“With those parts that were upheld, we have the strongest immigration law in the country,” [Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley] said.

–”Alabama Wins in Ruling on Its Immigration Law,” The New York Times, 9/29/2011

What’s up, Alabama! Congratulations? I guess?

Thing is, you might as well brag about your state having the best postal service or air force in the United States, or having issued more patents than those layabouts in the Nebraska Patent Office. “State immigration law” is a flat contradiction in terms–by definition, we all have to handle immigration together, or not at all–and the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that determining who is and isn’t here legally is nobody’s business but the feds. I know you hate it when we bring up Neil Young, Alabama, but he kind of had a point when he sang that “you’ve got the rest of the Union to help you along…”

Anyway, best of luck recovering the state resources this law will require to enforce, as well as dealing with the angry, uneducated, hopeless underclass of kids rejected from public schools it will create.

Nos vemos en la corte!

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A typical Howie Carr fan weighs in on the immigration "debate"

In what I assume was a sensible cost-cutting measure during tough times, the Boston Herald quietly rolled out the world’s first computer-generated weekly opinion column many years ago. The algorithim is a trade secret, but it appears to be designed to process and regurgitate the week’s news as if it were being explained to you by a bitter old man who hates everything. It also seems to have a built-in quota for a short list of words which will resonate with the Herald’s demo: ”moonbats,” “hacks,” “freeloaders,” and, of course, the perenially-popular “illegals.”

Think Ed Anger, without the laffs. I’ve been reading it for years.

To humanize the whole experiment, the Herald has attached the column to a stock photo of a grimacing manchild they’ve affectionately nicknamed “Howie.” (I’ve always thought this was a sly hint to the “author’s” true identity: really, what adult human male would ever go by “Howie”?)

It’s all kind of adorable, really. Most of the time.

“Howie Carr” still has some bugs to work through, though, especially when it comes to trendspotting. Take this week’s big steaming memory dump:

It must be easy for Gov. Deval Patrick to ignore the carnage that the illegal aliens he supports so fervently are unleashing on the commonwealth.

Carnage, you say? That sounds pretty bad! How bad is it, “Howie”?

Another day, another person killed in Massachusetts by an illegal alien.

365 deaths per year in the Commonwealth attributable to undocumented defendants? This sounds like news! And it certainly would be, if it were true.

In support of this “fact,” Howietron 2011 provides three very disparate data points: the tragic slayings of an Ecuadoran woman and her baby by an undocumented Ecuadoran man in Brockton back in February, a vehicular homicide allegedly committed by an undocumented man in Milford last month, and the murder of Patricia Frois this week. (Howie also cites two of the hundreds of drunk-driving arrests made throughout Massachusetts in September, but these don’t do much for his death-per-day theory.) Like any wrongful death anywhere, these were terrible tragedies for the victims and their families–but they also only represent three of the hundreds of homicides known to occur in Massachusetts each year. And they were seven months apart. Meanwhile, natural-born Massachusetts natives continued to rape, beat, rob, and murder one another with the same abandon they have demonstrated since well before Beacon Hill was better-known as “Mount Whoredom.” (Actually, I’m genuinely surprised that one hasn’t been added to “Howie’s” lexicon yet.)

Anyway, here’s a fun game: try replacing every instance of “illegal alien” throughout “Howie’s” histrionic word-salad with your least favorite racial or ethnic slur! C’mon, try it out. I’ll give you a minute. (My favorite: “Another day, another person killed in Massachusetts by a ______.” “The _____s’s reign of terror” is also pretty good.) Woah, right? Right. Maybe we should stop using illegal as a noun.

This particular topic deserves a complete post in and of itself, but I have to point out here that no empirical study of the pertinent statistics has ever found anything but a lower rate of crime among the foreign-born population in the U.S. In fact, crime has actually decreased nationally in the past decade even as unauthorized immigration has exploded. (This really will be its own post sometime soon, but here’s a helpful overview from the Police Foundation (just one of many studies on this point)–although I should warn Howie fans that it contains thirty single-spaced pages of words and numbers.)

Crime–especially violent crime–is an equal-opportunity proposition for members of every race, religion, nationality, and social group. (I would invite you to spend a morning in any Boston-area district court if you want to see it for yourself, although I can assure you that you probably rather wouldn’t.) Blaming any particular group for the wrongdoing of a few of its members does nothing to help us to understand or address the underlying problems, and is closer to Klan tactics than anything resembling responsible journalism. It’s past time the Herald called its entire IT department in to take a closer look at “Howie’s” code.

