[Supermancho]

Note: There are ~30ish countries that provide citizenship to anyone born within their national borders (many with restrictions, for whatever that may mean). Largely, this covers a spotting of countries across the globe, but is almost universally true within the Americas.

[graemep]

As far as I can see it is almost entirely countries in the Americas plus Pakistan that have real birthright citizenship. Everywhere else has some restriction such as stateless parents, or multiple generations born in the country, or a minimum period of residence or similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

[fmobus]

Hate to be that guy, but this a pet peeve of mine that pisses me of...

The term "birthright" means "a right that is derived from the circumstances of your birth". Virtually ALL countries grant citizenship by consequence of the circumstances of birth, but what circumstances they consider vary. For some countries, the circumstance is "birth happened in the soil of the country" (jus soli), for others, it's "birth was to parents who are citizens of our country".

I said "virtually", because there is one SINGLE exception. The Vatican. Ok, there's the SMOM, but do they even count?

[graemep]

In this context it is a synonym for jus soli - birth happened on the soil of the country.~

Birthright has a few other meanings in wider contexts: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/birthri...

Does it really matter if we add one more, especially as it is now a well established usage?

[cmbuck]

Yes it matters, because jus sanguinis is also a birthright and therefore "birthright citizenship" despite having no relevance to where you were born (jus soli)

[fmobus]

It matters. Because if the proposed executive order were to prevail, the US would effectively drastically change its citizenship assignment system, but it would still hinge on a right derived from a circumstance of your birth - a birthright. Essentially, it would move from "you are a citizen if you were _born_ in the country" to "you are a citizen if you were _born_ to a citizen".

[consensus1]

And how many of those countries have an illegal immigration problem? I bet that most of them would quickly remove that loophole if people actually started to exploit it.

[ryandrake]

Root cause it. The USA does not have an illegal immigration problem. It has a "huge, slow immigration bureaucracy" problem that makes the legal path so slow and difficult that people are incentivized to gamble on illegal paths.

[skulk]

Not even this. The USA has a labor shortage that is filled by workers who used to migrate seasonally until it was no longer allowed, thus creating a perverse system that encouraged business owners to look the other way and immigrants to stay instead of leave.

A long time ago, the southwestern part of the USA was Mexico, but a certain destiny manifested itself and changed that. It seems like this didn't affect day-to-day life due to a generous treaty for a while until some Americans decided they deserved the land there more than the people who were there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation#Cession_o... -- see the part about 1930 removals.

Obviously, the people who were kicked out were performing some useful economic function, so the USA decided to have it both ways: The Bracero program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

This program of importing cheap labor had an expiration date, and it was allowed to expire in the 60s. Guess what happened then?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9017686/

> Despite the forced removal of Mexicans during the 1930s, as soon as the United States entered the Second World War, authorities approached Mexico to negotiate a binational treaty that arranged for the annual entry of legal workers for seasonal labor in U.S. agriculture (Galarza 1964; Calavita 1992). The resulting Bracero Program lasted from 1942 through 1964, and its effect on the likelihood of migration is readily apparent in Figure 3. Between 1940 and 1945 the probability of U.S. migration rose nearly seven times, going from 0.003 to 0.020 before leveling off briefly and then rising to new plateau of 0.029 from 1956 to 1959. In 1960 Congress began to phase out the Bracero Program, finally letting it expire at the end of 1964, bringing the probability of migration down to 0.017.

Why did they let it expire? presumably to increase demand for American labor. A laudable goal to be sure, but is that really what happened? Surely people stopped crossing the border to do labor here and Americans started getting hired more.

This whole thing is beyond messed up and the fact that this history is essentially erased (I wasn't taught this in school) absolutely boils my blood.

[SpicyLemonZest]

There exist a large number of legal pathways to permanent residency in the US, some of which do take unreasonably long; employment-based green card applications for Indian nationals famously have a decade-long waiting period. They should be reformed and improved.

But a big part of the problem is that many people do not have a legal pathway available to them, and either don't believe that or don't wish to accept it. So they spend years carefully pursuing every bit of due process they're entitled to, and those stories become part of the "slow immigration bureaucracy", regardless of whether the result was ever really in question. This is where immigration reform proposals have generally gotten bogged down; some people strongly feel we should resolve this by creating a general legal pathway, others feel we should resolve it by expediting removals, and both groups are very hesitant to agree to a proposal that doesn't resolve it at all.

[FireBeyond]

> There exist a large number of legal pathways to permanent residency in the US, some of which do take unreasonably long; employment-based green card applications for Indian nationals famously have a decade-long waiting period. They should be reformed and improved.

> But a big part of the problem is that many people do not have a legal pathway available to them, and either don't believe that or don't wish to accept it.

