Were You Born in the U.S. to Immigrant Parents?

Tomorrow, I will make a short presentation to a local civic group. My talk is "The Labor Origins of Birthright Citizenship."

If my audience is typical of Americans, 37% oppose the idea that a child of an illegal immigrant should have birthright citizenship.

So, here is a slide I will show.

I'll begin with me (lower-right): My father came to the U.S. illegally, on falsified papers. He never told me. He died as an American citizen, though in fact his citizenship was obtained fraudulently. Do you think he's unusual?

Then, we will look at more notable U.S. born citizens-- birthright citizens-- who were born to immigrant parents. If they're like me, they may not know while their parents are alive (or ever) if their parents came to the U.S. legally, or like my Dad, illegally.

Nikki Haley: Daughter of Sikh Indians.

Ray Kroc: Son of Czech immigrants.

Wong Kim Ark: Son of Chinese immigrants. His landmark Supreme Court case established that all people born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of their parents' immigration status.

Steven Jobs: Son of a Syrian father who came to the U.S. from a refugee camp.

Colin Powell: Son of Jamaican immigrants.

Walt Disney: Son of a Canadian father.

Alex Rodriguez: Son of Dominican Republic parents.

The case against birthright citizenship is that children born in the U.S. to foreign parents are a drain on American society.

If that view prevailed, we might not have McDonalds. Or Apple. Or Disney. Or a Hall of Fame Yankee. Or a GOP leader. Or a Chinese laborer who was born in San Francisco, visited his ancestral homeland to find a wife, returned to the U.S., was denied entry and later admitted after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. All we know about Wong Kim Ark is that he was a laborer. A welfare cheat he was not.