Judge: Texas can deny birth certificates for U.S.-born children of some immigrants

[Ackar]

Judge: Texas can deny birth certificates for U.S.-born children of some immigrants

A federal judge ruled Friday that Texas officials can continue to deny U.S. birth certificates to the children of immigrants who cannot supply required identification because they entered the country illegally.

Though children born in the United States are entitled by law to U.S. citizenship regardless of the immigration status of their parents, Texas authorities have been placing significant barriers to immigrants who have entered the country illegally and are seeking birth certificates for their U.S.-born children.

In his ruling denying an emergency order sought by families, Judge Robert L. Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio said Texas officials can refuse to accept matricula consular cards, issued by Mexican consulates, as a form of identification to obtain birth certificates for U.S.-born children.

“While the Court is very troubled at the prospect of Texas-born children, and their parents, being denied issuance of a birth certificate,” Pitman wrote, “Texas has a clear interest in protecting access to that document.”

Although Pitman noted the families’ attorneys had “provided evidence which raises grave concerns regarding the treatment of citizen children born to immigrant parents,” he said the court needed more evidence before issuing the emergency injunction they had sought.

The case comes at a time when birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants, enshrined in the Constitution, has been challenged by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and other conservatives.

Republican Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton praised the ruling as “an important first step in ensuring the integrity of birth certificates and personal identity information.”

“Before issuing any official documents, it’s important for the state to have a way to accurately verify people are who they say they are through reliable identification mechanisms,” Paxton said in a statement.

Paxton vowed to continue defending the state’s “policy on safeguarding Texans’ most sensitive information and vital documents.”

More than two dozen immigrant parents in South Texas sued the state this year on behalf of 32 children they claim had been denied birth certificates and access to vital services.

The lead attorney for the children, Jennifer Harbury of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Inc., said their families understood the judge’s decision but worry about the safety of their children in the interim.

“Without their birth certificates, they are having difficulty gaining access to basic services, including school and medical care,” Harbury said Friday.

“Texas must allow a clear path for all children born in this country to gain access to birth certificates and their full rights as citizens. It may not establish an obstacle course for these children alone.”

[FilanFyretracker]

I suspect this will venture higher in the court system, At a minimum there will be an appeal.

Yet the mere mention of Texas make me go "Nope not at all surprised."

[MI Redeux]

I suspect this will venture higher in the court system, At a minimum there will be an appeal.

Yet the mere mention of Texas make me go "Nope not at all surprised."

I would have expected this coming out of Arizona.

[Nerkahia]

They "love" the Constitution, yet they HATE it!

[FilanFyretracker]

They "love" the Constitution, yet they HATE it!

They only love it when its benefiting them.

Just how certain reps from South Carolina love FEMA and government disaster support when its helping their state but claim it should be left to the private sector when its the Northeast under water. Its how the political system works, Its bad unless it benefits you.

[QuelianSpyralshot]

Just how certain reps from South Carolina love FEMA and government disaster support when its helping their state but claim it should be left to the private sector when its the Northeast under water. Its how the conservative political system works, Its bad unless it benefits you.

Fixed that for you.

[MI Redeux]

Fixed that for you.

And despite being a repeated failure people still vote for it. Arithmetic is hard yo.

[Istari]

I'm not so sure about the concept of automatic birthright citizenship. There are all these Chinese women coming to California to have birth so they can snag US citizenship for their kid, then they go back to China. These are not real Americans, they are foreign nationals who never set foot in America (because they were too young to walk), yet nevertheless have US citizenship. At some point we do need to recognize that a country's citizens need to have some ties and ideally a love for their country and loyalty to it. Love for one's country is manifested in different ways; conservatives want to say it's perfect, and liberals to criticize it to make it better. Politically apathetic people still see America as home. But no American sits in some foreign country writing on the internet about how China could defeat America in various military conflict scenarios, or about how China can trounce America in some trade deal, but this is precisely what many US citizens with birthright or dual citizenship do. No al-Qaeda operative believed to pose a serious national security risk who wishes to enter the United States should be let in, but that is precisely what you can do with birthright citizenship - be a foreign national, be a foreign combatant, yet cannot be treated as a military target because someone had the foresight to get babies born in the US for birthright citizenship.

That isn't to say there shouldn't be any birthright citizenship. But automatic birthright citizenship is an extreme solution. The courts may well be chipping away at this right and letting the government develop a more restrictive immigration policy.

