserving their nation’s sovereignty and borders to just shut up and go away
I am one of those people who avoids using race or the word racist as much as possible. However, as long as we can use racial attributes to identify people we think might be here illegally, the racial factor will be there.
The fact that Pearce hugs neo-nazis immediately makes him suspect of racial motivation. Everyone knows what neo-nazis stand for. And we can take this concept of race as far down that road as possible. You know, Elena and I get together quite often. I never think of her as being a different race than I am. Apparently Hitler would have thought so. That’s why it isn’t smart to hug neo-nazis. It might rub off.
For all you or I know we have hugged neo-Nazis!
Didn’t our president hang out at dinner parties with a friend who used to advoacate terrorist bombing American targets? And a pastor who rather than planting bombs wanted God to do the punishing for him?
Should we ignore Obama as well?
Actually the 14th amendment pretty much spells it out. If you are born here, you are a citizen. It is actually spelled out more clearly than the 2nd amendment. ‘Born’ is a lettle more defined than ‘militia.’
Constitutional lawyers have argued over this one for years.
Not so blurred:
14th Amendment
A separate amendment would be needed. Too many other major rulings are based on all or part of the 14th. Roe vs Wade, Griswold and Brown vs Board of Education leap out at me.
Pat Robertson wanted to sic God on lots of people. Our governor went to his school. I will pit Robertson against Wright any day of the week in the AH department.
I probably have hugged nazis, racists, and all sorts of other degenerates. The point is, when I did it, they weren’t flying their colors or wearing their sheets and no one took my picture,
Moon, you are part of the unorganized Virginia militia and unorganized Federal militia. We’ve covered that already in other threads.
Thankfully the Act was changed so that women could serve in the militia. Because, technically, under your interpretation that would mean that women couldn’t have the right to own arms.
🙂
hmmmm, e, if it has nothing to do with race and ethnicity, why are some people frantic to spend billions on our southern border? Are there many blond haired blue eyed Scandinavian undocumented immigrants coming into the U.S. that way?
I am a patriotic American and I believe that this frenzy over immigration is a way to distract people in this country from our real problems.
On a totally seperate subject e, are you near town June 11th? Eli has a piano recital and I bet he would love to have you there. I may not feed you anything but bread and water, but you can still come 🙄
bread and water from a loving cousin is preferable to all the caviar and champagne of a cruel and indifferent world. i will consult my secretary in regards to a visit to the commonwealth on the 11th
@Moon-howler
No Moon that is not the intent and that was Pearson’s point. The 14th Amendment was written to define former slaves as citizens – both those subject to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and those living in states that were NOT in rebellion – and to prevent any southern, unreconstructed rebel knucklehead from seeing it otherwise. It was not about illegal immigrants or their children’s status – never entered their minds.
Now that I look at it, are illegals technically subject to the jurisdiction of the United States AND of the State wherein they reside. Why then is there an issue about state and local arrest of illegal immigrants?
Gottcha Pinko. Thanks — and thanks Moon for looking into this.
“Why then is there an issue about state and local arrest of illegal immigrants?”
Because our Presdient and Attorney general say/claim there is one.
TP-how do you or Pearce know what the intent was when the 14th was written. Do you both think you are Andrew Johnson or Moses?
You don’t know any more about their intent than the next guy. Actually, it was a lot of intents. It says born so I assume it meant born.
And who ever said there was no illegal immigration then is correct. People moved back and forth across borders as they wanted apparently. Then laws were made that prevented this. What came first, the chicken or the egg? The 14th was in place.
In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by stating:
“Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”
This understanding was reaffirmed by Senator Edward Cowan, who stated:
“[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the word…”
Over a century ago, the Supreme Court appropriately confirmed this restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called “Slaughter-House cases” [83 US 36 (1873) and 112 US 94 (1884)]13. In the 1884 Elk v.Wilkins case12, the phrase “subject to its jurisdiction” was interpreted to exclude “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States.”
In 1889, the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court case10,11 once again, in a ruling based strictly on the 14th Amendment, concluded that the status of the parents was crucial in determining the citizenship of the child. The current misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment is based in part upon the presumption that the Wong Kim Ark ruling encompassed illegal aliens. In fact, it did not address the children of illegal aliens and non-immigrant aliens, but rather determined an allegiance for legal immigrant parents based on the meaning of the word domicil(e). Since it is inconceivable that illegal alien parents could have a legal domicile in the United States, the ruling clearly did not extend birthright citizenship to children of illegal alien parents. Indeed, the ruling strengthened the original intent of the 14th Amendment.
In relation to Elk vs. wilkins :
The Court essentially stated that the status of the parents determines the citizenship of the child. To qualify children for birthright citizenship, based on the 14th Amendment, parents must owe “direct and immediate allegiance” to the U.S. and be “completely subject” to its jurisdiction. In other words, they must be United States citizens.
Congress subsequently passed a special act to grant full citizenship to American Indians, who were not citizens even through they were born within the borders of the United States. The Citizens Act of 1924, codified in 8USCSß1401, provides that:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe.
TP, one more thing…there were immigrants, just no distinction between illegal and legal.
The 14th amendment covered all sorts of things.
Rick, the bottom line is, there needs to be a constitutional amendment to change the way people receive citizenship.
I actually don’t care one way or the other how we do it. What I do care about is using the term anchor baby and also people denying that the kids to whom they are referring are citizens.
Don’t like the law? Change it.
@Moon-howler
I think Rick answered this, but certainly the paper work and tracking after permitted entry was a little different. It was an on-the-dock Customs issue (importation ??) until after the Civil War, when some states started to pass their own immigration laws to stop it in NY and Boston and Philadelphia (Irish, German, Italian, Poles, Russians …). This resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that immigration was a federal authority. The Immigration Act of 1891 established an Office of the Superintendent of Immigration – also then in Treasury.
Then too it was a different world, but the reaction to the issue when overloaded has been the same. The know Nothing Party, the Bull Moose Party, Democrats and southern democrats, in particular, were all against immigration. They wanted it stopped dead from those countries and, as a result, we still have limits by nation per year today — limits that the latino community feels free- entitled – to ignore. Illegals have been an issue for a long time, and folks have been getting deported for being illegal for a long time.