Lindsey Graham: Hatin' The Constitution. 14th StyleFollow

Oh. And at the risk of stating the obvious, Joph isn't arguing with Senator Graham. He's making an argument on this forum. Why bother doing so if he's just going to insist that since we don't have the power to do what he wants, we can't ever respond adequately to his position? Go send Graham an email and ask him directly if that's your requirement. By posting it on this board, you kinda have to accept the scope of the discussion possible by the members of the board.

What you have asked for is not necessary to show sufficient evidence that anchor babies are a real problem in terms of immigration policy enforcement. You're missing the forest for the trees Joph. The question is whether or not anchor babies are a problem, and whether or not we should change the 14th amendment in order to eliminate that problem.

The evidence I've presented is sufficient to answer that question. That it isn't what you wanted doesn't change that fact.



I'm not the one jumping up and down and ignoring everything being said because "You didn't answer MY question!!! waaaaah!". Um... Let me clue you in Joph. You don't get to set the goalposts here. Your demand for numbers of cases isn't necessary. I provided something just as useful for determining the relative importance of anchor babies in determining whether someone gets deported. Actually, what I provided is *better* than what you ask for, because it provides specific relative context.



What you "expected" is irrelevant though Joph. That's the fact you keep missing. No amount of you crying because I presented evidence that is more than sufficient to make my point is going to change that.


Sheesh! Grow up.

Tangentially, you should really give some context for that win record. What's the average?

Since those children are US citizens, they are eligible for food stamps.



Yes it does.



No, there would be about the same amount. Statistically, there is no correlation between the number we deport and the number here. This is because the number we deport is tiny. We could expend vast resources to do this and see what happens. This is what you should be advocating (along with Demea): massive new spending to enforce border and deport people. And you should be prepared with the tax to pay for it. Lastly, you should quantify the massive hit business will take due to higher wages.



Been tried, doesn't work.



No, that is actually how we have less. Since they are now legal, they supply the cheap labor which drives down the economic benefit of arriving illegally.



I meant more then what gbaji indicated. I apologize for not posting more clearly. But gbaji is so easily wrong on the current grounds that expanding it to the area he has a more serious problem is unwarranted at this time.

Here is the source of gbaji's information:

http://antonovich.lacounty.gov/Pages/Press%20Releases/09/August/Welfare%20costs%20081109.html

It is clearly in conflict with the RAND study I posted previously since although Mike counts the US$1 billion spend on illegal immigrants, he does not tally the taxes they pay - which the RAND study does. And it comes out to be about a wash. In truth, we simply don't know if on net illegal immigrant costs US governments money or they pay more then they take.

On the 24% figure - I'm not concerned. If we assume about 3% of the children born are to immigrants and 1/8th of the population requires support, but all the children of immigrants do, then we're not spending more then average on them. If we are, it is likely the very few who's parents were deported and thus require virtually total support. The real argument gbaji would have to make is if these kids were not here, there would be fewer poor people in need of support - and that by their removal we would not so severely damage our economy (either via the spending necessary or the harm to business) that we would have *more* taxes for other things.

Oh and the chairman of the RAND corporation's board was Donald Rumsfeld at the time the study was published.

My facts are grand reviews of all available data across all studies available at the time which include both the costs and benefits.

gbaji's source is the opposite of that.

If you scour the internet hard enough, I'm sure you can find "data" to support virtually any position.

Fortunately, not all data is created equal. Thus it is easy to find the best answer we have, if you look for it.

I oppose gbaji's and demea's positions. But I'm not even really posting about that yet.

The first problem is how misleading (intentionally or not) the data used to advocate that position is.

If there is no other data? I'm done.

This is the anti-flag-burning amendment reframed. Nobody really thinks amending the Constitution will do jack about illegal immigration. It's just a hot-button, easy "issue" to get behind for a little cheap jingoism.

Wave that flag, boys, wave it wide and high.

If we really want to start amending the bill of rights to take modern times into consideration, let's work our way down starting with the 2nd amendment.

Heh.

Yes. And if they weren't US citizens, they wouldn't be eligible for them. Hence, the argument for changing the 14th amendment.

Thanks for playing though. There's a nice door prize for you on the way out...

No, the question is the degree of significance it is currently having in immigration hearings.

Your paper is the work of a person working in theoreticals -- how he thinks hardship cases should be determined and which should have the best chances:

It is his opinion that a citizen child or spouse is of benefit in determining hardship but makes it crystal clear that a citizen child is in no way, shape or form a guarantee of remaining in the United States, even when combined with other factors. And you must have significant other hardship factors before the child even comes into play.

