REPEAL THE 14th AMENDMENT

 January 25, 2011

 It’s time to revoke the 14^th Amendment.

Early last year I wrote two articles regarding illegal immigration. Since then our government remains locked in a political stalemate regarding whether or not the millions who have come across our borders illegally should be granted amnesty and begin a path toward citizenship. Democrats generally seem to favor granting amnesty to the millions of these immigrants who have come across our borders over the past decades. Many believe that the reason for this stance by the Democrats is the belief that most of these immigrants would vote for the democrats if allowed. The Republicans, in general, are likely opposed to allowing amnesty for that same reason.

If you read my initial article you would know that the premise I posed was that the reason our government has for several decades allowed this blatant illegal immigration is because our national birthrate has fallen to levels that cannot produce enough wage earners in the next several generations to pay the taxes necessary to support the increasing costs of all the social programs that will be needed by our steadily increasing older population.

Almost every developed country is facing this exact same challenge. In fact, of all the developed countries, Japan seems to be at greatest peril of being unable to support its burgeoning elderly population because they do not allow any immigration. Even China is now considering lifting the ban on families having more than one child. Even with their huge population they are clearly looking to the future realities of an aging population.

For the past few decades, our federal law enforcement has been unsuccessful in protecting our borders, or catching and deporting illegal immigrants after they are here. The blame for this lack of success can only be aimed at our federally elected leadership.

What makes the U.S. situation even more unique, and adds incentives for these immigrants to endure the hardships of entering our country, is that we currently are the only one of the larger developed countries that allows automatic citizenship just by being born on our soil (the term used for this is “jus soli”). Even Canada cancelled this birthright benefit in 2009. Remember that this birthright law, the 14^th Amendment, was passed in 1868 as part of the reconstruction amendments to grant citizenship to former slaves following the Civil War. I’m pretty sure that those lawmakers and states who ratified this law never intended it to continue forever or to be used as it is today.

To me, the fact that all other major countries have either cancelled this birthright, or never allowed it, combined with our lack of success in guarding our own borders or deporting the illegal’s already here, and the current support for amnesty, is clear evidence that our government has been absolutely complicit in allowing…even encouraging illegal immigration in order to produce future generations of workers (taxpayers). What other conclusion could you reach?  The outcomes may have been necessary, but the deceitful and dishonest political rhetoric simply stinks!

You can almost hear politicians on both sides privately explaining their reasons for ignoring the illegal immigration that was and is openly happening. The Republicans have justified ignoring it because businesses needed the workers. Democrats on the other hand must have struggled with the impact it has on labor unions, but acquiesced because they knew that these folks would be granted amnesty someday and would likely become registered Democrats.

But now we must also consider the 14+ million legal citizens who are officially unemployed. How many of them would find work if they did not have to compete with the huge pool of illegal workers? You often hear that these illegal workers harm no one because they take jobs that our citizens don’t want. That might be true initially, but, as these workers are here longer and longer, they gain additional skills, and today you will see many of these folks working in skilled occupations such as painters, carpenters, plumbers, in manufacturing, etc. I cannot believe that many legal Americans would not take some these jobs if they were available.

It is clearly time to revoke the 14^th Amendment, and begin to openly re-design our immigration laws to meet the future needs of our country. The current situation is unfair to our legal citizens and legal immigrants alike. I would also sure hope that our elected leaders get focused on creating jobs here in America. If they don’t, what good will all these extra workers do?

As usual, these are my opinions, what do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

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