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Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, but Trump's transition team and ultimately cabinet, seems rife with conflicts of ignorance. The Intercept reports that:
Palantir Technologies, the data mining company co-founded by billionaire and Trump transition advisor Peter Thiel, will likely assist the Trump Administration in its efforts to track and collect intelligence on immigrants, according to a review of public records by The Intercept. Since 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has paid Palantir tens of millions of dollars to help construct and operate a complex intelligence system called FALCON, which allows ICE to store, search, and analyze troves of data that include family relationships, employment information, immigration history, criminal records, and home and work addresses.
I guess this is what happens when you elect a businessman to political office: they run it like a business.
Working closely with a President-elect who has pledged to dramatically expand ICE, Thiel's varied connections to the immigration agency place him in a position to potentially benefit financially from a deportation campaign that carries highly personal stakes for millions of Americans.
They always say: you have nothing to worry about, if you have nothing to hide.
Palantir, which is backed by the CIA's venture capital arm, did not respond to a request for comment regarding its ICE contracts and concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Peter Thiel spokesperson Jeremiah Hall declined to comment on a list of emailed queries, including a question asking whether Thiel has yet signed the Trump transition ethics agreement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:18AM
They didn't fail to do anything. All of the animosity towards illegal immigrants and the taking of jobs is engineered. It has ALWAYS been the game of the Elites to play the pools of workers against themselves. Create classes where none existed before, create class warfare by deliberately importing indentured servants from Europe to compete against local labor comprised of American citizens, with BOTH competing against chattel slavery in the south.
Today is no different. You need to realize that a few rich fuckers get a LOT richer by exploiting this "illegal" labor by abusing the shit out of them. They often have pay withheld, and are threatened if they try to leave work. I've heard stories directly from their mouths about working conditions and treatment, and they're horrid. Many of our onramps and offramps, were built by illegal labor, as well as a shit ton of our food harvested and prepared.
They all have something in common, some people getting rich off it. You think those people getting rich don't have the ears of the Senators and Congressmen? Of course they do. That's your answer for the immigration problem. What problem? It's only a problem for US on the ground dude. From above it's business as usual. Direct your anger to the sophisticated Elites gaming us all, and not those seeking a new life in this country. Immigrants are what made us great, and we are a nation of immigrants. Even those Mayflower mother fuckers that hold their heads high are still nothing but immigrants.
It could be solved by giving amnesty to them all. You want to piss of the rich and Elites? Make the illegals legal and able to organize, protest, and call up the government agencies responsible for taking care of employee/employer disputes. That would fuck them up plenty and completely, but minimum wage and regulations will drive them bonkers.
You'll take the jobs back? All 11 million of them? Georgia had a problem some time ago when they made it so toxic they actually solved the illegal immigration problem. The illegals migrated to other states, especially those with sanctuary cities. Instead of local citizens filling the need now, it was found that the work offer was so bad that a severe labor shortage endangered many harvests. It was controversial when private prisons were sourced to get the harvest completed before they were lost. So what happened? The big chance to have all those jobs back came and went, and the Elites wouldn't accept paying more for that job so it went to prisoners at 13c per hour, with the shareholders enjoying the rest.
Operation Wetback was some fucked up shit. Do you know how many Americans were deported simply due to their race? It wasn't just a few. I think it's dishonorable to say the least to create the conditions and processes to allow them to come into our country that has this, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Really?
Immigration needs to be fixed, but acting like we don't have some responsibility in it doesn't help either. That, and we sure as fuck don't need to call it Operation Wetback this time.
It's easy to be fixed, but it doesn't want to be fixed. That's the truth.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:24AM
A child born on US soil to a Mexican father and a Mexican mother is NOT a US citizen. As for real US citizens being deported - citation needed.