Even worse, there exist illegal to legal pathways, that come with risk but appeal: I came here on a K-1 fiance visa. A few years later, with my immigration attorney, as we compiled some documentation, I lamented the amount of money it had taken and she noted that it would have been both quicker, and cheaper, for me to come here on the VWP (Visa Waiver Program), which requires you to attest that you will not get married, get married anyway, and then work with an attorney to say "Oops, my bad, can I stay anyway".

That's just one example, just for my visa class. But there are absolutely many perverse incentives throughout the INS/USCIS/DHS quagmire.

[dmitrygr]

> a big part of the problem is that many people do not have a legal pathway available to them

I have no legal pathway to own the moon. That does not mean I get to just take it. Just cause you want something does not mean there must exist a way for you to get it...

[consensus1]

Having a difficult and selective immigration process that rejects the vast majority of applicants is not a problem. It is exactly how an immigration system should work. We want the best.

[Windchaser]

I'm personally happy to welcome anyone who's willing to come, work hard, pay taxes, and support democratic ideals. This is how most of our ancestors got here, and it seems fair to me that we continue to extend that offer to other would-be immigrants.

Worth noting that the economic literature also shows that this is firmly in our best interests, and immigrants and their children more than pay their way in future taxes and future entrepreneurship.

The US didn't even have a particularly selective immigration process for the first century. It was only after a big influx of Chinese immigrants (and a corresponding backlash) that we enacted our first immigration controls, limiting how many immigrants could come from a given country each year. The aptly-named "Chinese Exclusion Act" of 1882.

[treis]

The US today has the highest percentage of foreign born population since 1850 (I can't find numbers before that). If the US had truly open immigration we'd probably see several hundred million migrate and probably in the billions. What laws do today practicality did before.

[stackskipton]

Sure, let's have that debate then. I think what frustrates many US citizens is immigration is clearly broken but for various political reasons, Congress won't touch it. It's clear the system is at the breaking point.

>and immigrants and their children more than pay their way in future taxes and future entrepreneurship.

As someone who is involved in local politics, and encourages more people to be, this is true in long run BUT not in short term. This causes a ton of friction since localities which don't have unlimited debt power ends up eating the cost of this immigration.

Here is CBO source on this: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61464

[CGMthrowaway]

"Broken borders" is an oxymoron. Something we cannot tolerate. Borders, by their nature, are our definition as a nation and our protection as a country. Broken borders do not exist. We cannot tolerate them. Strong border control must be part and the first part of any comprehensive immigration reform. It's the obligation of our elected officials to keep the American people safe, and our borders are one of our early lines of defense to do that. It used to be our first and only line of defense, but in this age of technology, more is possible.

[vel0city]

> it's the obligation of our elected officials to keep the American people safe

So if it's the main goal to keep people safe, we need to ban unhealthy foods and massively restrict the operation of automobiles. We need to massively increase regulations on air and water pollution. These things will do far more to save American lives than any number of foreigners we lock up in prisons.

[Windchaser]

> It's the obligation of our elected officials to keep the American people safe, and our borders are one of our early lines of defense to do that.

Against an invading army, sure. Against the cartel and drug-running, ok, I can see some reasoning there, although I'm not sure we're ever going to win the War on Drugs. But with regards to immigration, I don't see a solid argument that we need strong border control in order to "keep Americans safe". Studies show that immigrants commit crime at a lower rate, right? So how would stronger border control keep us safe? Economically, immigration helps us, enriches us. Culturally, also.

People joke "yep, gotta protect us from that Mexican grandma selling tamales out of her car", and I didn't want to throw that at you. But I don't think it's entirely that far from the truth.

There is a long and storied history of humans being afraid of foreigners. "They speak different, they have different values, they worship a different god. How can I know they're safe?"

But we humans often have more in common than differences, and cultural differences usually soften after a few decades in this big Melting Pot.

There are people who have interest in selling fear and distrust, even if that fear and distrust ends up hurting us as a society. When I hang out with people from other countries, I don't see this fear justified. Usually, I just see other people, who want to work and live and create art and fall in love and have a family, just like the rest of us. And if you've got legitimate fears, please bring 'em.. just do try to be careful that the fear is solidly based in reality, not just something sold by Fox News.

[consensus1]

The system that we had up until the late 1800s had a natural rate limiter in that the technology of the time made international travel so time consuming and expensive that immigration was simply an impossible pipe dream for the vast majority. It was also limited in impact on the native population because there were no welfare programs of any kind at the time, so an immigrant was never an expense item on the budget.

It may be your personal opinion that we should have the open borders policy you describe, and you are perfectly entitled to that, but here is mine. Your idea is borderline insane. Putting bleeding hearts in charge, who will allow things like this out of some compulsion that fairness demands we have the same immigration policy now as we did in the 1800s, is national suicide. I will continue to vote for anyone besides your side, even right wingers that I find repulsive, because I fear that someone on the left who lacks fundamental self preservation instincts will put in place policies like the ones you support.

