This is legislation that Chris Christie, the guy who it seems the GOP Establishment wants for 2016, wants
(NJ.com) A bill to offer in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who grew up in New Jersey is continuing its progress towards Gov. Chris Christie’s desk.
The state Senate today voted 25 to 12 to approve the controversial measure, which would also allow the students to qualify for state financial aid programs.
“This to me is about fairness and equity. It’s about accessibility,†said state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the prime sponsor. “And most importantly it’s about engaging in a conversation, that when we talk about making the Garden State stronger, this has to be one of those variables in the conversation to ensure that.â€
See, this is the problem: Democrats and Republicans like Christie push this based on feelings, not on law. But they don’t seem to have a lot of feelings for the citizens of this country nor those who did immigrated legally. Where’s the fairness towards those people? Why are we being “fair” to illegals? What about all the citizens of NJ who lose a place at college because of these illegals? What about their accessibility?
Currently, immigrants without legal status have to pay more expensive out-of-state rates.
Why are they paying anything? Why aren’t they simply being deported? I could go on, but you Conservatives already know these arguments, and liberals have decided that we are a “country of Men, not of Law”.
Anyhow, this still has to pass the Assembly, before hitting Christie’s desk. And he will sign it.
Do you also know who pays more?? Legal immigrants on VISAs. They are not considered for in-state tuition. This is in no way about fairness because if it was, they’d enforce the laws, fairly, evenly, and all the time. But, enforcement comes from the top and from the bottom. WHen everyone chooses which laws they want to obey, then we’ve lost our republic and have gone to anarchy and despotism.
What is fair about having illegals gain access to educational grants? What is fair about giving them access to something they are not entitled to? What is fair about having them force out citizens?
These moves to give illegals access to that which is illegal will only lead to destruction.
It’s all about getting these illegals to be beholden to the Democrat party. And pure Progressive stupidity.
Yes, we should round up and deport millions of people that we allowed into the US to work cheap in our fields, yards, homes, hotels, restaurants and abattoirs.
We have some 11 million undocumented aliens in the US and DHS is funded for 400,000 deportations a year. We need to increase our funding and personnel about 25 fold to accomplish your goal.
Glad you agree with us here J. Except, that number of illegals is somewhere around 20 million unfortunately.
And, just because our gov’t has turned a blind eye does not mean it is right or that we should be OK with it. Our gov’t ignores laws left and right. Does not mean it is ok.
J, what if a Repub became president and decided that all abortion laws should be held to a higher standard and those who kill unborn are to be killed as well? What if he decided to ignore laws of free speech as applied to liberal media and art?
What if that same president decided to ignore laws on EPA? What if that president decided to force insurance agencies to not cover certain illnesses and treatments? Would you be ok with that then as well?
Back to the topic… The far-right solution is the status quo with stepped up enforcement to root out “illegals” and deport them. If there are indeed 20 million Americans living illegally that’s 6% of our population. Purging our nation of 6% of our inhabitants is a monumental undertaking. And to do it piecemeal is the status quo in low gear. And does the State take control of the minor American citizens whose parents are deported?
Both likely Presidential candidates in 2016, Christie and Clinton, support comprehensive immigration reform which will certainly include some kind of Reaganesque amnesty. The only question is what kind?
In response to your question, Jeffrey, the answer is yes.
Except we not all were let in legally, and not all are low wage workers. Many are college students, visitors, and high end workers who’ve overstated their visas. I’m happy to increase temporary work visas, but they need to leave when expired.
I do enjoy how you blame companies, rather than the people who violated our sovereignty.
But, I have a solution, which I’ve discusses before. Put the burden on hiring companies and those who sponsor, like colleges. Massive civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring an illegal or keeping them on payroll. They would have to prove they did their due diligence when hiring. Both they and sponsors,like colleges, would be required to keep track of status, and terminate employment or education if visa ends. They’d also be required to make sure the person has health insurance.
This way we obtain lots of self deportation.
I for one believe that the constitution does not grant citizenship for ANYONE born in the US. Otherwise, visitors having babies on US planes, US ships, or while staying over in hotel, or anywhere, would be citizens. That isn’t the case.
We have a massive MASSIVE tourist trade as well for pregnant mothers to come to America to have American babies. This came about because we have allowed illegal children to be citizens despite what I believe the Constitution says. One parent has to be a valid US citizen for citizenship to pass to the kids. In times past, the parent used to have to be the father.
thus, I believe the actual number of illegals to be around 20 million, at least.
And yes J, if the parents are sent home, send the kids with them. Why would you want to split the families up? The kids are not citizens (IMO).
Start off with severe penalties on companies. That will dry up the jobs. Enforce citizenship tests so there are no anchor babies. Then later you can start the deportations. Give them a choice, you can go home voluntarily, or be deported to the desert.
I’m not understanding why people are afraid of enforcing the law?
It’s not that they’re afraid of enforcing the law, at least from the liberal side and squishy GOP side: they don’t want to enforce it. They want to create new voters and government dependent citizens.
Gumballs,
Section I of the 14th Amendment reads:
I am not sure that I understand your position “that the constitution does not grant citizenship for ANYONE born in the US.”
I don’t want to box you in, but it seems to me that the Constitution does say that those born here are citizens.
Teach:
I think there is a huge component of not wanting to enforce the law when it comes to illegal immigration laws. I agree and have always said that the key is holding companies accountable to hiring people and using the (flawed) e-verify system for making sure people are eligible to work. I also agree with Teach’s point on work / study visas.
