[MisterMower]

Imagine a country extending citizenship to a whole group of people for no reason other than the location of their birth, and then allowing said people to access the benefits of citizenship, including the ability to receive welfare benefits, vote, and run for office.

[danny_codes]

That sounds like a great idea. The more citizens of your country the better. Note that US citizens pay taxes no matter where they live. So it's not a free ride by any means.

[matthewdgreen]

I don't have to imagine it. I live there. It's the richest and most powerful country on the planet. I hope you get a chance to live here someday!

[cosmicgadget]

I live in that country which happens to be the global hegemon.

[wat10000]

Seems to work fine. Dozens of countries do this. It's not some weird hypothetical nor is the US some bizarre outlier.

[MisterMower]

The fact that a guy like Trump was ever elected in the first place would imply it is not working fine. Half of the electorate supports his anti-immigration policies. In an alternate universe where immigration laws were properly enforced he may never have been elected.

Further, just because something has never been an issue in the past doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. The US is an outlier in being the only large and wealthy country that does this. Not many people are flying to Pakistan to give birth to secure Pakistani citizenship for their children.

[wat10000]

Are you saying birthright citizenship played a significant factor in getting Trump elected? Illegal immigration certainly did, but birthright citizenship played roughly no role from what I saw.

I'm not sure what you consider to qualify as large and wealthy, but most Western Hemisphere countries do it this way, including places like Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. If none of those qualify then you're getting awfully close to saying that the US is the only large and wealthy country, period.

You're right that it could have worked fine in the past but then become a problem. But if that's your argument, I'm going to need something a little more comprehensive than "imagine if things worked the way they actually do work in dozens of countries and have worked for longer than any of us have been alive."

[danny_codes]

But his base is largely not people benefiting from birthright citizenship (at least, not recently).. so if anything Trump would be an indicator that we need more immigration to counter the homegrown, um, MAGAts

[denismenace]

So you want to diminish the voting power of the native population through mass immigration?

Tell me how this rhetoric would not radicalize any normal citizen.

[malnourish]

That's kind of the history of the United States.

[dgellow]

Ironic to use the word “native” here, given that we are talking about birthright citizenship.

Native, adjective, belonging to one by birth