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by anigbrowl 5472 days ago
That is irrelevant to the question of his legal relationship with the US government, which is the matter at issue. Sure, he could go to the Philippines, but that's essentially wishing the problem away.

There are a lot of people who are technically citizens of other places but who arrived in the US at such a young age that they have no memory of ever living abroad, and often don't even speak the language. Why should such people suddenly find themselves excluded from legal participation in the workforce when they reach adulthood? From a constitutional standpoint it's a very problematic question, because those persons are at a significant disadvantage without having broken any laws.
1 comments
anonymous246 5472 days ago
Although I disagree with you, I applaud you for your eloquence.

AFAIK, immigrants (whether legal or illegal) are in a gray area wrt constitutional protections. For example, on entry all aliens (including perm. residents) are fingerprinted whereas citizens are not. The lowly officer examining your papers can decide to not admit an alien into the country if you mouth off, and he's pretty much the final authority.

I seriously doubt any of things you describe are "problematic" from a constitutional point of view. It seems well-settled that aliens need not be treated the same as citizens.

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anigbrowl 5467 days ago
Excuse me for following this up late, as I did not have time previously. The problematic aspect of this is that while an admitting officer has a great deal of discretion and someone excluded from entry to the US has little immediate recourse, a person who is already in the US has a somewhat different legal situation. Of course, how and when the person arrived affects that, but in the case of someone brought as an infant or small child (and thus, incapable of criminal responsibility at entry), it's legally rather difficult to say whether they have in fact broken any laws.

This raises some complex 14th amendment issues. In one sense, I'd like to see these clarified by the Supreme court. In another, I'm skeptical of the wisdom of doing so because Chief Justice roberts argued against equal treatment of illegal immigrant children in the Texas school system in a famous case called Plyler v. Doe (1982). He lost, and I have a hunch he is still a bit sore about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyler_v._Doe

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Natsu 5472 days ago
> It seems well-settled that aliens need not be treated the same as citizens.

The problem with that logic is that everyone is a foreigner to someone and it's a rather big world.

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