8% of children born in US have illegal immigrants for parents?

Link

Number seems really high to me, but what do I know?

Considering the number of undocumented immigrants and their higher than average birth rates it seems about right.

I thought the other interesting fact from the report was that 37% of illegal immigrants adults were parents of a child who was an American citizen. That makes it very worthwhile to have a real conversation about immigration and the reality of mixed-status families instead of calling them anchor babies and trying to repeal the 14th Amendment.

I was more amazed by the fact that 41% of people surveyed are in favor of changing the 14th amendment.

I wonder how many of those 41% have been in this country more than three generations. I don't have any recent immigrants in my family (other than a cousin-in-law who is Canadian, and that doesn't count).

So? A huge number of Americans have ancestors who actively committed treason, and yet were allowed to regain their citizenship. Isn't treason, you know, a bit more serious than immigration violations?

Maybe we should just pull citizenship from descendants of Confederates... After all, if our tolerances have changed, maybe we need to rethink the forgiveness of treason...

Wow. are these babies included in national birth rate statistics? (I assume they are) Without these Americans, we'd probably be sporting a negative population growth close to Russia's.

Jeez. I can simply not understand the continuing epic dumbassery of the far Right. They are going to lose this fight on the 14th Amendment and they know it. And folks on the sort of Far Right are going to use it for narrow, short term political gain. But the expanding Hispanic demographic, despite having quite a bit in common with the policy goals of the Conservative Movement, will be so alienated by this crap that they will continue to vote overwhelmingly for the Left.

Someone should write to these folks and tell them it isn't enough just to be angry.

Robear wrote:

Maybe we should just pull citizenship from descendants of Confederates... After all, if our tolerances have changed, maybe we need to rethink the forgiveness of treason...

Obviously we need people to get notes from their doctor's proving their "americaness" to get jobs in Public office at least, maybe even to get a drivers licence. Its the only logical system.

Paleocon wrote:

Jeez. I can simply not understand the continuing epic dumbassery of the far Right. They are going to lose this fight on the 14th Amendment and they know it.

I'm wondering whether they figure as long as they can keep the senate close with various "Let's Go, Anglos!" programs that they can control the legislative agenda for the foreseeable future. Hispanics are clustered geographically, so they will be underweighted in senate representation. Our disgustingly undemocratic senate rules have essentially given a huge amount of power to lightly populated, highly anglo states.

Funkenpants wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Jeez. I can simply not understand the continuing epic dumbassery of the far Right. They are going to lose this fight on the 14th Amendment and they know it.

I'm wondering whether they figure as long as they can keep the senate close with various "Let's Go, Anglos!" programs that they can control the legislative agenda for the foreseeable future. Hispanics are clustered geographically, so they will be underweighted in senate representation. Our disgustingly undemocratic senate rules have essentially given a huge amount of power to lightly populated, highly anglo states.

But look at where those hispanics are clustered. Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Florida, New York...

California and New York are reliably Democratic, but the rest are mostly solid Red with Florida being the swing state that has decided the last few presidential elections. Should Florida or Texas swing Blue because of continued epic dumbassery by the Red faction, we could be looking at a permanent minority.

I think we should repeal the 14th amendment, and make it so that one needs to prove that 90% of all of their blood ancestors going back 20 generations are American born. Sadly, because my grandfather is an orphan, I would be ineligible for citizenship, but such is the price for protecting this great nation from dirty illegals like myself.

Paleocon wrote:

But look at where those hispanics are clustered. Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Florida, New York...

Right, but even assuming hispanics become numerous enough to determine the outcome in all five states, that gives them "control" (or whatever we'd call it) of only 10 senate seats. Under current senate rules, anglos need to retain control over only 41 to essentially block all legislation important to hispanics. They'll have that, easily. Meanwhile, all the hispanic caucus will have is ten seats. Not a lot of power there.

Funkenpants wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

But look at where those hispanics are clustered. Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Florida, New York...

Right, but even assuming hispanics become numerous enough to determine the outcome in all five states, that gives them "control" (or whatever we'd call it) of only 10 senate seats. Under current senate rules, anglos need to retain control over only 41 to essentially block all legislation important to hispanics. They'll have that, easily. Meanwhile, all the hispanic caucus will have is ten seats. Not a lot of power there.

Except as swing voters. Never underestimate that.

