The US Anti-Birthright Citizenship Brigade | Mother Jones

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

Background on some of the lawyers arguing that the 14th Amendment does not provide for birthright citizenship:

Eastman and Graglia, however, may not be the best proponents of their theory. Both have a history of controversial comments and opinions that make them easy prey for Democrats. Eastman, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in California, is the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that fought bitterly against same-sex marriage, and he once equated homosexuality with “barbarism.” Graglia, of the University of Texas at Austin’s law school, is a longtime opponent of affirmative action and busing programs. His comment in 1997 that black and Hispanic students “are not academically competitive with whites” earned him the moniker “the most controversial law professor in America.”

At April’s hearing, instead of inquiring about Graglia’s views on the Citizenship Clause, Democrats on the committee instead grilled him on these past statements and entered old articles about them into the record. For a Republican Party that hopes to appeal to Hispanic voters in particular, Graglia may not be the best ambassador on the citizenship debate, which many already find offensive. In recent years, the first people to introduce the idea that birthright citizenship is more limited than is commonly understood were two professors, Peter Schuck of Yale Law School and Rogers Smith of the University of Pennsylvania, who argued in a 1985 book that Congress could exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from automatic citizenship.

While they hold to that belief today, they don’t seem particularly pleased with the Pandora’s Box they opened. “This is just NOT an issue that should be occupying the country’s attention at this moment, if ever,” Smith said in an email. “We have far, far more important problems to deal with that we are not addressing, including mounting economic inequalities, persisting racial inequalities, environmental degradation, crumbling infrastructure, a crippled labor movement. That’s why I rarely talk about the issue these days. I believe very strongly that our focus should be elsewhere.”

Source: The Anti-Birthright Citizenship Brigade | Mother Jones

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Why Dropping ‘Anchor Baby’ Is a Problem for US Politicians | TIME

2015/08/28 Leave a comment

Good article on the history of the term “anchor babies” in the US, and how it has evolved into an offensive term (in Canada, the term generally used is birth tourism, where the numbers are tiny):

This about-face stirred debates about who should decide what’s offensive and who shouldn’t. Was an American institution kowtowing to liberals? Or was a dictionary being descriptive about how a word is truly perceived among English-speakers? When Oxford Dictionaries quietly added their definition after that controversy settled, they tagged it with a bright orange offensive label. Those signs are, Oxford editor Katherine Martin says, not chosen by lexicographers making emotional decrees but affixed as guidance for people who want to use the language intelligently.

Often when language gets accused of being offensive, public figures and media shift to more neutral ground, which can lead to some exhausting phrasing. (When the AP banned their journalists from using undocumented immigrant and illegal immigrant, for instance, standards editor Tom Kent suggested to TIME that a more precise description might be “foreigners in the United States in violation of the law.”)

Martin says one problem with anchor baby is that there is no natural alternative, overwrought or otherwise—and not for the neutral reason suggested by Bush, whether or not he meant to insult anyone. “There is no neutral term for this because it is a term that is intended to be derogatory,” she says.

One indication of that intention, as the Washington Post‘s Amber Phillips points out, is that the idea it describes doesn’t entirely make sense in practice. As TIME explained in 2011, “the law says the parents of such a child must wait till she is 21 for her to be allowed to sponsor them to live and work legally in the U.S., and research shows that the vast majority of children of illegal immigrants are born years after the mother and father have arrived in the U.S.”

Regardless, the phrase has stuck. And, while debate over its use can actually lead to discussion of important issues like candidates’ positions on birthright citizenship (Bush is for it; Donald Trump, who also uses the term, is against it), that stickiness is just one more reason for conscientious politicians to steer clear of it, says linguist Zimmer. “The difficulty is that those pithy words and phrases are much more memorable and work their way into the public consciousness,” he says. “And once they’re there, they are difficult to dislodge.”

Source: Why Dropping ‘Anchor Baby’ Is a Problem for Politicians | TIME

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National Post View: Are Republican candidates actually on to something about “anchor babies”? | National Post

2015/08/27 Leave a comment

National Post Editorial on the US debate in the Republican primaries on  birth tourism (‘anchor babies’) and implications for Canada:

We aren’t endorsing any policy change here, but would simply point out that birthright citizenship is not the gold standard of fairness many might believe. As with the United States, changing the status quo would involve great expense and effort, making it of questionable pragmatic value. But in principle, the GOP candidates have a point: in a liberal democracy, the right of citizenship should be based on actual connection to the country in question, not a mere reflection of where one happened to be born.

The editorial ignores that CIC and provincial evidence shows this is a minimal issue in terms of numbers (see my earlier article of a year ago in the Hill Times What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone):

Officials could only identify about 500 cases of suspected birth tourism out of an annual average of some 360,000 live births in Canada, or 0.14 per cent.