And, yes, I understand all about the elites. But, it isn't just the elite. John and Jane Doe are culpable, for not demanding that congress do it's job. One way or the other, congress should have written laws to deal with the situation. If congress writes and passes the laws tomorrow morning that makes every damned illegal alien suddenly legal - I won't like it, but I'll come to terms with it. As I stated above, congress has FAILED TO DO IT'S JOB! Ever since Operation Wetback, every single congress has failed to address and resolve the issue. Republican control, democrat control, it doesn't matter. Congress is the elite to which you refer - they use this crap to manipulate all of us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:07AM
A child born on US soil to a Mexican father and a Mexican mother is NOT a US citizen.
Yes, they are, by law, by the constitution, and any racist fucking hillbilly that tries to say otherwise is a traitor! DO YOU HEAR ME, RUNAWAY! Stop you traitourous yammerings, or we will have to have you put down. You, sir, are no American, and I am sure that your mother and father hang their heads in shame! (And of course, I am not even an American, but I know more about the laws of your country than you do, you fucking illiterate stupid fucking hillbilly from the wrong side of the watershed, you! ) OK, I feel better now.
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:19AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:22AM
No, it's over. I feel better now. But if each an every Soylentil could every day remind Runaway1956 what an ass he is, I would much appreciate it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:31AM
As a child that was born on US soil, to parents neither of whom were citizens at the time, I take offence at this comment. You may not be aware, since you are from a former rebel slave-holding state, that this was a major point of contention prior to the civil war. If a child was born to slaves, in a free-soil state, that child was not a slave but a citizen. This is where a politician named Abraham Lincoln got his start, in the Freesoil Party. And now you have the gall to insinuate that I am not just as much a citizen as every other American? I do not know what to say, other than you are profoundly and thoroughly wrong.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @08:02AM
I don't give one flying fuck how much offense you may take - it means nothing that you are offended. Is that clear enough for you? You are not an American. I am an American. Save your history lessons - they are wasted on me because I already know all of that. I am the one who cited the REASON for the constitutional amendment. I am not half as ignorant as you appear to be.
A Mexican child, born to two Mexican citizens, is, by birth, a Mexican and not a citizen of the United States.
My nationalism runs deep. It runs so deep that I don't see Latino when I look at a shipmate who was born to Latino parents. The Filipinos I served with are American because the earned their place in this country. Ditto with the Russians, Germans, and Englishmen I served with. They SERVED, and EARNED their citizenship. Likewise, those people who jump through all the hoops, and in due time become NATURALIZED citizens of this country are my brothers and sisters.
Fucking CRIMINALS who evade the law to get here, evade the law to get a job, evade the law to avoid paying taxes, drop an anchor baby, and claim some kind of "right" to be here are not citizens.
Again, you being offended is meaningless. Don't ever expect me to be impressed with the fact that you are offended. This isn't your fucking "safe space". If you tell me all of your trigger words, I'll be sure to use all of them daily because - I just don't give a damn about you or your feelings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:49PM
A Mexican child, born to two Mexican citizens, is, by birth, a Mexican and not a citizen of the United States.
Either a person is an American - or he is not. The law needs to distinguish who is, and who is not
The law is very clear that the child would be a US citizen and discriminating against the child would violate the equal protection clause.
Taking the position that a child born to non-US citizens shouldn't automatically become a US citizen is fine, but that is not the current law of the land.
You are upset that the elected representatives of the US do not agree with your position or do not care enough to take the actions that you want, but your feelings of how they failed to represent your view do not take president over the law. You current dissatisfaction also doesn't justify No True Scotsman.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:25PM
No, the law is not "very clear". A law that was passed to deal with the children of former slaves has been misappropriated for an entirely different group of people. There was no discussion of immigrants, migrant workers, cheap labor, or any of today's catch phrases when the amendment was passed. The discussion was all about black people whose families had been here from two to twenty generations. Only in the past 35 to 40 years has Mexican immigration become such an issue. "Anchor babies" is a relatively new term, because the phenomenon never, or almost never, happened fifty years ago.
