Citizen or illegal? Children of two worlds

[AlphaCentauri]

Kimberly was afraid about going to Guatemala. But the 9-year-old girl knew it was inevitable. Her parents were here illegally, and her mom had been caught. When the Tribune interviewed Kimberly last month, she knew her mother was about to be deported. That happened a short time later. Ten days ago, Kimberly and her two younger brothers followed.

Guatemala is a place Kimberly had never been and knew almost nothing about.

She was born here. She went to school here. She learned English and adopted the American culture here.

WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Though the prospects are dim that the current interpretation of birthright citizenship will be overturned anytime soon, illegal immigrants fear the efforts to challenge the status of their American-born children.

Rosa, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, worries about what would happen to her three children - all American born - if their U.S. citizenship is called into question.

The children, all boys, range in age from eight to 13. They have lived in the Mesa area all their lives and consider themselves Americans.

Rosa and her husband, both Mexican nationals, have worked since they crossed the border illegally in 1993, she said. No one in the family has received any government welfare or health care benefits, she said.

If efforts to change the law are successful, Rosa says her kids would be left without a country.

"It's worrisome," Rosa said of her sons' heritage. "It's worse because they don't have a place in Mexico. Not from here. Not from there. Then from where?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23093020/

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Damn what a mess

Saw a preview for what looks like a good movie last night about a little boy in Mexico who crosses the border to find his mom in the US. Can't remember the name though.

[AlphaCentauri]

5. Al Otro Lado

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU9KZgogssA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-iNzBfUOo

Buscando a Leti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhAtgZJCcFs&feature=related

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Those look great

The movie we saw the preview for had 'moon' in the title I think.

[AlphaCentauri]

7. Must be this one. La Misma Luna

La Misma Luna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddtcZkD1fKs

[AlphaCentauri]

8. Here is one more

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/173253/El-Nino-y-el-Muro/overview

This is an old movie but it may reflect the future of some children.

[Warpy]

2. It's a mess now

but children are adaptable and resilient and these kids will have a choice their parents didn't have, to come here legally when they turn 18, if they so choose.

Personally, I think people who have been here illegally a long time, worked, paid taxes, obeyed the laws, and put down roots should get a path to a green card, but never citizenship. They broke the law to get here, and should never be able to have the full rights of citizens.

Their children born here, however, have dual citizenship, and it needs to be recognized.

[cap]

27. it's more than that

the parents had the kids here or come here to escape the Third World conditions back home....It's not "kids are resilient.... these kids have life-changing opportunities here that they are being forced to forego." Making up for over a decade of poor education is extremely difficult... talk to the historically black colleges here who are trying to make up for poor preparation for college. The dropout rate is extremely high.

I think we need blanket amnesty.... we can't have 10 million people (think about a population as numerous as the number of blacks we have in this country) who can never become citizens. Remember that under this administration they are not persons.

[Warpy]

28. That's why I suggested green cards

that would keep them here and working while their kids who are born here get educated.

No amnesty, no citizenship, though, for anyone who broke the law to get here.

[cap]

29. no... if they live here

they must have the right to participate in the political process... to have a voice on everything from zoning decisions to the president of the US.

We would be going back to segregation if we did anything less.

[Warpy]

30. Uh, they BROKE THE LAW

A Green Card will let them stay here and work legally and provide some protection against exploitation. They'll be more likely to unionize, for instance.

Their children born here will be citizens and able to vote.

[cap]

31. to what degree should they be punished?

They would not be able to participate in voting for a candidate who would be pro-labor if they are not citizens. They would not be able to vote for a minimum wage. You are disenfranchising people who would most likely vote Democratic. That's what the issue is about.

My feeling about "breaking the law" is that depriving them of citizenship is asking for a pound of flesh. When you run a stop sign, you are "breaking the law". But you aren't punished severely for it.

If you had any idea about how truly difficult it is to get citizenship, you would be a lot more lenient in your views. Also, because of our foreign economic policies we contribute in no small degree to creating conditions where people have to leave their homes to find work.

There is true misery in the countries where these folks are coming from. People are not taking their lives into their hands to come here for no good reason. It is truly dangerous to cross the .

[Warpy]

32. All your bleeding heart stuff is why I'd want to give them

easy and rapid access to Green Cards. They're the type of productive people we'd want living here.

However, not being able to vote or serve on juries or enjoy the other rights and responsibilities of full citizenship would be a daily reminder that they broke the law and be adequate punishment. If they decided to return to their home countries and reapply for admission, they should be given priority. Obviously, people targeted in their home countries for political reasons should be able to apply as refugees. Restricting that to Communist countries has been a stupid policy that needs to be abolished.

They would instill in their children the vital importance of full citizenship, I think, and we'd have much more reliable voters than a blanket amnesty that says breaking our laws is OK if you get away with it long enough would do.