[Istari]

And despite being a repeated failure people still vote for it. Arithmetic is hard yo.

Texas is actually a very successful state, a lot of which can be owed to its government policies. The quality of life in its cities - Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio - is higher than in places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles or San Fransisco. The homeless population in SF or NYC is much higher than in Houston. None of those cities gets as much of its electricity from green power as does Houston. That's because Texas was the national leader in green power policy for many years (and arguably still is), and spurred the most rapid advance of green power in the nation's history. None of their populations grows as quickly as Texas, nor does their GDP grow as quickly as Texas's does. Houston and Dallas will have high speed rail and I'd place my bets Texas gets it done before California finishes theirs, because I wouldn't bet on Texas getting bogged down in bureaucracy like in California -- and this is a state obsessed with land owner rights.

Republicans still keep thinking of idiotic ideas but for the most part don't succeed in wrecking the economy.

I live in NYC now and the government comes up with idiotic ideas like, half of the cabs have to be green, and green cabs can't pick anyone up in Manhattan. They wanted to do this because they thought by controlling the number of cabs on the road would fix traffic. Now uber has come along, knocked off 30% cab prices, and the feared traffic bogeyman never came. Or how about how NYC has vast developable land in Queens, yet nobody develops it because land adjacent to subway stops are required to build huge parking garages? Or how NYC subway stops at its western border because they couldn't figure out how to finance anything on the Jersey side of the river? So real estate is vastly overpriced... Etc. etc... I am a liberal and I can tell you liberal governments are nowhere near as competent as Texas's government is to solve economic problems. That's why dems can't win in Texas. They'll say well liberal policies would just make our life shit like in LA, NYC, or SF. The liberal part of the country has hardly achieved anything that would motivate people to change.

[MI Redeux]

Texas is actually a very successful state, a lot of which can be owed to its government policies. The quality of life in its cities - Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio - is higher than in places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles or San Fransisco. The homeless population in SF or NYC is much higher than in Houston. None of those cities gets as much of its electricity from green power as does Houston. That's because Texas was the national leader in green power policy for many years (and arguably still is), and spurred the most rapid advance of green power in the nation's history. None of their populations grows as quickly as Texas, nor does their GDP grow as quickly as Texas's does. Houston and Dallas will have high speed rail and I'd place my bets Texas gets it done before California finishes theirs, because I wouldn't bet on Texas getting bogged down in bureaucracy like in California -- and this is a state obsessed with land owner rights.

Republicans still keep thinking of idiotic ideas but for the most part don't succeed in wrecking the economy.

I live in NYC now and the government comes up with idiotic ideas like, half of the cabs have to be green, and green cabs can't pick anyone up in Manhattan. They wanted to do this because they thought by controlling the number of cabs on the road would fix traffic. Now uber has come along, knocked off 30% cab prices, and the feared traffic bogeyman never came. Or how about how NYC has vast developable land in Queens, yet nobody develops it because land adjacent to subway stops are required to build huge parking garages? Or how NYC subway stops at its western border because they couldn't figure out how to finance anything on the Jersey side of the river? So real estate is vastly overpriced... Etc. etc... I am a liberal and I can tell you liberal governments are nowhere near as competent as Texas's government is to solve economic problems. That's why dems can't win in Texas. They'll say well liberal policies would just make our life shit like in LA, NYC, or SF. The liberal part of the country has hardly achieved anything that would motivate people to change.

My primary disagreement with the Republican party is their refusal to recognize the necessity of (and net financial usefulness of) modern healthcare access for people and actively go out of their way to reduce and remove access to it for their constituency. I have some other frustrations with them but that is the primary one and what some of my other frustrations derive from also.

If they were pushing arguments that were well thought out and at least internally consistent I would have more patience with them but they are incredibly lazy and easily refuted (not that it matters when any response does not fit into 140 characters). From my POV, make whatever argument you want and believe whatever you want, but at least don't be actively working against implementing viable solutions to ongoing and upcoming problems while it is possible to make a difference; but, that's not what is happening and we all suffer for it with no recourse to change that behavior due to how our country is set up.

I have a way to solve this in the near future, but there is no way in fuck I will be able to get anyone to go along with it due to paranoia even when it is proven comparatively more successful. It is basically impossible to sell to a human being with a pre-existing social contract in place. I don't think even a consortium of Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, Elon Musk, and JFK could make it happen.

