LION on Undocumented Persons

Undocumented?
Undocumented?
What is this "Undocumented"
Even a LION has documentation!

Everybody on the planet is documented somewhere!

Ah, there is the nub of the argument. Do people who leave their country of origin and cross over into the United States suddenly become "Undocumented"? No they do not. They have, or should have their original documentation from their place of origin. And if for some reason that documentation has become lost, they should go to their nearest embassy or consulate to get it replaced. There! Now they are documented and they are no longer "undocumented". Gee, that was easy.

And they do not need an ID card or a driver's license from any state. Their foreign drivers license is valid in the United States. And they have an ID card from their own country. They need no official interaction or documentation from any state or federal agency.

Yes, yes, the LION *knows* that they are still here illegally, but at least now they are documented. The failure to produce documentation is the offense that they have committed if they do not have proper documentation. For this offense they can be held pending proper documentation. Obviously an officer having an interaction with such a person would have to have had a reason to stop and investigate this person. So a person eating an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen, or eating a donut at Dunkin Donuts is perfectly safe from harassment. We are not, after all, a nation of harassers. But if they have committed a crime, or if they have been pulled over for a traffic infraction, then they need to have their proper documentation from wherever or be held until it is available.

Yes, yes, the LION *knows* that they are still illegal. This also means that their allegiance is still to their country of origin, and any children born of them are citizens of that country and not of this country.

US CONSTITUTION:
Amendment XIV
Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


So, if persons who are not citizens, who are still under the jurisdiction of their country of origin, and who have demonstrated no intention of becoming US Citizens as evidenced by their illegal status, then their children born here are citizens of the parent's country of origin and are not citizens of the United States under the terms of Article 14.

This Argument is from Edward Erler, Professor Emeritus, and Senior Fellow,
The Claremont Institute, California State University, San Bernardino Published in
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, of the Heritage Foundation.


In 1898, the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark declared that the Fourteenth Amendment adopted the common-law definition of birthright citizenship. Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller's dissenting opinion, however, argued that birthright citizenship had been repealed by the principles of the American Revolution and rejected by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nonetheless, the decision conferred birthright citizenship on a child of legal residents of the United States. Although the language of the majority opinion in Wong Kim Ark is certainly broad enough to include the children born in the United States of illegal as well as legal immigrants, there is no case in which the Supreme Court has explicitly held that this is the unambiguous command of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Based on the intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, some believe that Congress could exercise its Section 5 powers to prevent the children of illegal aliens from automatically becoming citizens of the United States. An effort in 1997 failed in the face of intense political opposition from immigrant rights groups. Apparently, the question remains open to the determination of the political and legal processes.

But this is a side issue. We still must make decisions about what to do with and/or about persons illegally residing in this country. LION proposes that every one who works in the United States should have a US Tax Number. It need not be a social security number. Persons in the United States, with proper ID from their country of origin should be given this tax number and be allowed to work. But this also formalizes their status and removes them and their children permanently from a citizenship track. It is expected that they will return to their country of origin.

Another issue that is raised by a person's illegal status is that of health care in the United States. Well, if they go to a doctor's office, they would pay the doctor in the same manner as anybody else in the United States. If they have a job, and are earning money, all well and good, they could have also purchased health insurance. Although the LION thinks that anybody who has hired these people should provide for their health care, since these people "belong" to them after a fashion. In any event it is well known that few visitors to the United States are working here. They are just visitors. Most are legal, some are not, but all should have identification and health insurance from their country of origin, especially since so many other countries do have socialized medicine. So it is a simple matter to treat the person in need of treatment and to submit the bill to the health care system in their country of origin. And if they show up at a hospital without documentation, and they do not pay the bill when rendered, the hospital should extend to them the services of their credit department, which of course includes acquiring the proper documentation and submitting the bills to the proper payer.

Education is the same thing. The children must be educated. If the parents are living in the US, then their property taxes are paying for the education of their children. Or if they are renting, which is of course more likely to be the case, then the landlord is paying the property taxes and is presumably including that money in the rent being collected from the tenant. LION thinks that those bills are already paid.

But why do people keep coming across our borders? Is the grass really greener on the other side of the fence? And if so then we must be an exceptional people. American Exceptionalism: proven!
Well, if they are coming to make a better life for themselves, then they are here to earn money, which in turn means that there is somebody willing to hire them for money. That person becomes responsible for them as surely as a slave holder of old was responsible for his property. So the issue eventually returns to the employer and the return that he gets from the labor of the people whom he hires. Here is the person and/or company or organization upon whom responsibility devolves. An alien's tax number shows who the employers are and who are responsible for the welfare of this person while he is resident in the United States. To whom the profit also the responsibility. To this extent, LION thinks that employers, labor unions, and farm cooperatives should be allowed to issue their own "Green Cards" acknowledging their responsibility for their workers while in this country and for their return to their home country when their work here is finished.

Can a LION answer every question. No a LION cannot do this. The LION can only raise more questions, but then on this issue questions need to be raised rather than answered. The discussion and the answers and/or solutions if any need to come from the halls of Congress.

The LION suggests that you elect thoughtful conservative people to congress.

ROAR