CIC public consultations in  2013 resulted only in more anecdotes, not hard evidence.

Evidence-based editorials please!

National Post View: Are Republican candidates actually on to something about “anchor babies”? | National Post.

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Inside the shadowy world of birth tourism at US ‘maternity hotels’

2015/03/07 Leave a comment

More on birth tourism, US perspective. Still relatively light on the numbers (Canadian numbers are very small – see earlier post What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com):

Birth tourism companies have flourished in recent years, according to federal officials — and many of them prefer hard-to-track cash to fuel their operations.

That money, federal officials allege, is being pocketed by a group of individuals who have skirted tax law, flouted immigration laws and helped their clients defraud U.S. hospitals of tens of thousands of dollars for each baby born.

On Tuesday, federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the IRS, along with the Los Angeles Police Department, conducted a massive operation to raid more than 30 California locations operated by “birth tourism businesses.” Officials collected piles of evidence that will likely be used against some of the “maternity hotel” operators in future prosecutions.

The companies advertise their services online — and no foreign language skills are necessary to guess the subtext.

…According to court documents, birth tourists were told to avoid traveling directly to Los Angeles International Airport from overseas, to avoid raising suspicion. They might even consider studying U.S. culture and booking recreational visits in order to make their travel seem more legitimate, the company advised. Alternate arrival ports such as Hawaii or Las Vegas were preferable.

You Win paid more than $60,000 a year to rent Southern California apartments that housed the women, according to court documents. Federal officials believe that StarBabyCare operated a “maternity hotel” from at least 10 units at one complex.

via Inside the shadowy world of birth tourism at ‘maternity hotels’ – The Washington Post.

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The birthright citizenship debate – LA Times Editorial

2014/10/28 Leave a comment

LA Times editorial in support of birthright citizenship.

No numbers or estimates, however, on how many cases of “birth tourism,” although USA has greater concerns over illegal immigrants living in the USA, rather than the “birth tourists:”

Birthright citizenship is an emblem of equality and inclusion. Many other countries confer citizenship on the basis of bloodlines, what the law calls jus sanguinis. That makes sense when nationality is conceived of primarily in terms of ancestry or tribe or race or ethnicity.

But in America, a nation of immigrants, citizenship is defined differently. That principle was established when the 14th Amendment was adopted, and it should not be tinkered with today in an effort to keep out unwanted immigrants. Indeed, the decision to grant citizenship to everyone born on U.S. soil was made in part so that members of particular minority groups would not be required to win the favor of the majority to claim the privileges of American citizenship.

Birthright citizenship provides a clear standard that sweeps away questions about whether someone has the proper ethnicity or antecedents to be an American. There are too many examples in history of people being victimized because of who their parents were. There is no good reason to add to them.

The birthright citizenship debate – LA Times.

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‘Birth tourism’ crackdown gets frosty reception from B.C.

2014/09/17 Leave a comment

More on birth tourism and appears British Columbia, while softer in tone, shares Ontario’s concerns.

Minister Alexander is reverting to a more hardline script than his messaging in the February announcement of changes to the Citizenship Act and his comments to Chinese Canadian media about it “not being a priority:”

But federal Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said Monday that Ottawa is forging ahead.

“This is opportunism. It is people taking advantage of our system,” Alexander said.

“We will find a way to try to prevent it.”

B.C. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond told The Vancouver Sun in an email that her office has written to the federal government seeking greater “clarity” about the proposal, which was first floated in 2012 by former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

The B.C. letter was intended to “express concern about any financial and administrative costs that may result from this policy shift,” according to Bond, who added that she expects Ottawa to provide “adequate notice” of any changes.

The federal government is concerned about the phenomenon that has resulted in maternity clinics in Toronto and Vancouver telling Chinese nationals that birth in Canada could make the child eligible for Canadian education and heath care.

‘Birth tourism’ crackdown gets frosty reception from B.C..

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What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com

2014/09/09 3 Comments

From my piece in the Hill Times (pay wall) on birth tourism or “anchor babies:”

But it is clear, that allegations of abuse play to the value Canadians attach to fairness, and fits into the overall government message and politics of cracking down on fraud.

But the evidence we have is clear: there is no business case to inconvenience millions of Canadians, for whom a birth certificate may no longer be sufficient identification, and cost taxpayers significant amounts to address a tiny problem.

Alexander’s spokesperson recently stated, refreshingly, that decisions will be “informed by facts,” rather than anecdotes.

What general lessons can we draw from this?

First, anecdotes drive identification of policy issues.

Second, rhetoric runs ahead of evidence.

