Come to America to Have your Baby!!

[hope3456]

Los Angeles, California, national and world news, jobs, real estate, cars - Los Angeles Times

(The link to this article doesnt work, type 'medicaid' in the search engine and the article is 'Delivering Dual Benefits')

A couple excerpts from the article:

One of the most controversial aspects of coverage has been prenatal care. In 1989, California passed a law guaranteeing prenatal care to all impoverished women, with the state footing the bill. Last year, it began to tap federal funds dedicated to healthcare for working families, under the theory that the fetus would ultimately be an American child. Some other states have done the same

In Los Angeles County's public and private hospitals, undocumented women accounted for 41,240 Medi-Cal births in 2004, roughly half the deliveries covered by the public program.

[Euskadi1946]

There are illegal aliens from many countries not just Latin American countries but it seems that when people talk of illegal aliens they are talking about the ones from Latin America especially from Mexico. This thread does not belong in a nursing forum. We all became nurses because we want to help heal the sick and we are patient advocates. However, I certainly do not remember my instructors in nursing school telling us to distinguish between the legal or illegal immigrant patients. We all have the right to a decent life for ourselves and for our children and so does the illegal alien. "If you do it for the least of my brethren, you do it for me."

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

There are illegal aliens from many countries not just Latin American countries but it seems that when people talk of illegal aliens they are talking about the ones from Latin America especially from Mexico. This thread does not belong in a nursing forum. We all became nurses because we want to help heal the sick and we are patient advocates. However, I certainly do not remember my instructors in nursing school telling us to distinguish between the legal or illegal immigrant patients. We all have the right to a decent life for ourselves and for our children and so does the illegal alien. "If you do it for the least of my brethren, you do it for me."

When you are talking about coming here illegally to have a baby, the vast majority of people who do so come from Mexico. It's a matter of proximity and timing.

Now 'birth tourism': flying in to have your kiddos, that's not per se illegal. It's difficult to get through airport customs illegally.

I would suppose that there is a third category of those that have babies here on expired visas, but I would think that the intent was to remain here, with birth being incidental to that, not to 'come' here to have a baby.

But, if the subject is illegally coming here for the purposes to have a baby, Latin America and Mexico specifically is right on point. That's not an unjust generalization.

As far as every human being entitled to decency, I agree that is true. I just disagree that is strictly America's obligation for those not American. And I disagree that breaking the law in order to birth on our soil makes or should make that baby a citizen. That was not the intent of our Constitution.

The feudal concept of being bound to the nobles based on locale was actively refuted by our founding fathers. Rightly so.

~faith,

Timothy.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

according to the cia world factbook:

colombia

colombian-organized illegal narcotics, guerrilla, and paramilitary activities penetrate all of its neighbors' borders and have created a serious refugee crisis with over 300,000 persons having fled the country, mostly into neighboring states

idps: 2,900,000 - 3,400,000 (conflict between government and farc; drug wars) (2004)

guatemala:

the 1996 signing of peace accords, which ended 36 years of civil war, removed a major obstacle to foreign investment, but widespread political violence and corruption scandals continue to dampen investor confidence. the distribution of income remains highly unequal with perhaps 75% of the population below the poverty line.

idps: 250,000 (government's scorched-earth offensive in 1980s against indigenous people) 30,000 (hurricane "stan" october 2005) (2005)

nicaragua:

nicaragua, one of the western hemisphere's poorest countries, has low per capita income, widespread underemployment, and a heavy external debt burden. distribution of income is one of the most unequal on the globe.

honduras, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere with an extraordinarily unequal distribution of income and massive unemployment

el salvador

a 12-year civil war, which cost about 75,000 lives, was brought to a close in 1992

the trade deficit has been offset by annual remittances from salvadorans living abroad - 16.6% of gdp in 2005 - and external aid.

mexico

ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely amerindian population in the impoverished southern states.

current situation: mexico is a source, transit, and destination country for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor; while the vast majority of victims are central americans trafficked along mexico's southern border, other source regions include south america, the caribbean, eastern europe, africa, and asia; women and children are trafficked from rural regions to urban centers and tourist areas for sexual exploitation, often through fraudulent offers of employment or through threats of physical violence; the mexican trafficking problem is often conflated with alien smuggling,

the point of putting this information up is not to bash these countries but to point out that there are significant economic and political forces that in effect are creating political, and economic refugees due to official corruption,extreme concentrations of wealth. ( the us does not have clean hands in regards to latin america from an economic or military standpoint. (school of americas, cia overthrow of allende, etc) but my real point is that wherever there is excessive concentration of wealth, poverty or public/private corruption that the seeds of political/economic instability are sown and that ultimately results in displaced people. (e.g., mexico has a higher concentration of billionaires per capita than western europe.) international poverty is probably the greatest national security issue facing the us.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

In addition, that says NOTHING about a 2 fold test for Citizenship that was adopted ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, with a Reconstruction Amendment to the Constitution.

