11 August 2010 Why the GOP really wants to alter the 14th Amendment

11 August 2010 Why the GOP really wants to alter the 14th Amendment


Why the GOP really wants to alter the 14th Amendment

Harold Myerson 11 August, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/10/AR2010081004586.html

“As Lindsey Graham and his fellow Republicans explain it, their sudden turn against conferring citizenship on anyone born in the United States was prompted by the mortal threat of "anchor babies" -- the children of foreigners who scurry to the States just in time to give birth to U.S. citizens.

The Republican war on the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is indeed directed at a mortal threat -- but not to the American nation. It is the threat that Latino voting poses to the Republican Party. “

Like most Americans I am concerned about the problem of illegal immigration. Primarily, I’m concerned about the flood of illegals coming in from Latin America. I’m far less worried about Canadians pouring south into the U.S. Quite frankly, most Canadians would be foolish to immigrate to the U.S. In fact, my older son is immigrating to Canada. Not that he needs or wants my encouragement; but I think he’s well advised to be doing so.

The Latino influx is made up of too many people who are trying to escape the oligarchic third world nations that are their places of birth, places of poverty, gang violence, drug cartels, and the crushing social injustices created by the Spanish Catholic churches in alliance with European royalty and industrial war-lords. The influx is made up of people who are not only illiterate in Spanish but also in their tribal languages. They want work that allows them to send money back to Mexico. They want to bring their families to a place where most newborns survive, where the poor are helped with housing, food, education, and healthcare. And coincidentally they like the anchor baby provision of the 14th Amendment.

A legal action undertaken to make freed slaves citizens if they were born here has far wider reach than anyone thought at the time it became law. I can’t begin to guess the number of “anchor babies” who became citizens at birth despite the non-citizen status of their parents. I doubt that anyone can. But the “GOP and the Tea Party mobs are willing to blame the 14th for “millions” of anchor babies who are entitled to the rights of citizens, and who’s citizenship makes it difficult to deport their parents.

The illegals do impose a heavy burden on the social safety net, upon the healthcare and educational systems. I’d like to see that burden decreased. All of us would.

The GOP and Tea Party mobsters conveniently forget that the senile Saint Ronnie is responsible for the last amnesty granted to millions of illegals, mostly Mexicans. The GOP has no problem with illegal Mexicans working for slave wages in Florida tomato fields, Iowa slaughter houses, Georgia constructions sites. The GOP has no problem with illegal Latinos filling factory and other jobs at sub-minimum wages, paid daily in cash, to allow loyal GOP members to keep their business costs down and their profits up. The GOP has no problem with Latinos living in shotgun houses in company towns, working as waiters, cooks, dishwashers, Wal-mart 3rd shift janitors, or any other back-breaking or menial job that can be paid off the books,

But like all immigrants who came here for a better life, some Latinos were able to learn the ropes and become citizens, learning English, educating their children to be informed, responsible voters. They’ve paid their dues, worked the dirty jobs, and added their bit of culture brought from an older society to our melting pot. A portion of this group was able to stay here because of the 14th Amendment. Those anchor babies are responsible for enriching the mix, not just draining the budget. And when the GOP screams about stripping anchor babies of citizenship and deporting them and their families, these are the people who will become the deportees. Gutting the 14th Amendment won’t create a flood of illegals moving back to Mexico and parts south. What it will do is gut the nation of a hard-working, group of people who value education, believe in this nation, and who have increasingly laid their lives on the line for it in the latest two foreign wars, also a gift of the GOP.

They know that they will not get a majority of Latino votes. Other than the 70-year-old Cuban super-patriot-would-be army in South Florida, who hate the Democrats nearly as much as Castro, the majority of Latinos will behave like the majority of other thinking voters in this nation and vote against the GOP. They know that it is the GOP that keeps the company towns, the slave wages, the skinflint wages, and the miserable migrant conditions from being dealt with appropriately and legal. They know that it is the GOP and the Tea Party who see the color of their skins and move to block them from their country clubs, schools, hospitals, and the ballot boxes. The Latinos know that the GOP’s aging WASPs and the Tea Party mobs’ hate-filled racists who have kept them from good jobs and good wages, like black Americans before them, the Latinos know that success in this nation depends on breaking the hold the GOP has on the legislative process. They will vote and they will vote against the GOP and Tea Parties. There’s no point in sending Palin down to prance across the stage and wink at the Latinos. They won’t be voting their genitals.

It’s a mess of your own creation, you theocrats, racists, and fear-mongers. You’ve tried to scare all the voters into voting as you would like. But mostly, you’ve scared your selves. You should be frightened. It is going to be an interesting election.