But I also think there is another couple of components to this problem. One is the “visual” of deporting people. No one wants to see families having to make the decision to separate or not if and when the parents are deported. Politicians don’t like the visuals such as those seen in the Elián González case.
There is also the cost. With each illegal immigrant getting hearings, appeals, lawyers paid for by the state, we are talking massive costs. We have to decide whether we want to spend that kind of money.
There is also this: This Ain’t Hell has a link to a story out of Tucson on the increase in numbers of illegals getting into the country through Fort Huachuca. The DoD says immigration is not their area of authority, so even though they arrest the trespassers / illegal immigrants, Homeland Security is responsible for what happens after that. It is a classic case of no one in the government wanting to take responsibility for what is happening. They end up blaming other departments so the government people keep their jobs, but citizens suffer.
Clearly there are a lot of components and issues that are part of the issue, but the government is not good at anything other than “silver bullet” or “spray and pray” solutions. Until we address different parts of illegal immigration with different proposals and solutions, we are never going to solve the overall problem.
GC, my belief comes from early court cases, and I think from Federalist papers, citing precedence for “who gets citizenship”.
An example would be an ambassador to another nation comes to america. has a child. that child is not given citizenship because the parents hold no citizenship to this nation. They are citizens of another. Thus, the child attains the citizenship of the parent. And at the time it was passed down by the father.
also, these illegals currently have citizenship. As do their kids. They are legal citizens of another nation. Not this one.
I think the key point is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. Non-citizens are not subject to our jurisdiction – our constitution.
Gumballs,
I don’t remember the Federalist papers talking much about “citizenship” but I could be wrong. Most people look to de Vattel’s work called “Law of Nations” which many claim guided the Founding Fathers on the legal basis for interactions with other counties.
De Vattel notes the ambassador exception you state, but it is the exception to the citizenship, not the rule. In other words, you were a citizen of where you were born unless your parents were of a special status such as an ambassador.
I don’t believe the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause is conditional, but rather a statement. Furthermore, illegals are subject to the laws of the land. (Even though we don’t enforce immigration laws as much as we should / could.)
But if you are an illegal immigrant here and you rob a store, you are subject to the legal jurisdiction of American Courts.
I do understand your thought process though.
Thanks.
Granted, this debate has bounced around for ages. And I’m not rock solid on the legal foundations. As I said, this is what I believe.
For me, I would find it very impossible to vote for someone whose parents were illegally here. Even though, as you mentioned, the candidate is a natural born and thus given citizenship.
If we are not allowed to vote on US citizens who were born in another country for president, then how can we vote for people born to illegals?
(not arguing, just proffing discussion and random thoughts)
Hold on a sec, my friend. :)
There is a difference between a “citizen by birth,” a “naturalized citizen” and a “natural born citizen.”
Let’s get the easy one out of the way because it doesn’t apply here. A “naturalized citizen” is one that immigrates here, renounces citizenship to another country becomes a citizen of this country.
A “citizen by birth” is one where, according to the law, a child is born on US soil, territories, military bases, etc. Even in that case, a child may have dual citizenship from the parents and then the place of birth. For example, if a set of parents from Israel has a child here in the US, the child has a dual citizenship. But for our discussion, where the kid pops out is grants the status of citizenship.
The odd one is the “natural born citizen,” which is only mentioned in the Constitution with regards to Presidential eligibility. There is ambiguity into what the term “natural born citizen” means as it is unclear whether the founding fathers meant the child had to be born to one or both parents being citizens. The Constitution does leave room for the Congress the settle that debate and in 230 years, they have not addressed it any more than the Senate has passed a budget in the last 4 years.
As to voting for people who aren’t “natural born citizen,” I dunno. I can see myself voting for Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada and whose father didn’t become a US citizen until 2005.
I could consider voting for Marco Rubio whose father was not a citizen when Rubio was born.
But as to the original subject, if you remember when Rick Perry was running, the state of Texas granted in state tuition status for children of illegal immigrants. A lot of Texas Republicans and Tea Party members supported Perry on that position, which somewhat shocked me.
On principle, I am against the idea of granting in state tuition status to illegal immigrants. In some ways it seems to reward illegal behavior. At the same time, if a state chooses to do so, that is their right.
But (and that is a big but) I think that we have to keep working on deporting people that are here illegally. I think the “low hanging fruit” are those illegal aliens who commit non-misdemeanor / low level crimes. You commit a felony as an illegal alien, I don’t care if you have 16 kids here in the states. You are heading back to your country of birth. We as a country aren’t separating you from your family – you made that choice when you committed a crime.
In this debate, people always point out the extremes. Poor people coming here to make a better living, vs. vicious illegal immigrants who don’t care about civil or criminal law.
I would like to see a “bite of the apple” to deporting felons right here and now. If you get convicted of a felony, we don’t have to lock you up and pay for it. We can just drop you out of a plane (with a parachute) over your native land. (Or something like that.)
Immigration is not problem that happened overnight and we can’t be looking for single bullet fixes.
I understand what you’re saying about visuals, GC. But politicians have allowed themselves to be painted into a corner. Parents are separated from their kids all the time. Sometimes it’s because they are going off to war. Sometimes it’s because they are being sent to prison. Sometimes it is the State taking kids away from parents. These folks entered the country illegal or overstayed their visas. We are either a nation of law or a nation of men.
I have some sympathy for those who come here illegally and take the time to learn English, to attempt assimilation. The others? Not so much. No other country puts up with state of affairs, except perhaps France and Britain, but with them they are dealing with hardcore Muslims who are illegals.