[cap]

33. you are talking about 10-12 million people

who would have no say in their local zoning board... people could put highways down in the middle of their property and move them out with little compensation. You are saying large chunks of the population would have no right to vote to get better funding for the schools that educate their children.

I don't think working illegally is that great a crime. I don't think it ranks with murder or other felonies that have deprived people of the vote. I dont think it even ranks with crack cocaine.

The damage of having a large group of people who cant vote is greater than that. They are here. Let's not create a lower class.

As for being a bleeding heart... well, DU is the home for us bleeding hearts. If you are a conservative, this is not the board for you.

[Warpy]

34. Obviously, you've never met many of the people you're talking about

I have, and trust me, they're not going to show up at the local zoning board. They're overworked, underpaid, exploited, and barely hanging on. The green card would be a huge step up, giving them the right to stay and work without looking over their shoulders every minute for La Migra.

This is a middle way that won't satisfy the bleeding hearts but will possibly be doable for the rigidly punitive who yell about rounding them up and sending them home. It's a humane answer to a terrible human problem.

Workers with the right to be here will organize, even if they can't vote. They will teach their children the difference between their status and citizen status and those children will vote.

Blanket amnesty isn't the answer. Nor is leaving them in limbo, here for enough years to have grandchildren but afraid of deportation at every moment. My way will WORK.

[MediaBabe]

39. And whats to keep them from having another child every couple of years?

To stay while their children get educated. That means til the youngsters are 18 and on their own. Great. Then when the youngest is 18, after say thirty or forty years in this country then shove the parents out? That isn't any more reasonable than requiring them to leave now, when they are found to be illegal.

[EFerrari]

3. These children are citizens. There is no "citizen or illegal" question.

[mvccd1000]

9. Their parents aren't. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. And your point is . . . ?

[EFerrari]

17. Our screwed up immigration policy has devastated many families

who come here after US policy first devastates their home economy.

See NAFTA. Or better yet, see US Latin American policy since 1932. :(

[mvccd1000]

24. Yes, it has, and it definitely needs to be improved.

If we allowed a more reasonable (larger) number of people to come here legally, we wouldn't have the debate over illegals. I have no problem with just as many people immigrating, and from all the same places. I would just prefer to have them do so legally.

Why is that such a sticking point for some?

[EFerrari]

25. I'll tell you why.

Because disenfranchised people have no say in the law so the law becomes a tool that the elite use to continue the suppression.

A comparison would be how you and I have been disenfranchised by the Patriot Act with no say at all in the process but having to bear the consequences.

Additionally, the United States has preyed upon Latin America for hundreds of years. We're still doing it today and with your and my tax dollars. So, first we destroy their ability to have a say in their own government, then we rip off their resources. Then, we use them as slave labor when they are forced here from hunger. Then we blame them for being "illegal".

That's why.

[AlphaCentauri]

21. Under the constitution all citizens are equal, right?

[aquart]

4. If you are born on American soil, you are a US citizen.

That can only be altered by constitutional amendment. And god help the son of a bitch who tries.

And I would think there's an entire legal field of damages for anyone born here and denied citizenship rights and privileges.

[Thothmes]

11. Constitutional Amendment

What is wrong with an amendment that changes the XIV amendment verbage to read "any person born of one parent that is an American citizen or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the the State wherein they reside.
The originial purpose of the XIV has been met. It was placed in the Constitution primarily as the only way to get around the Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Because that denies our heritage and is exclusionary

[MediaBabe]

41. Well, no one is denying the children their rights.

If the parents choose, the citizen youngsters can go into the foster care system just like the children of any other lawbreaker whose illegal choices have caused them to be separated from their kids.

[LWolf]

10. How about the children

Whose parents brought them over the border when they were very young? Where do they belong?

For example, a young man I knew several years ago; his parents brought him over when he was 2 years old. He grew up in the U.S., and was attending a U.S. high school. He helped his father, who managed cattle on a ranch, and did odd clean-up, repair, and maintenance jobs for local residents in his "spare" time.

His jr year in high school he began exhibiting some health problems. It turns out he had leukemia. Seeking treatment exposed the family's "illegal" status, and when I moved out of state, they were facing deportation, including the sick boy, who had been here since age 2. Deportation without treatment for the leukemia.

Having moved, I didn't get to hear the end of this story.

[AlphaCentauri]

12. Boy discovered to be an illegal immigrant during cancer treatment

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=7078264&nav=HMO6HMaY

A 12 year old boy is helping his family make tamales to raise money for chemotherapy treatments. He was diagnosed with Leukemia last month.

After four treatments, the hospital learned he was here illegally.

The family was told they would have to pay.

The family has been here for a decade. The boy wants to continue his treatments here.