You are incorrect with this interpretation, but EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T, the 14th Amendment would specifically rebut this interpretaton as it amends the orginal document and therefore, original intent in this matter.

I'll concede the first point you made about Article 1 Section 9 being primarily about slavery, however, it is still not on point for mulitiple reasons 1. It wasn't the founding fathers intent to address citizenship rules generally with the clause, 2. The limitation ended in 1808, and 3. the 14th Amendment would have controlling authority on the concept of what defines a citizen as it AMENDS the Constitution for this specific purpose.

~faith,

Timothy.

At least we agree that the 14th Amendment changed the rules over Congress ability to regulate the Naturalization process. I think that the real difference between us is in the conceptualization and derivation of citizenship. From my point of view Naturalization is the process of choosing to become a citizen while people who are born in the US acquire citizenship by natural right. Afroyim places citizenship as the property of the individual and not of the state. A reasonable argument can be made (see Findlaw) that each time Congress has addressed Naturalization in statute that the inclusion of the "persons born" language is simply a reaffirmation of the accepted meaning of constitutional language.

I know that you are not a huge fan of the Supreme Court but please remember that the courts are the last line of defense to protect our individual rights and liberties. In the casae of the native born that decision of whether to retain or renounce citizenship has been guaranteed to the individual and the courts have in essence ruled that by definition anyone born in the US is subject to protection/jurisdiction of the law. Ultimately, our constitution was meant to establish protections for the minority from oppression by the majority through either legislative or executive action.

[SharonH, RN]

There are illegal aliens from many countries not just Latin American countries but it seems that when people talk of illegal aliens they are talking about the ones from Latin America especially from Mexico. This thread does not belong in a nursing forum. We all became nurses because we want to help heal the sick and we are patient advocates. However, I certainly do not remember my instructors in nursing school telling us to distinguish between the legal or illegal immigrant patients. We all have the right to a decent life for ourselves and for our children and so does the illegal alien. "If you do it for the least of my brethren, you do it for me."

You are so right Ceci. And don't you believe that jazz that a lot of people claim that they don't have a problem with immigrants, it's because they are illegal that they are upset. No, they have a problem with people with a different culture and language than their own coming to this country in large numbers and daring to maintain their cultural identies. That's threatening to a lot of people. Thus the gross exaggeration of the negative effects of having those people come to our countries i.e. Americans can't afford to have babies due to illegal immigration. In recent years, we have had highly visible people be so bold as to say that we need to restrict immigration from non-European countries(read: we want Whites only) and Neil Cavuto saying that white people need to have more babies so as to prevent this country from becoming primarily Hispanic. And of course, there's the ever-popular English-only laws.

As a nurse, it's disturbing because we have an obligation to provide care to our patients regardless of their race or immigration status. But how can we do that if we believe that the people we are taking care of are taking from us?

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

At least we agree that the 14th Amendment changed the rules over Congress ability to regulate the Naturalization process. I think that the real difference between us is in the conceptualization and derivation of citizenship. From my point of view Naturalization is the process of choosing to become a citizen while people who are born in the US acquire citizenship by natural right. Afroyim places citizenship as the property of the individual and not of the state. A reasonable argument can be made (see Findlaw) that each time Congress has addressed Naturalization in statute that the inclusion of the "persons born" language is simply a reaffirmation of the accepted meaning of constitutional language.

I know that you are not a huge fan of the Supreme Court but please remember that the courts are the last line of defense to protect our individual rights and liberties. In the casae of the native born that decision of whether to retain or renounce citizenship has been guaranteed to the individual and the courts have in essence ruled that by definition anyone born in the US is subject to protection/jurisdiction of the law. Ultimately, our constitution was meant to establish protections for the minority from oppression by the majority through either legislative or executive action.

I don't think it's completely true to say that citizenship is the exclusive property of the individual and 'not the State'. See, the 'State' is the people. 'We the People'.

If you look at our founding documents, the whole expressed point of our revolution is that we are making a pact with each other. But that is a two way pact: the individual is making a pact with the group, and the group is making a pact with the individual.

When you deny the flow of rights one way, you deny it altogether. It just doesn't follow that the individual has the right to determine placement into the group but the group DOESN'T have the right to make the same determination. In order to secure our rights, we have to first determine who we are. That is OUR right, not the 'natural right' of anybody to usurp by illegal means.