(Oh, and I almost forgot: One of the most shockingly brutal multiple murders in recent memory in the Boston area was committed by a legal immigrant in an upscale Massachusetts suburb. But he was (kind of blindingly) white, and from a country that we really like–so, really, why mention it at all?)

They do not.

The phrase “illegal alien” is as inaccurate as it is dangerous, and should be recognized for the slur that it is. “Illegal” is not only demeaning and potentially harmful to the very large population of very real people it slanders, but to the immigration “debate” (such as it is at the moment) as a whole.

We would like to see “illegal” replaced throughout all public discourse with the more accurate “undocumented.” Here’s why.

Immigration violators are not criminals.

Unauthorized presence in the United States, in and of itself, is not a crime.

Although the words “illegal” and “criminal” are all too often combined in the same sentence by those who would like to have you forget this, the national conversation about immigration will never move forward until we can agree that “illegal” immigrants are not “guilty” of anything.

Criminals, by definition, violate our criminal statutes. Undocumented individuals are in the United States in violation of certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the civil code which governs American immigration law.

This may all sound very lawyerly, but it is an absolutely critical distinction. Perhaps the easiest way to remember it is to imagine two cars on the highway: one being recklessly driven by someone who has spent her evening drinking heavily, and the other being driven 15 miles over the posted speed limit by an otherwise careful driver. The former is committing a crime for which she may well be facing jail time and a criminal record if convicted, while the latter is merely committing a civil infraction which will result in nothing more than a fine and a bump in her car insurance payments.

Immigration law is not concerned with criminal concepts of guilt or innocence, but merely the administrative classifications of “inadmissibility” and “deportability.” Immigration violators are “charged” with civil offenses such as “unlawful presence” under INA 237(a)(1)(B). They are not subject to criminal sentencing, but rather to administrative punishments such as deportation and/or exclusion from future admission to the U.S. The only point at which they become subject to criminal penalties is upon re-entry after deportation.

It is worth noting that House Republicans briefly attempted to rewrite federal immigration law to criminalize the mere physical presence of undocumented individuals during the 2005 debate over H.R. 4437, but this didn’t get too far. It’s one thing to call people “illegal,” but even Congress could see the idiocy of actually criminalizing their existence.

Which brings us to:

Immigration violators are people.

Stigmatizing the undocumented as “illegal” does nothing but actively encourage abuse and neglect of an already-vulnerable population. It needlessly criminalizes the very existence of an entire class of human beings, and gives us license to ignore, exploit, and abuse our neighbors, employees, and fellow taxpayers.

Would you describe a speeder as “criminal,” “felonious,” “illegitimate,” “illicit,” “lawless,” “bad,” “evil,” “immoral,” “shameful,” “sinful,” “unethical,” “wicked,” “wrong,” “reprehensible,” or “unprincipled”? Of course not. We all speed sometimes, and most people would have to agree that straying a few MPH over the limit does not make someone an inherently bad person. Yet these words are all recognized as synonymous or related to ”illegal.” It is hard to avoid these associations, as those who would prefer to have you maintain them well know.

The strongly negative associations carried by a word like “illegal” make it easier to write off and dehumanize every aspect of an “illegal” human being’s life. “Undocumented” properly shifts the focus to only one small part of it.

Oh, and for what it’s worth:

Nearly half of the undocumented population now in the United States entered legally.

Continuing to refer to the undocumented as “illegal” perpetuates the myth that this is a population of “fence jumpers” who “snuck in” to the U.S. In fact, the most recent estimates from the Government Accountability Office indicate that 40-45 percent of the current undocumented population entered with valid visas (typically as tourists or students) and were properly inspected prior to their lawful admission. Our immigration laws treat these violators very differently from those who entered without inspection. Villifying them all as “illegal” does not.

Go “undocumented” today!

I truly believe that we will never be able to have a reasonable discussion about the future of immigration policy in this country for as long as we continue to use the “I-word.” So the next time you catch yourself starting to say “illegal” while discussing immigration in America, please try out “undocumented.”

It is time to change what we talk about when we talk about immigration. How can we ever hope to mean what we say until we say exactly what we mean?

Rep. Fattman:

Fun fact: Rep. Fattman's name means "one who kicks rape victims in the stomach"!