Summary: H.R.1940 — 110th Congress (2007-2008)
All Bill Information (Except Text)
There is one summary for H.R.1940. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.
Shown Here:
Introduced in House (04/19/2007)
Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007 - Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to consider a person born in the United States "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States for citizenship at birth purposes if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is: (1) a U.S. citizen or national; (2) a lawful permanent resident alien whose residence is in the United States; or (3) an alien performing active service in the armed forces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:09PM
From the Fourteenth Amendment (collect the whole set):
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
If you want to argue about "All persons" or "subject to the jurisdiction, then look to what the US Senate thought it included (bold is from me):
However, concerning the children born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens (and not foreign diplomats), three senators, including Trumbull, as well as President Andrew Johnson, asserted that both the Civil Rights Act and the Citizenship Clause would confer citizenship on them at birth,[15][16][17] and no senator offered a contrary opinion. Trumbull even went so far as to assert that this was already true prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, although Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania, disagreed, stating that this was only true for the children of Caucasian immigrants.[15] Senator John Conness of California expressed support for the Amendment for giving a constitutional basis for birthright citizenship to all children born in the United States to any parentage (including Chinese noncitizen residents who do not intend to reside permanently in the United States), even though he (and others) thought it had already been guaranteed by the Act,[18] whereas Cowan opposed the Amendment (and Act), arguing that it would have the undesirable outcome of extending citizenship to the children of Chinese and Gypsy immigrants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_Clause#Senate_debate [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:23PM
http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/617 [nativeamericannetroots.net]
The 14th Amendment and American Indians
Posted on August 4, 2010 by Ojibwa
( – promoted by navajo)
There has been a lot of talk recently by politicians, reporters, pundits, legal scholars, and others about the Fourteenth Amendment and citizenship. There is, as usual, a great lack of awareness of what this amendment has meant to American Indians.
Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that:
“all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Amendment was intended to give citizenship to the African-American former slaves and not to Indians. Government agencies (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior), and the courts (state, federal, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court) consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on Indians. Under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, Indian tribes are classified as “domestic dependent nations,” and therefore, Indians were tribal citizenships, not American citizens.
In 1870, the Senate Judicial Committee inquired into the effect of the Fourteenth Amendment on Indian tribes. The Committee declared that the Amendment was intended to eliminate the phrase “three-fifths of all other persons” which had described slaves in the Constitution and therefore did not change the status of Indians. The Committee concluded:
“To maintain that the United States intended, by a change of its fundamental law, which was not ratified by these tribes, and to which they were neither requested nor permitted to assent, to annual treaties then existing between the United States as one party, and the Indian tribes as the other parties respectively, would be to charge upon the United States repudiation of national obligations, repudiation doubly infamous from the fact that the parties whose claims were thus annulled are too weak to enforce their just rights, and were enjoying the voluntarily assumed guardianship and protection of this Government.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:00PM
American Indians were specifically mentioned as an exemption (in addition to families of ambassadors) in the Senate debate:
the two exceptions to citizenship by birth for everyone born in the United States mentioned in the Act, namely, that they had to be "not subject to any foreign power" and not "Indians not taxed", were combined into a single qualification, that they be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States [...] arguing that the U.S. government did not have full jurisdiction over Indian tribes, which governed themselves and made treaties with the United States
If you are trying to argue that Mexicans were treated the same as American Indian tribes and distinct from "Chinese noncitizen residents who do not intend to reside permanently in the United States" or "Gypsy immigrants" that were included, then read below:
[After the Mexican American War] The United States paid $15 million for the land that reduced Mexican territory to 55 percent of what it had been before the war.[9] The 80,000 Mexican citizens in this newly acquired U.S. territory were promised U.S. citizenship, although Native Americans were excluded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation#Mexicans_in_the_U.S._1848-1920s [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:57PM
Runaway, you should stay out of debates like this if you are not intelligent enough to understand what law is.