My favorite 14th amendment comment this week was from Colbert. He said something to the effect of "thank goodness they didn't have the 14th amendment in 1865 or else the Indians would have had us deported."

Funkenpants wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

But look at where those hispanics are clustered. Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Florida, New York...

Right, but even assuming hispanics become numerous enough to determine the outcome in all five states, that gives them "control" (or whatever we'd call it) of only 10 senate seats. Under current senate rules, anglos need to retain control over only 41 to essentially block all legislation important to hispanics. They'll have that, easily. Meanwhile, all the hispanic caucus will have is ten seats. Not a lot of power there.

California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas are already minority majority states when you factor in recent births. And in a few years, when they can all vote, the GOP will have to deal with a world where every presidential election starts with the Democratic candidate being guaranteed almost 40% of the electoral college votes required to win.

And when my parents, who live in the sticks of Ohio, start commenting on how there's suddenly a lot of "Mexicans" around that means that the political power of Hispanics will reach far beyond the border states. Every Senator and Congressman is going to have worry about placating the Hispanics in their state or district.

Michelle Malkin, where are you?

Honestly, I think what's far more likely is that the Republican party will "die" or be "reborn" or there will be a 3rd conservative party that the Hispanic population can get behind. From my limited understanding, the Hispanic population tends to be fairly conservative socially, and given that all we get to vote on now are social issues (economic and foreign policy issues being the same in both parties), they're going to need to either vote for the Republicans despite the Republicans hating them or find an alternative party.

My $.02

kaostheory wrote:

Honestly, I think what's far more likely is that the Republican party will "die" or be "reborn" or there will be a 3rd conservative party that the Hispanic population can get behind. From my limited understanding, the Hispanic population tends to be fairly conservative socially, and given that all we get to vote on now are social issues (economic and foreign policy issues being the same in both parties), they're going to need to either vote for the Republicans despite the Republicans hating them or find an alternative party.

My $.02

Yeah, but the social conservatives in the GOP are Evangelicals and I *really* don't want a political party that's based first and foremost on Christianity.

Plus, Hispanics are largely Catholics, and Catholics and born agains do not typically get along.

Except for their general dislike of gays and abortion.

Seems to me that in this area, a lot of Hispanics are born agains, not Catholic. Just anecdotal, however.

I really like this talk about repealing this part of the 14th amendment. Makes these people look like the bigots they are, the same as anyone railing about all of the Chinese, Negroes, or Micks suddenly getting citizenship.

Take a look at the disproportionate amount of political power Cuban exiles have as a result of their demographic importance in the swing state of Florida. Now multiply that by 1000 and you begin to understand how important the Meztiso vote is going to be in places like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

If the GOP simply delivers them to the Democratic party by virtue of rampant bigotry, you can expect the word "Republican" to join "monarchist" in the lexicon of dead American political parties.

Paleocon wrote:

Take a look at the disproportionate amount of political power Cuban exiles have as a result of their demographic importance in the swing state of Florida. Now multiply that by 1000 and you begin to understand how important the Meztiso vote is going to be in places like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

If the GOP simply delivers them to the Democratic party by virtue of rampant bigotry, you can expect the word "Republican" to join "monarchist" in the lexicon of dead American political parties.

Given the direction of the GOP in the last 10 years, that is not a bad thing.

DSGamer wrote:

My favorite 14th amendment comment this week was from Colbert. He said something to the effect of "thank goodness they didn't have the 14th amendment in 1865 or else the Indians would have had us deported."

There is an element of, "I got in, now lock the door" at the heart of this. That's not entirely fair since we're talking about illegal immigration rather than the regular kind but still... it's a little distasteful.

Paleocon wrote:

Take a look at the disproportionate amount of political power Cuban exiles have as a result of their demographic importance in the swing state of Florida. Now multiply that by 1000 and you begin to understand how important the Meztiso vote is going to be in places like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

If the GOP simply delivers them to the Democratic party by virtue of rampant bigotry, you can expect the word "Republican" to join "monarchist" in the lexicon of dead American political parties.

I can understand how this might look like a possibility from the outside. It's not. Remember that there are still monarchies in the world, and dictatorships, and theocracies. Once people have invested in a leader, or a party, or an ideology they become manipulable to a degree. If a party radicalizes too quickly it will shed members, yes, but it will also bring part of its base along for the ride and there will always be people who want to push it even further.

