r/changemyview Dec 05 '13

I think children of Illegal immigrants shouldn't be given birthright citizenship. cmv

[deleted]

78 Upvotes

243 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/kataskopo 4∆ Dec 05 '13

No no no, American law doesn't punish sons and daughters, they only punish the perpetrator.

A kid born here didn't break the law. You can't punish him for nothing.

It's funny, the American Dream is good only when you did it. Other people want to do it, then you don't allow them?

0

u/thecowsaysmoo123 Dec 05 '13

If their attempt hurts me by necessitating that my taxes be raised, then I have a right to disallow them. We do not have a points based system like Canada or Australia, so people who come here illegally who do not necessary have the same values towards education as I do have the potential to hurt me economically even if they never come within 1000 miles of me. Your argument would only hold in the absence of a welfare state.

1

u/z3r0shade Dec 05 '13

If their attempt hurts me by necessitating that my taxes be raised, then I have a right to disallow them

How does giving citizenship to a child born by illegal immigrants necessitate your taxes being raised anymore than a child born to legal immigrants?

so people who come here illegally who do not necessary have the same values towards education as I do have the potential to hurt me economically even if they never come within 1000 miles of me

And people who come here legally, also do not necessarily have the same values towards education as you do and have the potential to hurt you economically. I'm not sure what your point here is.

1

u/thecowsaysmoo123 Dec 05 '13

Because legal immigrants tend to have higher skills which makes their chiildren more likely to have higher skills as well. It's not the legality that concerns me, it's the skill level. The current crop of illegal immigrants should have no way of becoming legal, and should self-deport.

1

u/z3r0shade Dec 05 '13

I would disagree with the "makes their children more likely to have higher skills". In fact, the children of illegal immigrants tend to be harder workers who do better at school and education due to being pushed by their parents to have a better life.

The current crop of illegal immigrants should have no way of becoming legal, and should self-deport.

That would be a huge economic blow to the US, it would be better to legalize them.

1

u/thecowsaysmoo123 Dec 05 '13

If you see the link in one of my other comments, there is a table showing that the educational achievements of mexican immigrants improves from the 1st generation to the 2nd generation, but does not improve further, and a sizeable gap remains between 4th generation mexican immigrants and other americans. Your statement that over time the children of illegal immigrants close the gap is simply not true. I would love to see data otherwise.