Denied Homeland
Some state representatives from the United States of America are making an effort to take out the right of being a legal citizen to the children born in this country of undocumented people. They could be near.
The idea of reforming the 14th amendment of the United States of America Constitution which would deny the automatic citizenship of the children born to non-citizen parents in that country has been a long fight where the conservative Republicans have fought for over 2 decades. The so called ‘anchor babies’, are part of one of the initiatives in the legislative period in the House of Representatives, the same that will grow stronger against the undocumented immigrants.
The initiative, promoted by John Kavanagh, state representative of Phoenix Arizona, is focused in an alteration of the 14th amendment which declares that every child born inside the United States territory, independently of the origin or their legal parents’ condition, has the right of having the United States nationality.
The legal effect of this initiative is for the law to recognize the American nationality of a child born in the US if one of their parents is a US citizen or a legal immigrant.
Some of the states who joined this fight, are among them Pennsylvania, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Arizona.
The immigration law establishes that until those born in that country do not turn 21 – the legal majority age in the Unites States- can´t sponsor the legal residence petition of one of their relatives. An analysis made on the past found out that 63 percent of the Republican State Representatives, 44 percent of the senator of the same party and 59 percent of the Republican followers reconsider the citizenship as a birth right.
For Josefina Hernandez from San Luis, “I arrived a year ago to Texas, but I never thought my baby would be born here”.
“I arrived a year ago to Texas, but I never thought my baby would be born here and although I know he will receive all the rights as any other American child the difference is that if he was to be born in Mexico for me it would be the same”, said Hernandez. She pointed out that it would be impossible to have this initiative come into force “there are many babies, I don´t think this would affect them”, expressed to this. On other hand, Teresa Tamayo, originally from Durango, American citizen since 30 years ago and resident of the Dallas County, expressed that this proposition is a completely out of logic situation.
“This is from a twisted mind, if someone is born here is American and period, there is nothing to debate, if we let them do this, then they will continue and we cannot allow that”, and added “this goes directly against the Mexicans and it´s not fair”. Tamayo added that rejection towards the immigrants comes from the same Latin community that now have regularized their situation and act as if they couldn´t remember what happened to them to be in a legal way in the US.
According to a report from the Pew Research Center, an analysis from the Census Bureau’s of the United States says that an estimate of 340, 000 of the 4, 3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were born from undocumented immigrants.
The report also points to the figure between the four and five percent of the 5.1 of the million children, under the age of 18 years, born-to undocumented immigrant in this country and for that are American citizens. Fernando Osorio Bahena, president of the association “Amigos de la comunidad” from El Salto, in the state of Morelos, and who now lives in Bakersfield, California, expressed that this proposal is only a reaction against the Latin advance in the United States of America.
“This change should be made from Constitution and I think this would be very hard, although in this moment there is a strong anti-immigrant wave and in this proposal I see the fear of those who promote, the fear to the increasing Latin community, it seems they fear the Latin development”, expressed Osorio Bahena. Esteban Jasso, Jesuit priest of the Fort Worth´s church in Texas, said that in this topic in a state and Federal level has been propagated in the last few days and highlighted that creating a new law based in this aspect would only bring a waste of energy and the creation of more problems that are not needed in this moment.
“A nation for those who have been born here exists, I believe the best thing to do is repair this broken immigration system. It is not necessary to put on a patch where is not required, also other states are creating laws that benefit on nothing”, and added, “ a migratory reform would bring an economic benefit of 1.5 trillion dollars by a service concept, we´re blind if we do not want to see it”.
The priest Jasso remarked saying it´s time to pray, study very well the situation and learn the language by the time the immigration reform arrives. “It is not necessary to put on a patch where is not required”.
Finally, Jose Angel Gutierrez, professor of the Texas University in Arlington Texas said, this initiative does not have a foundation and its addressed only to the Mexicans. “This proposal emerging in this moment is only for political purposes, the reform or the real improvement to the life state is only a political rhetoric, is gain and capital for the anti-immigrants”, said Gutierrez regarding the controversial topic.
By Angel Peimberth
enlacemagazine@hotmail.com