Introduced in House (04/19/2007)
05/04/2007 Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.
Action By: House Judiciary
04/19/2007 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Action By: House of Representatives
Since this bill was referred to a subcommittee, it has gone nowhere. Nine years ago. Not a law, a bill introduced by a bunch of racist Republican Congressmen, who are idiots, but I repeat myself. This is no more a law, and even less a law, than the 50 House votes to repeal ACA. Not a law.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:27PM
Uh oh. Looks like someone needs a safe space.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:53PM
the constitution disgrees with you. suggesting that the constitution doesnt apply or isnt important is one of the most unpatriotic things an American can do. your conduct is borderline treason. it disgusts me to no end hearing this garbage from a fellow veteran. shame on you.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:17PM
Just so you know, my trigger words are: popcorn, anal, party, and ball-gag. Feel free to use them freely, in whatever context you can come up with.
Don't be too hard on Aristarchus, it sounds like he earned his citizenship too the entire time he has lived here. Yes, you are apparently not ignorant of the reasons why citizenship is earned as a birthright, like I was before this debate.
That being said, I also think it's possible for people to earn their citizenship, as you clearly agree with. Perhaps we can take the vitriol down, because I don't take as much offense to your position. It's valid. Aristarchus is still right to be offended when somebody insults his patriotism and love for his country. He was born here to immigrants, which is very much a part of history.
Why is it when a child is born they receive citizenship? I find it reasonable to source citizenship directly from the parents, and barring that (orphans, dead parents) we can choose soil. In the end, the child belongs with the parents. So if the parents earn their citizenship, it is logical that it is earned for the children under the care. Again, I find the whole thing weird, but in the interests of full disclosure, I don't care if the President *isn't* a natural born citizen either. Just as long as they earned it.
You both have valid points.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday December 15 2016, @12:49AM
Why is it when a child is born they receive citizenship? I find it reasonable to source citizenship directly from the parents
Here they say [npr.org]: "only 30 of the world's 194 countries grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens." Probably there is a reason for that? None of the supporting countries are located in the old, democratic, liberal Europe (or Asia, Africa or Australia, to that matter.)
Perhaps there is a reason. To become a citizen you have to share values of the country. If you are born to citizens, it is their duty, and they are able to educate their child accordingly. If you are not born to citizens, you can be raised in any culture - you may not speak English, you may wear odd clothes, you may pray to odd gods... (not that it's illegal - but it dilutes the contents of the melting pot.) When adults become citizens they are expected to prove, to some extent, that they can be citizens - they must speak the language, they must know a bit of history, they must say the oath. To both natural-born americans and to those who became them through naturalization the way of anchor baby looks like cheating. It only shows that the husband and wife had enough money for a week-long trip across the border close to the delivery time. It's a legal loophole that has no meaning. It does not mean that their child is in any way worthy of citizenship - nor that they even want one [wikipedia.org]. The question of citizenship by every logic known to man should be determined by the prevailing culture (citizenship) of the parents. At the same time citizenship should be changeable by any adult who desires so and is otherwise qualified.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:05AM
I would mod up if I had points. GP is a very good post as well. Citizenship derives primarily from the citizenship of the parents. I'm not a Jew, have no Jewish parents, or grandparents. Had I been born in Israel, would that make me a Jew? What if I were Arab, and born in Israel, would that make me a Jew?
Among the articles I stumbled across yesterday, was one that says the UK no longer grants citizenship automagically to babies born on it's soil. Likewise with Ireland. European countries are apparently revoking the idea that babies accidentally dropped on a certain piece of land become citizens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:30PM
they must speak the language
This gets complicated when you consider that certain countries own territories (like Puerto Rico) that speak different languages from the parent country. Belgium is an example of a country with multiple languages that have a very large proportion of people that could not communicate with the other half of the country.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:15PM
This gets complicated when you consider that certain countries own territories (like Puerto Rico) that speak different languages from the parent country.