[Ialnyien]

I have a question for you MI. What do you feel is the answer via health care? You cannot go single payer without actively affecting a huge chunk of our country, but you'd be right that it does negatively affect a ton of people. What do you see as the answer?

[Schezar]

Single payer aka UHC is the answer.

[FilanFyretracker]

UHC combined with price controls on prescription drugs still under patent. Once a drug is out of patent its formula is posted to the FDA website so generic makers can gain access.

[StumpeyFyzzbang]

This is an interesting issue. And it's funny, I always assumed it was just so clear that kids born here, even if the parents are here illegally, were citizens by virtue of being born on US soil. Then I heard one of the Rep candidates at the second debate suggest it was not nearly that clear a legal issue.

It's funny, I had bought the idea without ever reading a single thing on it, not even the constitutional language, much less the history of it. Being the geek I am, I read up for about 4 hours that night. When I was done I was convinced the issue needs to be taken up by the USSC and ruled on very clearly because the language and history sure did not suggest to me that there was even an intent to permit anchor babies.

[Delores Mulva]

What did you find that cast doubt on the issue? Admittedly, I'm only looking at the Wikipedia article on the Citizenship Clause:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_Clause

It sounds like only one senator had doubts about the effects of the Clause when it was being passed, and that's a guy who wanted to exclude non-Caucasians, specifically Chinese and Gypsies, from being included. Is the 2010 research report the source of the concern? Even that seems to assert that, subject to some strict limitations (prior SCOTUS rulings), Congress could in the future change how jus soli works, not that the current mechanism is in doubt.

[QuelianSpyralshot]

I don't really see how any interpretation other than what we've been operating on for 200+ years can function without destroying the core of the American citizenship system.

I'm a citizen because I was born here. If my parents were brown, I'd still be a citizen because the act of being born here is why I am a citizen. Even if you could somehow indicate that this was not original intent (Which doesn't make sense given how American citizenship was handled from inception of the country forward) any ruling to the contrary would run afoul of the 14th amendment immediately.

To claim that immigrants are not within US jurisdiction while within our borders would be to cede the jurisdiction over immigrants while they are present in our country - that is to say the law doesn't apply to them.

The entire argument is supreme bullshit, with so many stupid consequences it's not even comprable to shooting yourself in the foot. It's like feeding the legal system into a wood chipper.

[StumpeyFyzzbang]

Sorry, I had read this testimony.

I happen to think it makes a lot of sense in historical terms, but I also think it's a better policy. I don't think citizenship by birth location is good policy. I could even see the argument that if parents are here in some legal manner en route to full, legal citizenship birth here could justify it. I simply can't agree it's a good idea to allow people to break our laws and be rewarded for it.

[QuelianSpyralshot]

So there's only two clauses that need considering. Were you born in the US? And are you subject to its jurisdiction?

These guys are clearly born in the US, so that's done.

Being subject to US jurisdiction means that the laws of the US apply to you. If you're on American soil, our laws apply. If we say they are outside our jurisdiction, we are also telling them we can't prosecute them for crime without contacting their respective embassy. Think about the implications of that, and whether that sounds like a good plan to you.

[StumpeyFyzzbang]

I deal with constitutional and statutory construction arguments a lot. I totally agree with the idea that "subject to the jurisdiction of" MUST mean more than physical presence. It's a basic tenet of statutory and constitutional interpretation that words used must mean something. They are not be be considered mere surplusage. For a child to be born in the US, the mother MUST be in the US. That's just physics. Under your argument, that means she is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US, and thus the language is completely meaningless.

This is what, to me, creates some ambiguity. Another cornerstone of interpretation is that IF it's ambiguous, you look to other places to resolve the ambiguity. Thus, I think it's very logical to look at the 1866 CRA to see what the term was considered to mean at the time.

I had never really thought much about it, but the obvious fact is the 14th Amendment was all about making slaves full citizens. There was no other thought given to anchor babies or anything. I believe the argument that the language of the 14th Amendment is very easily read to limit citizenship to those not subject to foreign powers, and that very logically (at least to me) jumps us to whether foreigners can become "subject to the jurisdiction of" the US in a way that violates existing US law. I don't think they can. I would love to argue this case at the USSC, but alas, I doubt I will be asked.

I miss arguing with you people. Did you ever work out whether it's ethical to kill 3 year olds?

[Schezar]

I miss arguing with you people. Did you ever work out whether it's ethical to kill 3 year olds?

For pleasure? For food? For some sort of purpose? 3 year old lambs? 3 year old ...