More on medicaid and birth certificates

Here’s the logical and economic argument.

Illegal aliens are here against the law. It is time to control our borders.

If someone is here illegally, send that person back where that person came from.

If that person’s illegal status is revealed via the schools, through health care, a police arrest, all is fine with me.

Now, explain in logical and economic terms, what part of that you don’t understand or find objectionable yourself.

False positives, false negatives. Give me a break. This is not a medical test. This is about controlling who enters this country. Blacks suffering because they don’t have birth certificates. Oh yeah. A black man with an Alabama accent can’t produce a birth certificate and the authorities are going to assume he’s a Kenyan and ship him back to Africa. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?

Right now, a John Doe entering a hospital anywhere in the USA is going to get the medical care needed on the emergent basis, and the insurance gets sorted out later. Medicaid smetimes gets effected after the fact. It can often take a month or more to get all that done anyway. Now legal residence status will be one of the variables. Big deal.

I think a better way to start would be eliminating the “automatic citizenship status” for babies born here in the United States. Here in Southern California, Mexican Nationals cross our borders illegally before the birth to have the child in a U.S. hospital…thus creating an “instant citizen” with all the perks that come with that.

I realize that it is unfair to harshly burden the poor and uneducated for the sole sake of justice for illegals, but something has to be done. Many of those mentioned above, also come here before birth for the free prenatal care they recieve at health care clinics sponsored with Federal and State funds. They also take advantage of Fedreal food give away programs. They do not have driver’s licenses…only consulate cards. I see it with my own two eyes on a weekly basis.

Just to mention…there are no easy answers.

Cricket, I think the term you allude to is “anchor babies” as in the baby of that family, otherwise in the USA illegally, is now “anchoring” that illegal family in the USA.

The answer to that, as I understand it, lies in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, reading in part:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, AND SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”

Emphasis mine.

Foreign nationals employed in the diplomatic corps of their native country. They have a kid in the USA. They are not US citizens. We don’t draft their kid into our army. The child was born in the USA but not subject to our jurisdiction.

“Subject to its jurisdiction” excluded from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States.

The way I read the 14th amendment and its subsequent interpretation, a family here illegally, they have a child in the USA, they are certainly entitled to good medical care out of ordinary humanitarian concern. But when the medical issues of the childbirth have been addressed, the baby AND the family go back home where they came from. They are **NOT** US citizens. They are subject to the jurisdiction of their home country.

An illustration. Here’s a site dedicated to opposition to the death penalty:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=198&scid=31
They remind us that Mexican citizens who commit capital crimes in the USA and face the death penalty, we may be violating their rights because the Mexican consulate needs to be involved in the process. The World Court seems to agree.

You see, these criminals who committed capital crimes in the USA, they are still subject to the jurisdiction of their home country.

Fine with me. Let’s recognize that nationals of foreign countries here illegally are subject to the jurisdiction of their home countries, AS ARE THEIR CHILDREN. They can’t have it both ways.

Ron said, “A black man with an Alabama accent can’t produce a birth certificate and the authorities are going to assume he’s a Kenyan and ship him back to Africa.”

That might work if the county Medicaid office actually has a face-to-face meeting with the black man. But, the way these new federal regulations are written, the Medicaid office must base their decisions on documents, not on the lack of a foreign accent.

Here’s a scenario for you – if my grandfather were still alive, he’s be in his late 90′s. If you listened to him talk, he sounded like an American, no accent. BUT – he came to this country from Russia in 1910, when he was 3 years old, as a legal immigrant Still, no US birth certificate. And no US passport either, since he and my grandmother never took vacations. I think it’s unlikely he became a naturalized citizen; he never spoke of this, and may not have realized he should do so. If you asked him if he was an American, he’d have said, “Yes, I own my own home, and I pay taxes. I’ve lived here all my life.”

What does this have to do with Medicaid? It’s relevant because some portion of elderly residents of nursing homes have to go on Medicaid, once they spend down all their assets. Now, a person like my grandfather, if this were his situation, would not be able to provide proof of citizenship. At my father’s nursing home, there are plenty of people in their 90′s, who may not realize that, technically, they are not citizens. Or, if they became citizens, can’t produce their citizenship papers, because the papers are lost, or the resident’s memory is so bad, they can’t remember where the papers are. Some of these people are already on Medicaid. Should they now be thrown off of it?

I see no contradiction in forcing the illegal entrant family back to their home country with their U.S.-born “anchor” baby. That policy wouldn’t even require reneging the citizenship by birthright status; the child has to return once of majority age and claim it, and if able to satisfy proof of citizenship here thereafter be subject to U.S. laws, including selective service registration and everything else expected of U.S.-born citizens. Being born here doesn’t convey to me the right to nominate residency rights to anyone else, even a parent needed to care for me.

rwlee, I would agree with you in that that’s how the “anchor baby” is treated now (pursuant to the Wong Kim Ark case). My opinion, FWIW, is this was not the intent of those who wrote the 14th Amendment, not is it the intent from a plain reading of the Amendment. There is something more to the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” beyond the laws. Of course they have to drive on the right hand side of the road, obey local laws if they are physically in the USA. That’s not what was meant by the phrase, otherwise why put it in? The debates and statements of the people writing the Amendment are on record, and worth looking at.

The wording of the Constitution is actually not specific enough, and the exact terms to define citizen are listed in the US Code:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001401—-000-.html

And yes, that’s how we treat “anchor babies” now, by “birthright citizenship”. This has also been controversial, and was not recognized in the 19th century and a large part of the 20th century. Methinks it’s due for another round in the courts.