[topgrain2]

1800s? We had actual open borders with the rest of the Americas until, like, the 1950s.

Farmers at the time were super-worried about the shift, since they already relied heavily on immigrant labor. Their concerns didn't manifest as major problems for them mostly because until very-recently enforcement was (pretty much intentionally) half-assed, such that the border remained de facto kinda open for immigrant farm labor (even, and especially, the illegal kind).

Now that situation's arguably not good for a bunch of reasons, but we've never had a strongly-enforced border, and in fact didn't regulate Western hemisphere immigration to any meaningful degree within living memory. Changing that to a highly-selective system with strong enforcement of immigration laws to keep out a large majority of prospective illegal immigrants would be a totally novel approach to US immigration. (Good or bad, either way, you can't really appeal to US history in its defense, and "without it the country will be destroyed by immigration!" demands an answer for why that didn't already happen, to remain a viable point)

[matwood]

> national suicide

Why do you think that? The same thing was said about the Chinese, Italians, Polish, etc... when they all came here. Instead they helped make the country what it is today.

I also don't see anyone arguing for open borders, but straight forward paths for people to legally immigrate.

[Windchaser]

No, I don't advocate for open borders. I'm fine with keeping out criminals, people who don't value our democratic system, or people who aren't interested in being productive members of society (e.g., NEETs - people not either working or getting educated).

> Your idea is borderline insane. ... someone on the left who lacks fundamental self preservation instincts ...

Huh. Well, checking, checking... I don't feel insane. I'm feeling pretty calm, rational, and evidence-driven.

The two big risks I see from large-scale immigration is this: - people who don't agree with liberal secular democracy. E.g., religious fanatics who want to enact a theocracy. That's all good; I'm fine with screening those out. - economic damage. But here, again, the economic data shows that immigration distinctly benefits the US, mostly through economies of scale, but also partly through higher-than-average rates of college attendance and entrepreneurship in 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrants, leading to higher earnings and innovation.

There definitely are also localized *negative* impacts from immigration, particularly for overwhelmed healthcare and education systems. These do not outweigh the national net benefits - meaning, the US still benefits as a whole - but I can understand that people living in those areas or culturally affiliated with them would be anti-immigration. But these are problems we could very much tackle if we wanted to: the federal government has more than enough resources to help these locales, while still getting the long-term and nation-wide benefits from increased immigration.

So: no, I flatly deny that I'm not concerned with self-preservation. Yes, I care about compassion and fairness, but it's quite reasonable to ask that fairness and compassion be balanced with self-preservation. And yet - even after considering self-preservation, we still benefit from increased immigration.

[asdff]

To do what, pick strawberries and nail shingles?

[fckgw]

A right enshrined in the Constitution is not a "loophole".

[rilindo]

Most countries with a standard of living that even barely better than their neighbors have an immigration problem. There is a whole continent call Europe that is fighting off migrates and last I checked, birthright citizenship is not a thing there.

[Xeamek]

People who abuse birthright citizenships are, by definitions, not illegal immigrants. But even if you count all of them as 'unwanted' immigrants - how many % of total immigration to the US is result of those birthright laws?

[consensus1]

You are wrong about that. If an illegal crosses while pregnant, gets detained, and then gives birth the day after while in detention, that baby is 100% a US citizen.

[Xeamek]

if baby is 100% US citizen then how is that an 'illegal immigrant'? Again, you may call them 'unwanted', and you have right to such opinion. But law is what is written, if they got citizenship then they aren't illegal

[mothballed]

Think two steps ahead, people aren't born right out of the sky. It encourages people to illegally enter for their citizenship baby and the parents remain illegal until ~21 years later when they can have the kid sponsor them. In the meantime the parents get free WIC even if they're illegal.

[cosmicgadget]

Is that sufficient reason to overturn a constitutional amendment by executive order?

[mothballed]

No, the EO is dogshit malpractice of executive power. And the amendment is effectively impossible to amend in this day and age. We are stuck with birthright citizenship.

Realistically the only option we have that might work is shit-canning most welfare and incentives for non-productive immigrants to enter and make it pointless to pop out the kid unless you have a plan to make both them and yourselves productive members of society. Illegals showing up and popping out a kid and getting free WIC, claiming (stealing) the newborn citizen's welfare benefits, public schooling, chain migration via anchor baby etc are all going to have to be fixed through congress during some fluke period when the filabuster can be overcome.

[skulk]

> congress during some fluke period when the filabuster can be overcome.

If the clouds part and Jesus himself descended from the heavens, you'd ask him to ... discourage anchor babies? Surely there are better and more pressing uses of his power.

[cosmicgadget]

The GOP would never do that because so much of their base milks the same entitlements. Might have to find a different solution.