No doubt your office has already been made aware of this, but I wanted to be sure to let you know that you were egregiously misquoted in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in a story published Wednesday, 6/8/11. Regarding your views on victims of violent crimes who happen to be undocumented, the T&G published the following:

“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward,” Mr. Fattman said. “If you do it the right way, you don’t have to be concerned about these things…”

Wow! I have to assume that this is either a ridiculously unfortunate typo, or someone at the Telegram & Gazette really has it in for you. No doubt what you actually said was that anyone, anywhere, who has been raped, beaten, abused, trafficked, or otherwise exploited in any way “should NOT be afraid to come forward”–ever, for any reason. After all, no reasonable, conscientious, thinking member of a civilized society (most especially an elected official in my Commonwealth) would *ever* publicly take the opposing view. The Telegram & Gazette has obviously juxtaposed these two quotes (leading with the misquote) to portray you as someone who believes that certain people deserve whatever they get–including violent rape–simply because of a civil immigration violation.

Now that this has been brought to your attention, I expect that you will be demanding a correction. I didn’t know much about you before I came across this story, but you seem to have a real commitment to public service and as much of a promising future as a Republican can expect to have here in Massachusetts. It would certainly be unfortunate to be remembered as nothing more than the once-promising state rep who publicly took a stand against rape victims halfway through his first (and only) term.

Then again, if this is what you actually said–or, far worse, as will very occasionally happen when elected officials speak in public, what you actually believe–then I must respectfully suggest that you are completely unfit for any public office, anywhere in the Commonwealth or beyond. Your constituents deserve to know just how little you care about victims of violent crime and the hardworking police and prosecutors who are doing everything they can to protect them; for that matter, so does anyone who casually Googles you. As a public service, I will be posting this letter on my Google-friendly immigration blog (thereisnoline.com) until you have publicly retracted your statement and issued a sincere apology to the many, many people your stated position will harm–including the law enforcement officers who are unable to bring unknown numbers of violent offenders (some of whom might even go on to hurt people who don’t even deserve to be raped!) to justice thanks to the attitude you have endorsed.

As an immigration attorney, I have had the opportunity to work closely with undocumented individuals who have been victimized beyond any human understanding by people like yourself who believe that their immigration status justifies anything that could possibly be done to them. I’d be happy to introduce you sometime! Perhaps you would like to meet with the 19-year-old trafficking victim who does not know which of the hundreds of men who violently raped her during her excruciating six-month imprisonment in a Texas hotel room is the father of her child, and take the time to explain to her why this was really all her fault because “if you weren’t here, the crime wouldn’t happen.” (After all, she did pay good money to the same traffickers to help her make a dangerous border crossing in a desperate attempt to escape a violent ex-boyfriend–who could possibly say she didn’t bring this all on herself?) Maybe you’d like to sit down with the woman who was trapped as a prisoner in her own home by the older man who seemed so nice before they moved in together, but then kept her captive with threats that he would report her to Immigration; I’m sure she’d be interested to learn why she should have been more afraid to go to the police than she already was. Or–although I suspect you care even less about this scenario than any of the others–the young Brazilian man violently abused into submission and kept as a personal servant and sex slave for years by a wealthy older man who found that occasional threats of reporting him to ICE were easier than paying him for his 60+ hours of work per week. No? That’s probably for the best, since they all continue to have serious problems interacting with men.

If you happen to find yourself looking for a job in 2012, I gather from your résumé that you are perfectly qualified for any number of positions which don’t involve enabling rapists on a state salary. I’m sure the Klan could use a fresh new face for its latest anti-immigrant message… or there’s always the Romney campaign, I suppose.

Minimal regards,

Matt Cameron

But where everyone else saw tragedy, incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) saw opportunity. In a statement issued almost immediately after the sad news became public, he complained that “[t]he Obama administration’s lax enforcement of immigration laws, coupled with calls for mass amnesty, only encourage more illegal immigration,” and asked “[h]ow many more Americans will die before the Obama administration wakes up and starts taking illegal immigration seriously?”

Mr. Smith has spent too much time in Washington. Those of us who spend our days in Immigrationland know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) has consistently demonstrated a  serious and sustained commitment to the enforcement of American immigration law under Obama far beyond anything it ever demonstrated during the Bush era.

