Sen. Russell Pearce’s next target: women and babies

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

H/t to the Rachel Maddow blog Arizona's Pearce goes after moms:

"If we are going to have an effect on the anchor baby racket, we need to target the mother. Call it sexist, but that's the way nature made it. Men don't drop anchor babies, illegal alien mothers do."

That statement was written by someone in favor of denying U.S. citizenship to babies born here with immigrant mothers. Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, driving force behind the "Papers, please" immigration law, forwarded it as part of an e-mail chain on his future plans obtained by the local CBS affiliate in Arizona.

Asked about the statement, Pearce told the station: "It's somebody's opinion…What they're trying to say is it's wrong. And I agree with them. It's wrong."

The move to end "birthright citizenship" is very much alive at the national level, too.

This concept is known as jus soli or "right of the territory." It does not exist in most of Western Europe, Asia or the Middle East, although it is part of English common law and is common in the Americas.

Citizenship is guaranteed by the "naturalization clause," the first sentence of Section 1 in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This clause represented Congress's reversal of that portion of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that declared that African Americans were not and could not become citizens of the United States or enjoy any of the privileges and immunities of citizenship.

This provision in Section 1 has been interpreted to the effect that children born on United States soil, with very few exceptions, are U.S. citizens. Citizenship Clause:

Two Supreme Court precedents were set by the cases of Elk v. Wilkins and United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Elk v. Wilkins established that Native American tribes represented independent political powers with no allegiance to the United States, and that their peoples were under a special jurisdiction of the United States. Children born to these Native American tribes therefore did not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Indian tribes that paid taxes were exempt from this ruling; their peoples were already citizens by an earlier act of Congress, and all non-citizen Native Americans (called "Indians") were subsequently made citizens by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

In Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a man born within the United States to foreigners (in that case, Chinese citizens) who were lawfully residing in the United States and who were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power, was a citizen of the United States.

Under these two rulings, the following persons born in the United States are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and thus do not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment:

• Children born to foreign diplomats
• Children born to enemy forces in hostile occupation of the United States
• Children born to Native Americans who are members of tribes not taxed (These were later given full citizenship by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.)

All other persons born in the United States are citizens.

It is the second sentence of Section 1 in the Fourteenth Amendment which precludes Sen. Russell Pearce's proposed legislation:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…

The only way to change the naturalization clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is by a constitutional amendment, not an act of Congress, nor an act of any state. Pearce's proposed legislation is unconstitutional and void on its face. But that has never stopped this bigoted demagogue.

The whole concept of "anchor babies" is both misleading and inherently biased. A child born in the United States to non-citizen parents, with rare exceptions, cannot petition the immigration service to admit his or her parents or siblings as permanent resident aliens until that child attains 18 years of age and is a legal resident of the United States for a period of years. This process is not as simple as demagogues like Russell Pearce would have you believe.

There is also a lucrative business for Arizona hospitals catering to wealthy Mexican women who want the best prenatal and labor and and delivery care during their pregnancy. This business practice has gone on for decades. Arizona hospital lures wealthy Mexican moms-to-be | ScrippsNews (cached Arizona Daily Star article, June 22, 2009):

A Tucson hospital's health-care package promises affluent Mexican women the chance to have their babies in posh surroundings with access to the latest medical equipment.

But the marketing materials leave out a key draw in the arrangement: U.S. citizenship for the newborn. [Because it is not the principal motivation for the program. The mothers return to Mexico and raise their children in Mexico.]

Tucson Medical Center's "birth package" gives an official nod to a generations-old practice of wealthy Mexican women coming to U.S. hospitals to give birth. Mexican families do the same thing at all local hospitals, but the Tucson hospital is the only one actively recruiting their business.

* * *

"This is not a new phenomena," said Juan Manuel Calderón Jaimes, who says he's seen the practice for almost 30 years. "Many families of means in Sonora send their wives here to give birth because they have the resources to pay for the services."

Expectant mothers can either schedule a Caesarean section or arrive a few weeks before their due dates to give birth at TMC. It is one of 13 packages aimed at Mexican families, some of which include a stay at a local resort and shopping excursion.

TMC's maternity package costs $2,300 for a vaginal birth with a two-day stay and $4,600 for a Caesarean section and a four-day stay, assuming no complications. That includes exams for the newborn and a massage for the new mother. There is a $500 surcharge per additional child.

"These are families with a lot of money, and some (women) arrive on private jets and are picked up by an ambulance and brought here," said Shawn Page, TMC's administrator of international services and relations. "These are families with a lot of clout."

* * *

Aside from the maternity package, TMC offers 12 packages for international patients, including bone density tests, mammograms and urology procedures.

Earlier this month, TMC launched the Mujer Sana (Healthy Woman) Health Tour Package, targeted to women 50 or older. It includes six exams at the hospital and three days and two nights at a Tucson-area resort and a shopping spree.

The hospital partnered with the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau, and the program is marketed through the visitors bureau in Hermosillo, Sonora.

This practice is not about "illegal immigration" at all. It is about "free enterprise" and catering to a wealthy foreign clientel who can pay cash up front for medical services. You would think that Republicans are down with that idea.