The heart of conservatism is the idea that what has worked in the past will work for the future. If it's the party itself that worked in the past then some people will trust it to work in the future no matter where it goes, and the slower and more subtle the change the less they'll even notice.

Now if you're right and the Republican party does die out, I hope a new conservative party rises to replace it. Maybe one closer to the old conservative values of fiscal responsibility, state's rights, and the like rather than what we have today (or what the Tea Party is shaping up to be). Even if I lean liberal myself, I know that the conservative counterbalance is important to the health of the country. If we could purge the "Republican" party of today and rebuild a reasonable conservative party, that would solve half the problem. The other half being the "Democratic" party, of course.

I agree that the United States benefits tremendously by having a thinking Conservative party. We haven't had one of those since the Republicans fell for all that Laffer nonsense.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Now if you're right and the Republican party does die out, I hope a new conservative party rises to replace it. Maybe one closer to the old conservative values of fiscal responsibility, state's rights, and the like rather than what we have today (or what the Tea Party is shaping up to be). Even if I lean liberal myself, I know that the conservative counterbalance is important to the health of the country.

I'm not sure that there's enough of the old conservative values crowd left to form a viable party. The make-up of the GOP morphed to the point that the it was essentially run by the super-rich and corporate interests and simply said enough platitudes to keep the fiscal conservatives on board and gave the massive Evangelical base red meat in terms of social issues, like abortion, gay marriage, etc.

The rich and corporate interests of the GOP freaked out during the last election once they caught on that the Evangelicals actually wanted real power (and could get it with the right candidate). I don't see the same chances for old school conservatives, especially when the current political environment favors the craziness of the Tea Party, Birthers, etc.

Well, both Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have come out against this stupidity. The Latino American vote is already important in CA, it's not something that is going to happen, it has happened.

OG_slinger wrote:

The make-up of the DNC morphed to the point that the it was essentially run by the unions and special interests and simply said enough platitudes to keep the non-looney democrats on board.

We really need to start over on BOTH sides in order to get something workable again. Sadly, that is not going to happen short of an all out rebellion by the people. Which won't happen, because we're still all too fat and happy to bother really rebelling against much of anything.

MattDaddy wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The make-up of the DNC morphed to the point that the it was essentially run by the unions and special interests and simply said enough platitudes to keep the non-looney democrats on board.

We really need to start over on BOTH sides in order to get something workable again. Sadly, that is not going to happen short of an all out rebellion by the people. Which won't happen, because we're still all too fat and happy to bother really rebelling against much of anything.

/offtopic

I dunno, Matt -- I see the angle you're going for here and while I agree with your conclusion, I would blame DNC craziness on the same people as the GOP: the super rich and corporate interests. They just differ on what social groups they whimsically try to court. I would say that big Pharma and Wall Street are lining team Blue's pockets much more lavishly than the battered UAW.

MattDaddy wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The make-up of the DNC morphed to the point that the it was essentially run by the unions and special interests and simply said enough platitudes to keep the non-looney democrats on board.

We really need to start over on BOTH sides in order to get something workable again. Sadly, that is not going to happen short of an all out rebellion by the people. Which won't happen, because we're still all too fat and happy to bother really rebelling against much of anything.

MattDaddy, you're right, both sides are messed up and we do need to fix both in order to fix things. That said, it is occasionally OK to talk about - and yes, criticize - the GOP without immediately criticizing the Democrats to an identical degree. I know that conservatives are in the minority here and that tends to make people defensive, but please. Do we need to go here every single time?

LobsterMobster wrote:

MattDaddy, you're right, both sides are messed up and we do need to fix both in order to fix things. That said, it is occasionally OK to talk about - and yes, criticize - the GOP without immediately criticizing the Democrats to an identical degree. I know that conservatives are in the minority here and that tends to make people defensive, but please. Do we need to go here every single time?

Every single time? I haven't posted here in months, and I didn't notice much of anything in any of the recent topics that criticizes the Democratic or liberal side of things in any of them. Yet I still see lots and lots of "conservatives are nothing but racist morons" type comments filling up thread after thread. Hmmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the lack of conservative voices here.

Guess nothing has changed since I've been gone. I will go away again, and hopefully this time I will resist the urge to come back.