According to ICE’s own most recent statement on this subject:

In fiscal year 2010, ICE set a record for overall removals of illegal aliens, with more than 392,000 removals nationwide. Half of those removed—more than 195,000—were convicted criminals. The fiscal year 2010 statistics represent increases of more than 23,000 removals overall and 81,000 criminal removals compared to fiscal year 2008—a more than 70 percent increase in removal of criminal aliens from the previous administration.

While these numbers speak for themselves, they deserve a little more explanation for the benefit of those like Rep. Smith who continue to believe that Obama’s ICE is “weak” on this issue.

Like any massive project, the identification and deportation of “removable” (i.e., deportable) non-citizens in the United States can only be accomplished through prioritizing the tasks at hand.  According an analysis of the problem conducted by ICE in 2003 (entitled, in typically ICE-y fashion, Operation Endgame [PDF]), waging a wholesale “deport ‘em all” shock-and-awe campaign on the 12+ million undocumented immigrants presently living in the United States would only be possible at a staggeringly astronomical expense—and even this estimate assumed that the final 25% or so of the target population would  voluntarily “self-deport” upon seeing that ICE meant business.

The alternative? Realistically reprioritize. Under George W. Bush, ICE set its sights on the lowest-hanging fruit: raids on factories and construction sites where it knew that it would find large numbers of unauthorized workers. Massive operations in (among many other places) New Bedford, Mass., Postville, Iowa, and nationwide on at least six major Swift & Co. meat processing facilities made quick numbers for ICE and headlines for months at a time. In the end, however, these raids did much more to punish innocent migrants willing to work overtime at truly awful jobs than the American employers who had knowingly hired (and, in almost every case, exploited) them.

Since 2008, the Obama administration has maintained a laser focus on the identification and deportation of “criminal aliens” and has done a remarkable job of coordinating its efforts with state and local law courts and law enforcement. And this is only proper: Given the choice between undocumented migrants who are willing to, say, “render” chickens in a meat-processing plant all day and career criminals, I would hope that we can all agree that we should start by seeking out the latter. Indeed, ICE reports that it has deported 1,000 murderers, nearly 6,000 sex offenders, 45,000 drug offenders and 28,000 drunk drivers in the past fiscal year. Significantly, these numbers do not necessarily only represent non-citizens who were in the country without status, but also include those who violated the terms of their lawful immigration status through their criminal conduct.

As if this unprecedented effort to identify and deport criminal aliens weren’t enough, one of the nation’s largest labor unions has continued to complain about the Obama administration’s vigorous simultaneous targeting of employers who continue to hire undocumented workers. As with the focus on criminal over non-criminal aliens, this priority shift has allowed the agency to go after the source, rather than the symptoms, of the problem itself. Obama has also shown no hesitancy in continuing the expansion of the fence on the southern border and in deploying National Guard troops to provide extra support in the area.

If anything, it is apparent that ICE under Obama’s leadership has actually become far too good at its job. These record numbers of detained immigrants have sent massive ripples through a system that is already inflicting levels of stress on overworked immigration judges equal to that experienced by emergency room doctors and prison wardens. The relative merits of this massive attack are certainly open to debate. That it is happening is not.

For a minute, we shall, as Fox News does, accept the ludicrous premise that foreign-born mothers by the score are having babies on U.S. soil so that about 21-31 years hence, the slowest anchor known to man will finally drop.   If Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz do want U.S. Citizenship, there are far less convoluted ways to go about obtaining it than scheduling to be in Los Angeles on Ms. Cruz’s due date.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that if the Bardem-Cruzes were so inclined, they could apply tomorrow for a green card, which they would receive relatively quickly.  U.S. immigration laws allow for individuals of international renown (Nobel Prize winners, Olympic medalists, and the like) to obtain green cards awarded to “persons of extraordinary ability.”

Whereas the vast majority of foreign workers who seek employment in the United States must find a U.S. employer to sponsor them, applicants for Extraordinary Ability visas don’t, under the assumption that they are so awesome that since they command such high salaries and have gained so much renown, it’s a pretty safe bet that they can support themselves.  They don’t need to file a labor certification to show that they aren’t displacing U.S. workers. They don’t even need an offer of permanent employment.  For a (rather steep for the average person) fee, USCIS can process the petition in 15 calendar days.  The accompanying Adjustment of Status application would be processed in about four months.  If there were a line, the Extraordinary Ability visa is the closest thing allowing someone to jump to the head of it.  And as both Mr. Bardem and Ms. Cruz are Oscar winners who have received international recognition and command high salaries for their movies, they would almost certainly qualify for this visa.

