Lindsey Graham: Hatin' The Constitution. 14th StyleFollow

I wasn't being that guy. I didn't even see your error. I was making a genuine commentary on the idiocy of today's youth.

I missed the fine print. I shall also fail the test.

Edited, Jul 30th 2010 11:37am by catwho

Srsly, speaking as an olde person, there are plenty of bad examples for the young to follow.

You must present your AARP card to speak as an oldie.

1. Actually food stamps are not available, in general, even to legal immigrants (as of the mid-1990's...may have changed since). Although, WIC is which since we are talking children is relevant. But WIC is available to everyone within the US (for any reason) and is very inexpensive.

2. Parents of US citizens can get a visa, but only after the child turns 21. These are within a class called IR visas (for immediate relative).

3. I cannot find the number of IR visas issued per year. Clearly not all of them are due to the so-called "anchor baby" effect - although due to point 2 above, it is not a very timely anchor. Thus I cannot even estimate the number of court cases.

4. Ultimately, gbaji's argument relies on a false premise: that if not legal, these folks would not be here. That is clearly false.

Securing the border is ultimately the first step towards any sensible immigration policy.

Damn immigrants, coming over here, taking our gnolls...

Fact is Democrats know they need mexican votes to stand a chance of retaining power. They can't get enough american citizens to vote for them so this is how they expect to remedy that.

So you're arguing that the "anchor babies" aren't really the issue? Good to have you come around.

I already linked an article stating that 24% of the entire food stamp and welfare spending of Los Angeles County is spent on US born children of illegal immigrants. Your theories don't match the facts.



Great. Doesn't address the issue though. They also are less likely to be deported if they have a child who is a US citizen.



You're missing the point. In the long term, anchor babies absolutely are a means for a whole family to become US citizens (taking 21+ years though). However, if they are living in the US illegally, by having one, their odds of being able to stay in the country in the meantime increase by having one. Oddly, if you read the paper I linked, having more family members in the country illegally *increases* the odds of avoiding deportation, especially if more than one extended member has children and even more so if any member of the family has some kind of disability or medical problem.

A single guy living illegally in the US will be deported if he's caught. But a married couple, with some children who are here illegally and one or two who were born in the US are very unlikely to be deported. If the couple has an adult child who *also* has produced an anchor baby (not as uncommon as you might think), it's nearly impossible to deport any member of that family.

That's how they use children to "anchor" themselves in the country. And that's where the term comes from.



What do you mean by "if not legal"? If you mean "if the 14th amendment didn't make all children born in the US citizens regardless of the status of their parents", then you are correct. If not for that fact, we could deport them more easily and fewer of them would be here. It's not about absolutes, but probabilities. But when you're dealing with the massive numbers involved, a shift in probabilities has a large shift in result. That's how we end up with 12 million people living in this country illegally.

This is clearly true btw, not false. If you meant something else, then you're countering an argument that I'm not making.

You? Nothing. There's nothing in your power. Senator Graham has considerably more power than you on every possible level amending the Constitution. Whether he wishes to wield that power in trying to develop a better argument for amending the Constitution than anecdotal "evidence" and "save taxes!" remains to be seen.

So the lawyer with the 88% record for winning deportation hearings on the grounds of hardship who says that based on his assessment of the factors involved in winning those hearings anchor babies are a significant factor just doesn't mean anything at all to you? That doesn't nudge you in the slightest in the direction of "yeah, they may have a point"?

Like I said: Stubborn.



Why should he? Better evidence isn't going to sway you apparently, so what's the point?

That's what he's doing. What Joph seems to want is for Graham to present some magical evidence which would satisfy Joph's ever changing requirements for "proof" that anchor babies really present any problem at all in the first place. Now I know we all get swelled heads on this forum from time to time, but I doubt that Senator Graham is going to tailor his attempts in this area to Joph's specific needs. So he'll just have to deal with the reality that his demands for better/more evidence on this forum aren't going to be met by a Senator coming down from on high and giving it to him, and he'll have to settle with another member of the forum providing what evidence is available to him.

Maybe that's a disappointment for him, but I think he's setting his sights a bit unrealistically here.