The 14th Amendment was meant to Constitutionalize the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which stated, "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." In expressing the concept in the Constitution, they left out the concept of Indians because they thought the jurisdiction clause was self-explanatory and on point. They changed the negative contruction 'not subject to foreign powers' to a positive constuct: subject to OUR powers. The intent wasn't to change the content of the Civil Rights Act, but to ensure that it's flow of language was clear, crisp, and concise: that is something sought after in MOST Constitutional language.

If you want to look at original intent in the 14th, look at it's drafters:

From Feudalism to Consent : Rethinking Birthright Citizenship

"When pressed about whether Indians living on reservations would be covered by the clause since they were “most clearly subject to our jurisdiction, both civil and military,” for example, Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” jurisdiction, “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.” And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now” (i.e., under the 1866 Act). That meant that the children of Indians who still “belong[ed] to a tribal relation” and hence owed allegiance to another sovereign (however dependent the sovereign was) would not qualify for citizenship under the clause. Because of this interpretative gloss, provided by the authors of the provision, an amendment offered by Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin explicitly to exclude “Indians not taxed,” as the 1866 Act had done, was rejected as redundant."

The problem with dismissing the import of 'subject to our jurisdiction' is that to do so, to say that birthplace alone was intended to confer citizenship, is that you make the concept of 'jurisdiction' to be redundant. "It is a well-established doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts, including the Constitution, are not to be interpreted to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to absurd results."

In the first case before the Court to test this concept, The 'Slaughter-house Cases' a mere five years after the Amendment was passed AND within contemporary understanding of the import of the 14th, the Court ruled: "the phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."

Even the dissenting opinion in those combined cases acknowledged that the clause was "designed to remove any doubts about the constitutionality of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that all persons born in the United States were as a result citizens both of the United States and of the state in which they resided, provided they were not at the time subjects of any foreign power."

~faith,

Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

You are so right Ceci. And don't you believe that jazz that a lot of people claim that they don't have a problem with immigrants, it's because they are illegal that they are upset. No, they have a problem with people with a different culture and language than their own coming to this country in large numbers and daring to maintain their cultural identies. That's threatening to a lot of people.

Why shouldn't that BE threatening? There is nothing wrong with retaining your native culture, only if the intent to do so is by first repudiating OUR culture, OUR laws

When you look at our previous waves of immigration, within the first home-grown generation, you see the children of immigrants trying hand over fist to adopt OUR national values, to BE Americans, in every full measure of that context.

WE are successful BECAUSE we are a melting pot. Our diversity makes us strong not because it serves to divide but because, in additive qualities, it enhances the overall culture and context of our nation. In being different, we ENHANCE our similarities.

Our national pact is a pact with each other, to each other. Those that opt out ARE dangerous in sufficient numbers. Ask Great Britain about the inherent dangers of incorporating a large minority of citizens that don't wish to assimilate into the culture. Shoot, look at our OWN homegrown terrorists of recent import: militia groups that divorced themselves from our national concept.

It is not some great moral crime for America to wish that our nation be composed primarily of those that support the bonds between us that make us great.

It is not some great moral crime to be outraged by the system that allows the dishonest manipulation of our national pact.

Many illegals come here from the South in order to embrace our dreams. Indeed, many of their children try just as hard to BE Americans. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Creating an 'anchor baby' is not on point to fulfilling the American dream; it's taking advantage of us in order to receive benefits.

We are a nation that has embraced immigration, a so-called 'Nation of Immigrants'. But, we should do so in an orderly process. I don't necessarily disagree with your assertion that America is inherently afraid of immigrants, but we have also been overwhelmingly tolerant of immigration.

When immigration runs unchecked, however, what you get is unbalanced immigration. What WE are getting as a result of illegal immigration is a wave of uneducated immigrants ill-equipped to function in an increasingly technological society. And so, the results is that such immigration becomes a drain on our resources. Not only that, they overcompete for entry level positions meaning that our 'lower class' is being squeezed by an under-class. Remember in the coming days that the debate about minimum wage is created by the need to ensure a wage completely debased by under the table payments to illegal aliens. There IS no job that Americans won't do; there are simply jobs that Americans won't do for 3 bucks an hour.

We have created a form of economic slavery. THEY are not like us and so, do not deserve the basic employment and salary protections enshrined in our laws as basic human rights. THE only way to ensure such protections is to have some control over the process: to limit immigration to levels that allow for quick assimilation. That isn't anti-immigration; it's pro-immigration that allows for those immigrants to be successful not just by their home standards, but by OUR standards, as well.