Considering all this, one really must wonder about the headline writer’s choice of words.  The words “anchor baby” conjures up all sorts of images that hit even those who might be inclined towards a more generous immigration policy on a visceral level; images of — let’s be honest, mostly Hispanic — immigrants giving birth on U.S. soil and taking comfort in the supposed fact that U.S. Immigration laws cannot touch them now (and perhaps doing a dance of victory after doing so).  Would Fox News have run an article, for example, announcing that Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom — who are also both foreign-born (Australian and British, respectively), reside in Los Angeles, and expecting a child in the near future — are having an “anchor baby”?  (The lone article on Fox News regarding Ms. Kerr’s pregnancy seems to indicate not.)  After all, they likely decided with equal deliberation as Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz did, that they would remain in Los Angeles to have their baby rather than traveling to the U.K. or to Australia to do so.

I suspect that proponents of the “anchor baby” theory might point to the fact that Ms. Cruz states in the article that she decided not to give birth in Madrid, and that her child should have dual U.S.-Spanish citizenship, as proof that she is trying to have an “anchor baby.” But the benefits of dual citizenship are numerous: it makes it far easier to work and own property in the countries in which one holds citizenship, and facilitates travel. For example, a U.S.-Spanish dual citizen could travel passport-free through the Schengen area, while someone with solely U.S. Citizenship would be subject to more stringent travel document requirements. Considering the jet-setting lifestyle of many celebrities, who often divide their time between different homes in different parts of the world, holding dual citizenship would benefit their children greatly. Wouldn’t it make far more sense that the couple wanted their child to partake of those benefits, rather than assuming that their intent to have a baby in the U.S. is part of some grand scheme to flout U.S. immigration laws in the future?

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was one of DREAM’s biggest detractors. In a letter to his colleagues in the Senate posted by Politico, Sessions accuses the Democratic leadership of attempting to pass a “reckless” and “irresponsible” piece of legislation.

Though the DREAM Act is off the table once again, it is worth addressing what its opponents assert will happen if it passes, since the purported content and consequences of the bill color much of the debate surrounding it.

For now, however, I will address only Sen. Sessions’ first objection in his letter.

Sessions states:

“[The bill] would grant legal permanent resident status and a guaranteed pathway to citizenship for persons under the age of 30 or 35 . . . These permanent residents, once naturalized, could immediately petition for LPR status for siblings and parents, including those who brought them in illegally.”

First, there is no such thing as a “guaranteed” pathway to citizenship. No Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) in existence has any “guaranteed” pathway to citizenship. DREAMers are still subject to the rest of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which means that at any point before they become a citizen, the government could revoke their legal resident status, for myriad reasons that range from being convicted of a minor crime to traveling outside the U.S. for extended periods of time. In other words, there is nothing “permanent” about legal permanent resident status. Additionally, even people who maintain their LPR status, upon applying for citizenship, find that they cannot naturalize for myriad reasons.

Second, once DREAM Act beneficiaries naturalize, sure, they could petition “immediately” for their siblings and parents. However, Sen. Sessions’ phrasing seems to paint the picture of a revolving door of migration – undocumented kids getting into college or the military, finishing up their two-year commitment, and turning around and immediately petitioning for the relatives who brought them here without papers in the first place. The reality of the Act is hardly as simple as all that. First, a DREAM Act beneficiary would have to apply for conditional nonimmigrant status. Then, he or she would have to finish his or her two-year commitment to college or the military (or demonstrate that he or she already has finished it) in order to obtain a green card. Then, after five years of having a green card, and only then, could he or she apply for U.S. citizenship. Hardly the “immediate” payoff in the form of immigration papers that Sen. Sessions seems to envision.

Additionally, what happens once the DREAM Act beneficiary files for his or her relatives? Imagine, if you will, two beneficiaries of this theoretical DREAM Act:

(A) Francisco, who came with his parents across the U.S.-Mexico border when he was 6, entering without inspection.

(B) Jennifer, who came with her parents from the Philippines when she was 6, entering on a tourist visa.

Both are honors students, get into college, and apply to adjust their status to get their legal residence under the DREAM Act after being in college for two years. Both are able to naturalize after five years. And both want to petition so that their parents can receive their green cards.

But no immigration attorney worth her retainer would take Francisco’s parents’ case. Moreover, no adjudications officer would approve it.