Yes. You don't even need to go to Puerto Rico for an example. Canada requires immigrants to know either English or French; either will be sufficient to establish themselves in the society. This problem applies not just to immigrants - it applies to everyone, and it has no obvious, democratic solution.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:45PM
Ok, lets see. You turn on CNN and discover war has broke out between America and your home country. Which army do you enlist into? See the problem yet? We see this with a majority of newly minted "citizens" who retain split loyalty. The fact we have lived in peace (mostly) for a couple of generations has caused too many people to be lulled into a belief that will always be so. We might have a 'special relationship' with the UK but it hasn't stopped us shooting at each other several times, including burning down our capital, and there is no promise we won't squabble with gunplay again. And if we can get into a shooting war with the UK we could get into a fight with just about anybody.
Birthright citizenship as an absolute right was an invention of the courts and not even in a straight up decision; they did it sneaky. Constitutional scholars with impeccable strict constructionist track records say there is a strong enough case that Congress could merely clarify the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" words of the 14th and end this problem without needing an Amendment that we should start there.
The problem is the child of two illegal Mexicans who happen to be in the U.S. at the time of birth is lawfully a citizen of Mexico, a claim our laws recognize. Dual citizenship is a bad idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:50PM
Ok, lets see. You turn on CNN and discover war has broke out between America and your home country.
Yeah, yeah, if you remember, this is what Teddy Roosevelt kept going on about when he started to go senile, those darn "hyphenated Americans"! Germans, like Drumpf, who only came to America to avoid serving "their" country in the Great War! Not the mention those "jmorris-Americans": we can never know whether they will put country, or wackadoodle conservative ideology first!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:05PM
Dual citizenship is a bad idea.
Why are the people most o'reillyed up about immigration are the most ignorant about American law? Dual citizenship is the standard position, for minors who could qualify for citizenship in more than one country. And, Israelis. But it ceases when the person reaches majority, and has to choose. Again, except for Israelis. And why would dual citizenship be a bad idea? As long as both countries are nations of social justice, there should be no warrioring between them. It is only extreme and paranoid nations, like America, that prohibit dual citizenship.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:52PM
If you're going to go run your mouth, be sure you know what you're saying. From the US Constitution
The legal concept you're looking for is jus soli.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:21PM
To summarize - it was ALL ABOUT the freed slaves, and their children.
http://sageamericanhistory.net/reconstruction/reconstruction.html [sageamericanhistory.net]
The Battle Lines Are Drawn. The fact that President Johnson was a Democrat, placed on the National Union party ticket in 1864 by President Lincoln in order to balance the team, did not help. His demeanor often left much to be desired as well. (He had been drunk during President Lincoln's second inaugural celebration.) Since Congress was not in session when the war ended, Johnson proceeded to carry out what he honestly believed was Lincoln's policy. Radical leaders still in Washington visited Johnson shortly after the war ended and came away satisfied that he would do things properly.
President Johnson issued a proclamation of amnesty on May 29, 1865, citing Lincoln’s original attempts at reconstruction as background. (See Appendix.) Exceptions to the blanket amnesty were made for those who had held prior federal office and later occupied positions in the Confederate government, but those persons would be dealt with by “special application” to the President for the sake of “the peace and dignity of the United States.” Over the course of the summer of 1865, President Johnson dispensed pardons liberally to many former high-ranking confederates. Johnson apparently took pleasure at the spectacle of former Southern aristocrats, some of whom had previously scorned him, having to plead their case before him.
By the time Congress returned on December 4, 1865, President Johnson was satisfied that reconstruction had been completed. The Radical Republicans who dominated Congress were not so sure. If the president asserted that the former Confederate states had been readmitted, however, how was Congress to assert its will? The answer lay in the Constitution, which states in Article I that, “Each house shall be the judge of the … qualifications of its own members.” When Southern legislators returned to Washington in December, 1865, they were turned away. In the first place, some of the newly-elected Congressmen had served as officers in the Confederate armies, and they belonged to the opposition Democratic Party. Furthermore, Republicans feared that they would lose control of Congress because the 3/5 rule for counting slaves was gone as a result of the Thirteenth Amendment—they would henceforth all be counted. By refusing to seat their congressional delegations, Congress effectively denied the former Confederate states readmission to the Union.