The tamales they're making will be just a drop in the bucket for the $18 thousand needed to continue his treatment.

Univeristy Medical Center suggested the parents take his boy to Hermosillo, Mexico for care.

The father says he earns more money here. In Hermosillo he has no job and nowhere to live with family.

The cost of treatment in Hermosillo is $9 thousand up front.

The staff here at University Medical Center stabilized the boy. During the two weeks he spent in their care, he received four doses of chemotherapy.

Because of patient confidentiality, UMC can't discuss this case. They say immigration status doesn't matter when people come in for emergency care.

Once the patient is out of immediate danger, money becomes an issue.

Marty Enriquez, Vice President in charge of patient services, is also a nurse. She says, "Beyond the emergency room treatment and stabilizing the patient, I'm not sure there's much we can do. As a hospital we also have a lot of expenses. We have to provide medication, we have to provide equipment the people that provide the care."

UMC says they've done all they can to help this family.

"It becomes very difficult with limited resources to provide care to everybody. And that's what's so hard about this."

[LWolf]

18. If this story wasn't about a boy age 12 in 2007,

it could have been the boy I knew.

I don't see how a supposedly civilized society can turn any person of any status away from life-saving care.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. One of our brightest kids

graduated from high school number one in her class. She had already earned the credits she needed to become an LPN. But she can't get financial aid, much less a scholarship, to go to nursing school because she wasn't born here and came here with her parents when she was 11 months old.

[LWolf]

19. Infuriating, isn't it?

11 month old infants don't break the law, and telling someone that they are "illegal" for living in the country they've been raised in?

Universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care, and universal pre-school through college: what an investment that would be in the future of the nation and the planet.

I don't have to tell you that educating all, regardless of social class or immigrant status, pays for itself in the long run. That's preaching to the choir, lol.

I hope all of the young people out there who have been raised in America, as Americans, hang in there, and that they will help us in our efforts to move social and economic justice forward.

[MediaBabe]

43. I am not being facetious when I point out Cuba...

Cuba has a very good colleges and accepts students from all over, even from the United States. America is a wonderful country but it is not the only one where people may advance their chances of success in life.

[MediaBabe]

42. What happens to them?

What happens to the children who were brought to this country at a very young age (or any age, for that matter)? They leave the country with their parents and go home bilingual and well educated endowed with a knowledge of a bigger world and many of the basics needed to help their people make their own country a better place to live. Sure, it's a slow process. But that's the way the world works. Slowly.

[AlphaCentauri]

13. story of an undocumented worker

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hmn/W07/feature1.cfm

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. WOW

That needs to be its own thread. What an awesome story.

[varelse]

20. "Though the prospects are dim that the current interpretation of birthright citizenship

will be overturned anytime soon"

How does NEVER sound???

NOT happening. How many of us here now, (yes, including me) are descended from at least one "illegal" resident? Hell if you go back far enough, that's one long damn list. Possibly starting with the kids of those dropped off by the Mayflower...

Why is it that these people are all good enough to work and pay taxes here but their kids born here aren't good enough to be citizens?

Ugh

Our immigration laws need some work, but that's exactly the wrong direction to go. And they'll have to head there over my dead body.

Bah - OP, my anger is not directed at you, even though my reply is to your post ;)

[treestar]

22. And all it would do would be to create an extremely large

alienated population. It would increase the number of "illegal aliens" exponentially and there would be second and third generation illegals. Surrounding by so many people who are not included and can't vote, etc., how would that be a good thing? It could get to be a major segment of the population.

Stupid idea all around - just asserted by Americans who want to feel privileged on account of where they and their parents were born.

And if it ever were the other way round, you can be most Americans would feel entitled to go wherever they needed to go.

[EFerrari]

26. It's even worse than that. Having a large group of people with no access

to the law puts everyone at risk.

It puts that group at risk for obvious reasons.

It puts everyone else at risk because the dehumanizing methods used on them migrate to everyone.

[Bentcorner]

35. Why do the parents subject their own children to this?

[AlphaCentauri]

36. to what?

[Bentcorner]

37. They chose to have children knowing that they would be forced to leave if

their status here was ever discovered.

[AlphaCentauri]

38. They are humans

we can't ask them to stop having children or go to abortion clinics that is like asking republicans to not have children cos they could cause harm to the country.

[Bentcorner]

44. One of the things that separates humans from animals is that humans

is that we humans have the capability to choose when we reproduce. I can't imagine sneaking in a country illegally and then having children in that country causing a massive problem for my children when my illegal status was discovered.

[MediaBabe]

40. All over the US parents subject their children to their lifestyle

Drugs. Crime. Violence. Abandonment. And the children pay the price. It's not only illegal immigrants who make choices for which their children must pay. Why do any of them do it?