Since Jennifer’s parents entered “with inspection” – that is, they were inspected by a customs official when they came to the airport – they can adjust to legal resident status without having to leave the country, assuming they are otherwise admissible. Usually, U.S. Citizens who file immigrant petitions for their relatives have to send the petition to consular offices in their home countries, where the relative must wait for an interview date with the U.S. Embassy. If you’re already in the U.S. when your relatives files the petition, though, and you are an “immediate relative” of a U.S. Citizen (parent, spouse, or child under 21), you can adjust your status without having to leave the U.S. This is huge for many immediate relatives of U.S. Citizens who have overstayed their visas, as they risk being barred from re-entering the U.S. if they leave for any reason. Those who overstay their visa for 180 days and subsequently leave cannot reenter the country for 3 years; those who overstay their visa for more than a year are barred for ten years.

But for those, like Francisco’s family, who did not initially enter the U.S. with a visa — snuck across the border, jumped ship, whatever — they are required, by law, to return to their country of origin to await that consular interview. The immigration officer reviewing that application would note that his parents entered without inspection, and require them to leave the U.S. and apply for their visa in Mexico. And since they would have to leave the U.S. after acquiring years of unlawful presence, they would trigger the ten-year bar, and would have to remain in Mexico for ten years before they could even apply for a visa.

Even if DREAM passes, there would be no incentive for Francisco’s parents and the countless others like them to apply for legal status, as appearing to the adjustment interview would be tantamount to turning themselves in. There would still be no path to legalization, no way out of the shadows. There certainly would not be the wide, sweeping mass legalization of “illegal aliens” that Sen. Sessions fears.

There are too many lies, glosses, red herrings, prevarications, half-truths, and weird misrepresentations mixed into this lumpy pabulum to possibly pick through in one post, but here are some of my favorites:

1) “These children have all the legal rights that you and I do!” (:08)

Despite Fox’s strained attempts (to be further discussed in this space sometime soon) to ignore nearly 150 years of judicial interpretation of the plain text of the 14th Amendment or write its proper application off as a “loophole,” jus soli (“right of soil,” a.k.a. “birthright”) citizenship is as American as the First Amendment and the seventh-inning stretch. It is, despite what Glenn Beck might try to tell you, also the law of the land throughout the rest of North America and in dozens of other nations.

2) “…as opposed to the usual immigrants who have to wait in line!” (:18)

Which line was that, again?

We here at There Is No Line would like to take this opportunity to remind readers of There Is No Line that THERE IS NO LINE. NONE. NO LINE. Like Bill Hemmer himself, children born to undocumented immigrants would almost certainly never have had any opportunity to become American citizens if they had not been born here. As always, I’m withholding any particular opinion on this point. BUT THERE IS NO LINE. Can we please, please stop saying this already?

3) “People who naturalized in 2008 spent an average of 9 years waiting as legal residents before they became citizens.” (0:26)

Fascinating. But, like nearly every other statistic mentioned in this clip, pointless—and almost certainly intentionally misleading. It is obtaining lawful permanent residency (popularly, if inaccurately, known as the “greencard”), not citizenship, which is the hard part. Greencard holders who are otherwise eligible for citizenship may apply five years after the date that their greencards were issued (spouses of US citizens may apply within three), and enjoy nearly all of the rights and benefits of lawful residence in the US in the meantime. In my experience as an immigration attorney, greencard holders typically do not apply for citizenship simply because they can’t justify the steep $680 filing fee. There are, however, dozens of other possible reasons why a lawful permanent resident might want to maintain this status without applying for citizenship—none of which have a single thing to do with “anchor babies” or “line jumpers”—and is not uncommon for greencard holders to live, work, pay taxes, and raise families in this country for entire lifetimes without ever naturalizing.

4) Weird statistic about supposed “jump of U.S. births to non-residents.” (:38)

Turns out this one is even more ridiculous than I’d first assumed. It appears that Fox lifted this number directly from NumbersUSA (one of a number of stridently anti-immigrant “Astroturfed” groups overseen by Michigan ophthalmologist John Tanton), which claims without citation that it comes from the National Center for Health Statistics. While that entity does carefully track births and deaths in the U.S., I couldn’t find a single mention of residency in this context (or the source of this data) on its website. I certainly could have missed something, of course, but NumbersUSA went ahead and did my job for me by bizarrely undermining its own point in the very next sentence: it turns out that of the 4.3 million births in the U.S. in 2006, only 7,670  (%0.18) were born to “non-resident mothers.” I have no idea what “non-resident” is supposed to mean in this context. If they mean undocumented mothers, this is an obvious and significant underestimation. The point remains that by NumbersUSA’s own weird statistics, the “53% jump” in births to non-resident parents (none of whom are directly linked to “birth tourism”) represents no more than a few thousand additional babies. Even better: this statistic is recycled later in the piece (at 2:00) and tortuously interpreted as “Birth Tourism Jumps 53% Between 2000 and 2006.” No. Just… no.

