
Proposed Arizona law targets birthright citizenship - georgecmu
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70Q94G20110128
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ubernostrum
The Supreme Court has already considered this argument, in 1898's _United
States v. Wong Kim Ark_ (Google will turn up good summaries and the full
ruling if you're curious).

Spoiler alert: it didn't work that time, and there's no reason why it would
work this time.

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mustpax
I can think of four reasons: Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas.

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giberson
The irony of this, is that passing it would practically invalidate every
United States citizen citizenship. Since, if you can't become a citizen by
being born here, how would our parents have become citizens? Aside from those
who gained citizenship through legal process--but what right would a non-
citizen judge have to grant citizenship in the first place?

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cpeterso
The debate is whether children of _non-citizen_ immigrants should be granted
US citizenship just because they were born on American soil.

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rdouble
That's the polite way to say it.

Really it's about whether children of non-citizen _poor Mexican_ immigrants
should be granted US citizenship.

If Arizona shared a border with Sweden and all the non-citizens having babies
were hot blonde chicks, there would be no immigration debate.

~~~
cpeterso
I agree with you, but it is an interesting question. Do any other countries
automatically grant citizenship to children of non-citizens? And what if only
one parent is a citizen?

~~~
rdouble
_Do any other countries automatically grant citizenship to children of non-
citizens?_

Almost every country in the Americas.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli#Specific_national_legi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli#Specific_national_legislation)