Look, it's an interesting enough paper and all but you've completely gone off the reservation if you think it counts as the best evidence that this is an issue significant enough to warrant amending the Constitution of the Unite States.

Not exactly what I asked for, technically speaking, but a good enough reason for not doing so. I came into the thread later than that (or I skimmed it, maybe), my apologies.

Edited, Aug 2nd 2010 10:52pm by Kavekk

From some brief LexisNexis law journal searching...



Can we stop pretending that one guy's assessment of what makes for a good hardship case is the end-all for this debate? kkthx~la

Another William & Mary Legal Journal article:


Other journals continue to say the same thing: the courts are generally not impressed by the existence of citizen children in immigration deportation cases. Without some actual data stating how much of an influence "anchor babies" have, it's foolish to run off and amend the Constitution based on political boogey-men.

That doesn't say anything about the likelihood of losing a deportation hearing Joph. It says that the parents can't automatically stay on the grounds that their deportation would violate their child's right. And that the AG can't summarily let them stay unless the parents have been in the country for 10 years. You do get that this only tells us what the law can't do automatically, not what the courts may decide in an actual hearing, right?


Um... But let me also point out that 10 years is shorter than 21 years, isn't it? So having an anchor baby cuts in half the amount of time before you are potentially undeportable. Moreso, since 21 years is the minimum age the child would have to be to begin the process of naturalization, which could then take years. Have a child in the US illegally and avoid deportation for 10 years, and you can stay forever from that point on.


But it has no effect, right Joph? Did you even think about what you were posting?

In theory, right? I mean, the writers of that aren't writing about what does happen, but what they think the law means. Strange that you bashed my link to a paper written by a lawyer about his direct experiences in real deportation hearings as "theory", but you link a source that is pure legal theory and it's all fine and dandy.

Lol...



Yes. Meaning that in many cases it's a question of: "You have a chance to avoid deportation if you have a citizen child, and no chance if you don't have a citizen child". How on earth can you acknowledge that and yet still insist that people aren't going to do have children in the US in order to increase their odds of avoiding deportation? That's what this is about Joph. All the facts you're quoting are only proving my point.

I'm not arguing an absolute here. Any degree of benefit for the illegal immigrant supports my position and hurts yours.



Yes. And Hake made a point of saying the same thing. That's the strawman of your position. The issue is whether or not deportation of the child's parent(s) represents a hardship on the child. Those "standard arguments" aren't the ones which win deportation cases, which makes one wonder why they're labeled as such. The correct arguments are about hardship and separation, not rights and dangers faced by the deportee in the country of origin.

His scale measures the point at which a hardship case can be won. And the biggest single factor is the existence of a US citizen spouse or child. You're arguing against something that no one is claiming Joph.



Yup. Strawman. No one wins with that argument Joph. They win by arguing that separating the mother and the child represents a hardship on the child here in the US. And the more US citizen children, the stronger the case. If one of them has a disability (technically any family member), the odds are increased. Add in a criminal relative who might be the one to take custody and it's practically a lock.




Yes. And I showed first how much money it costs to care for anchor babies. I then showed how anchor babies benefit illegals in terms of deportation hearings. And I made a further observation that this fact increases the number of anchor babies, increasing the costs, and the number of immigrants using this as a means to bypass the system.

That's clearly sufficient to show that it's an "issue". We should have graduated to assessing how much of an issue, and whether or not changing the amendment is worth it, but for some bizarre reason you refuse to even accept that there are problems being caused by the wording of the 14th amendment. I think that's absurd and brickheaded of you, but whatever...





Joph. Even if we assumed that 100% of all parents of every single anchor baby was deported and that the existence of their US citizen child would provide them no unfair benefit nor place any greater strain on the immigration system (absurd assumptions, but lets accept them for the sake of argument), there would still be the point of the massive amount of welfare and food stamps being paid out to provide for those children, which would not have to be paid if we deported the children with those parents.


You've chosen to focus on only one aspect of the issue: Whether or not "anchor babies" truly anchor their parents in any way. And we can debate that if you want. I think you're wrong. I think it's unlikely that the entire concept of "anchor babies" was just invented out of whole cloth, but that still misses the point. By making those children US citizens, we *can't* force their deportation. Which means that in a whole lot of cases, we end out footing the bill for those children. To the degree to where nearly a quarter of the entire welfare and food stamps spending in LA is spent providing for the children of people who were living in the US illegally.


Clearly, this is a problem. Changing the language in the 14th amendment is a pretty direct way of fixing it.

Edited, Aug 2nd 2010 7:39pm by gbaji