5) The Birthright Citizenship Act (:55)

Okay: so the Birthright Citizenship Act is a thing, which has been proposed. This is pretty much the only true and actual fact you will see properly stated in context in these 3.5 minutes. It’s also ridiculous.

Congress has every right to overrule the Supreme Court’s interpretations of federal law by amending, repealing, or minimizing the impact of the laws in question. It cannot, however, overrule the Supreme Court’s binding interpretations of Constitutional provisions, as the Constitution is—at least according to some liberal activist hack back in 1803 who is now considered to be the greatest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—”superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means.” (See, e.g., Dickerson v. US, in which the Rehnquist Court handily rejected Congress’s attempt to legislatively overrule Miranda v. Arizona.) The Supreme Court has assumed since at least 1898 (in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark) that the 14th Amendment said what it meant and meant what it said: [A]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…” It will require nothing less than a Constitutional amendment to change this basic rule, despite Rep. Gary Miller‘s breezy opinion that “we can basically overturn that misinterpretation very easily” (2:05).

6) Birth tourism (1:28)

So maybe (and let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is true, or that I care) a few determined women pay “tens of thousands of dollars” each year for “birth tourism” packages. Aren’t these the kinds of immigrants that even Rep. Miller can agree that we want? Anyone who can afford to blow that much money on a luxury vacation probably won’t be collecting welfare checks anytime soon. This bizarre conflation of poor undocumented immigrants living in the shadows with wealthy visitors entering on tourist visas to indulge in $7,000 hotel packages really kind of undermines the entire point of the story. If you think about it. (As usual, of course, Fox would really prefer that you didn’t.)

7) “…300,000 babies each year” (2:20)

Admittedly, this number is likely more accurate than the 7,760 claimed by NumbersUSA above. I’m only pointing it out because these words are coming out of Rep. Miller’s mouth even as the ridiculously inaccurate summary of NumbersUSA’s rehash of the impossible-to-find CDC data is being displayed below him on screen and the actual  7,760 number itself is right there next to him. Even as he is giving a figure which is probably correct, Fox is completely undermining (or at least confusing) his point with a far, far lower number taken from its own lazy research. Classic.

8 ) “…can basically come back and sign up to bring all of their family back to the U.S.” (2:30).

I wish he’d gotten to this earlier. This is, at least as far as I can tell, the fear behind the entire “anchor baby” myth. I love this one.

So, right: When you toss an anchor over the side of a boat, how long should you realistically expect it to take to hit the bottom? Pretty quickly, right? How about 21-31 years?

No, really. Most of the “anchors” most feared by people inclined to use this incredibly offensive term will take a total of 31 years to “drop.”

There are several major moving parts here:

A) U.S. citizen children can’t petition for their non-citizen parents until the child’s 21st birthday. No matter the circumstances, there will be an automatic 21-year wait before the child will be able to “sign up” their family for Club America.

B) If the parents entered the U.S. illegally, they are not eligible to adjust their status to residency while remaining in the U.S. They must return to their home country and apply from there.

C) Here’s the catch: Aliens who have remained in the U.S. without authorization for more than one year at any time are automatically barred from obtaining residency for ten years as soon as they leave the country. This ten-year bar applies in the majority of the proposed “anchor baby” scenarios… leaving the total wait time at 31 years if the parent returns home only after the child has filed a visa petition.

All of the above only applies to parents, who are eligible to join their children as “immediate relatives” as soon as their visa petition is approved. Siblings must wait at least an additional decade or more on top of everything else discussed above. Pursuant to this month’s Visa Bulletin, Filipino siblings of U.S. citizens who were the beneficiaries of petitions filed in 1988 have only this month become eligible to apply for residency. (Their Mexican counterparts have been waiting for more than 15 years.)

Still want to dismiss that precious, fragile, all-too-human life as an “anchor”? Please don’t.