Third, the provinces provided the most effective brake on anecdote-driven policy given that any workable response required their cooperation. Contrast this to the Citizenship Act changes, where the government had no need to be flexible.

Fourth, funding implications and provincial constraints ensured evidence trumped anecdote.

What happened to Kenney’s cracking down on birth tourism? Feds couldn’t do it alone | hilltimes.com.

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Ontario says No to removing citizenship by birth on soil | Toronto Star

2014/09/02 Leave a comment

Expect that Ontario, which accounts for 37 percent of all births in Canada, essentially killed federal plans when it formally notified CIC in September 2012 of its opposition:

“In our view, there is not enough evidence to justify the effort and expense required for such a system-wide program change. Citizenship and immigration Canada has not quantified the extent of fraud resulting from ‘birth tourism,’’ said Ontario Deputy Immigration Minister Chisanga Puta-Chekwe.

“At this time, there is insufficient data to demonstrate the demand placed on Ontario’s economy or public services from ‘birth tourists,’” he wrote in a letter to Ottawa, dated September 6, 2012, after a technical briefing on the plan. A copy of the province’s response was obtained by the Star this week.

On Friday, a spokesperson for Ontario Immigration Minister Michael Chan said the province has not changed its position.“While citizenship is the sole responsibility of the federal government under Canada’s constitution, any proposed change to citizenship policy can have profound impact on the provinces and territories,” said the spokesperson.

“Adequate time needs to be taken to understand the full implications of any change in policy. Canada needs to get this right, in partnership with provinces and territories.”

Ontario says No to removing citizenship by birth on soil | Toronto Star.

Direct link to the DM letter here, along with some other related Ontario documents:

ON – Letter from ON DM Citizenship and Immigration to CIC DM 6 Sep 2012

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Blood, soil, birth tourism and anchor babies – Globe Editorial

2014/08/27 Leave a comment

The Globe’s editorial take on birth tourism – evidence-based policy, which Minister Alexander appears committed to, given his and his spokesperson’s recent comments stating that decisions “will be informed by facts” (in contrast to earlier anecdotes dramatizing the issue):

At present, however, birth certificates are the most common proof of Canadian citizenship. They do not include any information about a newborn baby’s parents’ citizenship.

Hospitals are a provincial jurisdiction. That is one of the reasons why the provinces and territories have been in charge of birth certificates for a long time. The subnational governments of Canada would doubtless not be eager to spend a huge amount of money to overhaul their birth-certificate system – let alone unanimously.

Ottawa could choose to foot the bill. But if the government is to go any further, it should commission a rigorous study to discover whether so-called birth tourism is a significant phenomenon. So far, the evidence is anecdotal. The available numbers in a given year are in the low hundreds. The real numbers may be higher, but it would be premature to remake the basics of our citizenship on a hunch.

Blood, soil, birth tourism and anchor babies – The Globe and Mail.

Related to this, the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (Carmen Cheung and Audrey Macklin) wrote a comprehensive response to the earlier Jan Wong article on birth tourism (see my post Canada’s birthright citizenship policy makes us a nation of suckers):

But how serious an issue is birth tourism? While the government does not publish statistics on actual cases of birth tourism, Statistics Canada reports that of the 377,913 live births recorded in Canada for 2011, only 277 of those were by mothers who lived outside of Canada. The numbers were slightly higher in 2010 – 305 babies born to non-resident mothers out of 377,518 live births. That is less than one tenth of one percent of all births in Canada.

A recent article in Toronto Life magazine proposed another metric for measuring birth tourism, by collecting the number of uninsured mothers giving birth in Toronto-area hospitals over a five-year period. Based on those numbers, we’re still looking at less than one percent of all live births in the city of Toronto.

Using the number of uninsured mothers as a proxy also likely overstates the problem. Provincial health cards are only issued after a minimum period of residency in the province – this is the case whether an individual has arrived from another country as a landed immigrant, or has just moved from British Columbia to Ontario. There are also foreign nationals who are excluded from provincial health care schemes, such as students, temporary foreign workers and diplomats. Particularly vulnerable Canadian citizens – such as the homeless or transient – may also not be able to prove their eligibility for provincial health insurance because of lost documentation.

By any measure, the number of babies born to non-resident non-Canadian mothers is negligible.

Born Equal: Citizenship by Birth is Canada’s Valuable Legacy

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Birth Tourism: My Canada AM interview

2014/08/26 4 Comments

From yesterday’s show, along with related CTV story.

And interesting, CIC Minister Alexander’s spokesperson responded to CTV’s request for comment with an innovative, for this government, recourse to evidence-based policy language:

Canada_AM_for_Monday__Aug__25__2014

‘Maternity tourism’: Report recommends limiting citizenship by birth

 

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