Nevertheless, President Johnson declared on December 6 that the Union was restored, which angered the Republicans, who then set out their own plan for reconstruction, quite different from that proposed by the president. In February, 1866, a new Freedmen’s Bureau Bill was passed to counteract the Black Codes. Johnson vetoed the bill, further angering the Radicals, and his veto was quickly overridden. In March Congress passed the Trumbull Civil Rights Act, which was designed to counter the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case by granting blacks citizenship. The act affirmed the right of freedmen to make contracts, sue, give evidence and to buy, lease and convey personal and real property. The act excluded state statutes on segregation, but did not provide for public accommodations for blacks. Johnson again vetoed the bill on constitutional grounds and also on the grounds that Southern Congressmen had been absent. Again, he was overridden.
The Fourteenth Amendment. Johnson's vetoes infuriated the radical leaders. In June they passed the Fourteenth Amendment because they feared that the Trumbull Civil Rights Act might be declared unconstitutional. Section 1 of the Amendment states:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was eventually made a condition for states to be readmitted to the Union. The radicals continued to uphold their exclusion of Southern Congressmen on grounds that by excluding blacks from the political process, the Southern governments were not republican in form, which constituted a violation of the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 4.
Every Southern state legislature except that of Tennessee refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, they persisted in applying Black Codes to the freedmen and denying them voting and other rights. Mistakenly thinking that the radical approach to reconstruction was out of tune with Northern sentiment, the South decided to wait things out, pending the results of the 1866 congressional elections.
Further,
The Fifteenth Amendment. In 1869 Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The amendment was finally ratified in 1870, and well over half a million black names were added to the voter rolls during the 1870s. The Force Acts (see below) were further attempts to suppress terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which had become strong enough to seize political control of some Southern states.
Although the Fifteenth Amendment was meant to ensure voting rights for all males, such devices as poll taxes and literacy tests were used to subvert the purpose of the amendment. Poll taxes had to be paid two years in advance, and the financial burden was stiff for blacks. (Poor whites could procure election “loans” to enable them to vote.) Literacy tests were used to restrict blacks, and alternatives such a passing a test on the Constitution were often rigged in favor of whites. By the turn of the century, as a result of such things as amended state constitutions, grandfather clauses and gerrymandering, black voting in the South had been reduced to a fraction of its former numbers. By 1910 few blacks could vote in parts of the South; thus, a vast contrast existed between the earlier goals of the abolitionists and the reality of everyday life for freedmen in the South. This condition persisted until the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Further reading here on the EXCLUSION OF non-black people:
http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/617 [nativeamericannetroots.net]
The 14th Amendment and American Indians
Posted on August 4, 2010 by Ojibwa
( – promoted by navajo)
There has been a lot of talk recently by politicians, reporters, pundits, legal scholars, and others about the Fourteenth Amendment and citizenship. There is, as usual, a great lack of awareness of what this amendment has meant to American Indians.
Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that:
“all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Amendment was intended to give citizenship to the African-American former slaves and not to Indians. Government agencies (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior), and the courts (state, federal, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court) consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on Indians. Under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, Indian tribes are classified as “domestic dependent nations,” and therefore, Indians were tribal citizenships, not American citizens.
