A little bit of background. A few decades ago, there were a few midwives accused of creating fake birth certificates for children born in Mexico. At the same time and continuing to this day, in counties along the Texas Mexico border, which are among the poorest in the nation, people have made use of midwives for over 100 years now. It’s how things are done in these poor communities. Even today, many people born in these counties have a certificate signed by a midwife.
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For some reason, when my daughter woke me up at 445am, i picked up Ethel and Ernest (Raymond Briggs) and read it cover to cover. More than many other books, it captures the banality and ambiguity of the rise of facism so acutely. I lost my breath when Ernest is telling Ethel that Hitler donated all the proceeds of Mein Kampf to the Red Cross, and she says “that’s nice”. Fuck.Trump isn’t even that slick and people are buying his schtick. Hitler had already invaded Poland at that time…
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Well the contention of the government is that they can’t prove that they were “natural born citizens.” What they are doing is declaring that the paperwork that used to be adequate is no longer sufficient. Today this affects people who’s proof of US birth is a statement from a midwife rather than a hospital. So this affects mostly older, poorer people. People who have lived a middle class life don’t have any idea how difficult it can be to for the poor, especially those who were born long ago to establish identity and get ID.
But this is quite chilling, because when you think about it, if they set the bar high enough, it is almost impossible to “prove” that you were born in the US. Even if you have a birth certificate from a hospital, how do you “prove” that you are that person? You can add all the bio metric information that you want to your ID, and the only thing that it can prove is that you are the same person that was issued the ID, not that you are the person that you claim to be. People who have never had their identity challenged have no conception of how difficult it can be to prove their identity.
Certainly the paperwork from the midwife would seem to meet the “preponderence of evidence”* standard which I think would be operative here.
*that’s the standard used in civil cases, basically whichever is more likely rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
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Why is the government surprised about mothers crossing the border to give birth on American soil in order to make their children American-born citizens? And when they do it, they don’t need to go far inland; it makes sense that they do it in the first town across the border. It seems that a similar thing is also being done nowadays, at a much higher cost, by the Chinese. The law is the law.
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The problem is not asking for additional documentation when they are revoking existing passports as people try and enter into the United States and putting them into holding cells, or putting the people applying for renewal in ICE detention centers.
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That’s a drop in the bucket for the number of people born legally within the US, you know that right?
This is a fucking dehumanizing process, for people who are American citizens. This is not a real problem, it’s one being made up by bigots to justify ethnic cleansing of the American borderlands, a region of the country TAKEN FROM ANOTHER. None of this is justified, considering that the people we’re talking about are people who have lived here since birth, are active members of their community, often time VETERANS who served their country. Given that the issue was litigated and dealt with way back in 2008/9, the fact that it’s cropping up again under this incredibly racist president only underscores that this is a program targeting specific people. I’m fairly certain it’s in an attempt to make sure that Texas remains red, and isn’t flipped by the democrats. Also, aimed at deporting as many Latinos as possible.
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Low simmer? “Fine people” chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” is not a terribly low simmer by my estimation.
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Me either, but at this point Il Douche is only calling them “fine people”. With right-wing populist regimes, though, it’s only a matter of time before the state itself starts going after Jews like it is immigrants and brown people (protestations of its current pet Jews aside).
As it happens this item just came across my newsfeed:
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Yes, it is absurd for a US citizen to be detained or stopped at the border for this. They should let the people go about their lives while the investigation continues.
But the main narrative of the post seems to be that the Trump administration is tormenting people and denying them their rights because they have hispanic names and live near the border. The reality is that the network of midwives and birth attendants who have admitted to selling fraudulent birth certificates operated near the border, and serviced hispanic clientele.
What I don’t know, is if there is some sort of statute of limitations on this. It sounds like there are some people, adults now, who have believed that they have been US citizens their whole lives. I don’t know if there is a fair solution to the problem. It seems, from reading about this, that even if the mother was inside the US illegally when she gave birth, the child will be a US citizen. How that can be proven or disproven is a more complicated matter.
I have to think tnat once you disallow the existing birth records and certification of live birth, proving your citizenship becomes pretty much impossible. If the burden of proof is placed on the citizen to proove something in which the government has the ability to void any documentation that may be provided, you are pretty much screwed. Can the government prove that the existing documents are not valid? I guess that is an unreasonable question, though.
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That’s the reality.
And they we start questioning the 14th amendment, because reasons.
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The thing is, they don’t have to disallow those documents. All they have to do is to deny that YOU are the person described in those documents. “Well I have a driver’s license with my photo on it and that name and birthdate.” “That only proves that you have been claiming that identity since you got that license.”
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“The 14th amendment is bad/invalid” is increasingly mainstream GOP dogma.
The idea appears to have begun with Bork.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/08/trump-supreme-court-14th-amendment-218959
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Yep. Once they ethnically cleanse the border, we can all imagine what happens if the 14th is repealed. Birth right citizenship goes out the window, and it’s blood and soil ideology. Fuck all that noise.
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For all their claims of old-fashioned patriotism, I have to wonder how many of those supporting or making excuses for or downplaying the gravity of this particular travesty actually know someone who’s served in the military, let alone served themselves.
It’s more convenient for them to ignore the fact that at least one of those caught up in this situation is an Army veteran in his 40s whose citizenship status was never questioned until now.
More worrisome in the context of a conservative movement (including ALEC) that is dead serious about wanting to go back to appointed Senators by overturning the 17th Amendment.
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I actually suspect that many of them know veterans. But their patriotism is as selective as their Christianity. It encompases flag waving and anti-LBGT without managing to incorporate the 14th ammendment or loving one’s neighbor.
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How about they were born in this country. Pay their taxes to this country Support their local communities in this country. Some have even put their lives at risk in service to this country. Not complicated at all. THEY ARE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY. FULL FUCKING STOP.
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As bad as that is, I worry even more about the white nationalists and Xtianists currently serving in the armed forces. They’re pretty sneaky but, as with some LEOs, they occasionally show their true colours (namely, white).
I don’t know about other branches but I’ve been reading for years about a significant Dominionist contingent in the Air Force officer corps, especially around the Colorado Springs service academy.
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Like in that music video?
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