You are claiming that our distrust of unfettered immigration is tantamount to racism. How tolerant is it for us to allow 20% plus unemployment in inner city African American communities when next door is a line of illegals just waiting to be picked up for day labor that completely undermines the ability of those inner city communities to effectively compete for the jobs that exist? How will raising the minimum wage affect a balance when the inbalance that exists is based on undermining that wage, in the first place?

~faith,

Timothy.

[pickledpepperRN]

Labor laws should be enforced.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Labor laws should be enforced.

EVERYTHING that encourages illegal immigration should be addressed. If you build it, they will come.

So, don't build it, or allow it to be built by default.

But to address your point directly, if WE consider our labor and salary laws to be basic human rights, then their violations should be tantamount to violations of human rights - considered an international high felony.

Such violations should be treated as such. If any potential employer, from big business down to the under the table employers of nannies and day laborers understood that violating our basic labor laws is a human rights violation punishable by 20 yrs in prison, you'd see much more respect for those laws.

As it is, enforcement is spotty at best and tantamount to measly fines attributed to the 'cost of doing business'. You don't necessarily have to address the 'legal status' of such employees, rather, the 'legal obligations' inherent to hiring ANYBODY.

The only way that minimum wage could possibly be conceived to be a fair wage for anybody is if it is a minimum wage for EVERYBODY. Otherwise, the concept is completely undermined and serves to limit the legitimate job opportunities for those that employers could rightly fear would have legal recourse available if such basic human rights are routinely violated.

Since illegals have no 'jurisdiction' to be here, they likewise have no jurisdiction from which to seek legal recourse for the routine violation of their human rights. The fact that they 'want their rights thusly violated' is of no consequence to the ultimate immorality of it.

The immorality at play here is not vested in those that come. It is vested right here, with US, for allowing them to come, but only under terms that define them as less then we define OURSELVES as human.

~faith,

Timothy.

[pickledpepperRN]

EVERYTHING that encourages illegal immigration should be addressed. If you build it, they will come.

So, don't build it, or allow it to be built by default.

But to address your point directly, if WE consider our labor and salary laws to be basic human rights, then their violations should be tantamount to violations of human rights - considered an international high felony.

Such violations should be treated as such. If any potential employer, from big business down to the under the table employers of nannies and day laborers understood that violating our basic labor laws is a human rights violation punishable by 20 yrs in prison, you'd see much more respect for those laws.

As it is, enforcement is spotty at best and tantamount to measly fines attributed to the 'cost of doing business'. You don't necessarily have to address the 'legal status' of such employees, rather, the 'legal obligations' inherent to hiring ANYBODY.

The only way that minimum wage could possibly be conceived to be a fair wage for anybody is if it is a minimum wage for EVERYBODY. Otherwise, the concept is completely undermined and serves to limit the legitimate job opportunities for those that employers could rightly fear would have legal recourse available if such basic human rights are routinely violated.

Since illegals have no 'jurisdiction' to be here, they likewise have no jurisdiction from which to seek legal recourse for the routine violation of their human rights. The fact that they 'want their rights thusly violated' is of no consequence to the ultimate immorality of it.

The immorality at play here is not vested in those that come. It is vested right here, with US, for allowing them to come, but only under terms that define them as less then we define OURSELVES as human.

~faith,

Timothy.

Thank you!

I think you are saying that if minimum wage and other laws were enforced for everyong there would be less incentive to hire illegal workers.

That was my point.

[lindarn]

Thank you!

I think you are saying that if minimum wage and other laws were enforced for everyong there would be less incentive to hire illegal workers.

That was my point.

I just read on the CNN Breaking News website, that Bush is in the process of making arrangements with the Mexican governmeny to begin paying Social Security Payments to illegal immigrants, who have worked here illegally for years. Go figure.

If you pay them, they will come!

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

[LydiaNN]

The thread being titled "come to America... caught my eye.

It is not my intent to be accused of racial profiling-

I am suggesting, (under the thread title -again-) that there are many reasons why someone from another country would wish to fly in nd give birth.

BTW- the bill is almost ALWAYS footed by- you guessed it- medicaid.

Get angry if you like.

Racial profiling and the medicaid issue aside, what we have here is a real terrorist threat. Those people are patient.They will wait for these kids to grow up. Their children will be able to come and go as they please, do as they please, etc all under the govt's nose because they are CITIZENS.

Is anyone else concerned????

Or are you more concerned that I profile my patients?

PS/ No matter what, I am always a very gracious hostess to my patients, white, black, arabic or other.

It saddens me to think that you are witness to these children's births, if you honestly believe (and I believe you do) that they will grow up to be terrorists. You say you're a gracious hostess to your patients, but I can't imagine how that can be given this attitude. How can you talk about putting racial profiling aside when you tell us, in the very same sentence no less, that this a terrorism threat?