In 1870, the Senate Judicial Committee inquired into the effect of the Fourteenth Amendment on Indian tribes. The Committee declared that the Amendment was intended to eliminate the phrase “three-fifths of all other persons” which had described slaves in the Constitution and therefore did not change the status of Indians. The Committee concluded:
“To maintain that the United States intended, by a change of its fundamental law, which was not ratified by these tribes, and to which they were neither requested nor permitted to assent, to annual treaties then existing between the United States as one party, and the Indian tribes as the other parties respectively, would be to charge upon the United States repudiation of national obligations, repudiation doubly infamous from the fact that the parties whose claims were thus annulled are too weak to enforce their just rights, and were enjoying the voluntarily assumed guardianship and protection of this Government.”
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:49PM
Yes, but the debate is over "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and an illegal is, by definition, NOT subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. Laws, otherwise they would be deported already.
But feel free to tell the actual Constitutional scholars like Senator Cruz who think it is worth at least trying to legislate a fix along those logical lines that they are idiots who can't read the Constitution.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:33PM
NOT subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. Laws, otherwise they would be deported already.
Also unfortunately they don't get protection from OSHA and all that other stuff that mostly applies to white employees. If they complain the bossman knows just how to get rid of them, so they can't. Legally they can, but in practice they don't. So OSHA and stuff like that is a white privilege. Or at least a citizen privilege. Ditto stuff like family and medical leave act, etc. I mostly agree with you other than there's more support to the argument than just mere deportation law.
Fundamentally the situation is as if Santa Ana's men swarmed the Alamo non-violent Ghandi style without weapons, but none the less still swarmed the Alamo in a human wave. You can't go shooting non-violent protestors, yet its also true that they gotta go home at some point. Nice of them to be mostly nonviolent now, unlike the Germans experience with their violent invading army, so can cut them some slack, but still, invading army gotta get sent home sooner or later.
A fundamental tenant of life is you can't have viable life without a cellular wall. A chopped up piece of meat with no remaining cellular walls is just rot soup not a living animal. Likewise civilization can't survive an invading army, even if its a mostly nice guy non violent Ghandi army. Eventually the few remaining citizens who make all the money that pays for all the services are going to start identifying themselves as "I don't pay taxes I'm not VLM I'm Juan Diego and where's my handout and free medical care and free everything that the citizens are paying to give me". A civilization has to protect its borders or it dies.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:16AM
I hope you do realize that "illegals" pay a LOT in taxes? They pay taxes, they just don't pay federal taxes or income taxes... unless they have a social and pay those taxes too. All of the state taxes they end up paying right along with us.
So they may escape *some* taxes, but it is disingenuous for you to state that they pay none. Considering the services they use, and how much they are abused by employers, I'm willing to call it a wash and not be that upset or vindictive about it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:27AM
Precisely. Allowing people to live in the US without the appropriate documentation, but not being citizens either leads to all sorts of problems. The exploitation you refer to is a very real problem and one that can only be fixed by enforcing the laws in place. Allowing people to inhabit a reality of no rights and basically no recourse if something happens is not good for society in genera.
I don't doubt that we'd have to loosen up some of our immigration laws if we did actually manage to effectively crack down on illegal and undocumented aliens in the US. But, that would be for the best as it would mean that the immigrants and non-citizen residents would have at least some protections under the law, even if they don't have all of the ones that come with citizenship.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:26AM
Agreed.
Some time ago, a couple years or more, someone suggested that "undocumented" aliens be given some status as second class citizens. To me, it seems that is the status they have today - second class citizens. They are permitted to work and live here, and the law turns a blind eye, but there is always the threat that the law will open it's eyes. And, that is entirely wrong. Either a person is an American - or he is not. The law needs to distinguish who is, and who is not, and ENFORCE the deportation of those who are not. At the same time, the law needs to ENFORCE THE RIGHTS of those who are deemed to be citizens.
There are no second class citizens. The concept is anathema to America, and the American way of life.
Like most problems, the longer it is ignored, the harder it will be to resolve the issue at some future time.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:50PM
the US constitution, like all other US laws, applies to everyone on US sovereign ground, citizen or not. they already have this ability, those [government employees] taking it away from them are directly violating the constitution and should be brought up on charges under Title 18 USC Section 1918.