9) “Section 5 [of the 14th Amendment] gives Congress the right to delegate how the amendments are [sic] applied.” (2:47)

No, it requires Congress to “enforce” the 14th Amendment. In our particular version of constitutional democracy, this means that Congress is obligated to enforce the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. As discussed in #5, Congress does not get to re-interpret the Constitution to suit its own needs. (This subject will get a much closer look shortly.)

The rest of Rep. Miller’s comments are generally along the lines of the unhelpful “American people MAD! RAWR!”-style rhetoric which Fox is contractually obligated to air in some form every 90 seconds, and are in no way worth noting here.

Anyway. For as exhausting as all of that was, I am still left wondering: Is this really what the American public truly cares about? We live in a nation which is in terrible, unprecedented need of a complete overhaul of its immigration system (together with Social Security, the national budget, and any number of other truly urgent issues of the day), and we’re going to start by taking away citizenship from babies?

There is no line.

Immigration to the United States of America is, as in most developed nations, nothing like a visit to the post office or the DMV. There is nowhere for potential immigrants to walk up and rip off a pointy slip of paper with a number on it while CNN blares into a crowded waiting room. There are no bored clerks behind dusty plexiglass, no uncomfortable wooden benches, no bowl of complimentary mints on the counter. There is no line.

Yet the lie—as with so many of the immigration myths which will be explored in this space—lives on. Both candidates in the 2008 presidential election repeatedly referenced a so-called “amnesty” plan for undocumented immigrants which would include a requirement that previously undocumented immigrants “go to the back of the line” before receiving residency. Both our current President and the army of right-wing media demagogues who oppose him continue to frame the conversation in terms of “the line.” But there is no line.

It is our position that continuing to discuss immigration into the United States in terms of a “line” does nothing to move the conversation forward. This anachronistic shorthand is, at best, factually inaccurate and, at worst, ethically irresponsible when used by anyone who should know better. The image of “the line” presumes that anyone in the world who is willing to wait it out should be able to immigrate to the United States “the right way,” where the simple truth is that upwards of 99% of the population of the Earth simply has no legal ability to do so. It provides haters with more fuel (“why can’t those line-jumpers just wait their turn?”), policymakers with a flawed and incomplete perspective, and citizens and immigrants alike with a way of thinking about immigration which has no grounding in reality. There is no line.

Perhaps a better way to think about current U.S. immigration policy would be to imagine an unbelievably exclusive after-hours nightclub. Everyone who’s not already on the list wants an invitation, but almost no one can actually get one. And there are only a few select ways to join: be recommended by a member who happens to be a close relative or an employer, be recognized at the door as rich, famous, and/or brilliant enough in your own right to walk in, win the lottery held every so often amongst segments of the population not otherwise represented in the club, or try to wheedle the management into feeling sorry enough for you to slip you in through the back. In Club America, Congress is the lazy absentee manager, stopping by every few years to post a new set of rules and policies and complain about how the whole thing just isn’t working anymore. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) does their best to maintain of the master list of people who have been cleared for immediate entry (and their plus-ones), Customs and Border Patrol (“CBP”) provide the muscle at the door checking people against the list, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) roams the floor looking to toss out anyone who snuck in or is acting up on the premises. ¹ But there is no velvet rope. There is no line.

It wasn’t always this way, of course—and maybe that’s the problem. As we all know, there used to be a line. My great-grandfather stood in it. Yours did too, probably: over 100 million of today’s Americans can trace their ancestry to an immigrant who patiently shuffled through a quick medical exam, passed a brief immigration inspection, and were otherwise able to provide favorable answers to a quick  list of 29 basic questions after arrival at Ellis Island. (This process is perfectly captured in the undated photos from the Ellis Island archives included herein.) This singular point of entry has become so synonymous with the concept of American immigration that it is perhaps more difficult than it should be to abandon the image of long lines of deserving poor in their Sunday best, gazing steadfastly into the new American dawn with a baby on one arm and luggage stuffed under the other. This was the line.

But Ellis Island has not been an active inspection station since 1924 ², the year that the management effectively closed our golden door to the famous “huddled masses” and announced that Club America was open for business. There has been no line for at least 86 years.

Should the U.S. once again roll out the velvet rope in front of the golden door? Maybe. Or, then again, maybe not. There is more than enough advocacy (principled or otherwise) out there on this and every other immigration issue that will be discussed in this space for years to come. Our intention at TINL is to provide a forum for responsible truth in response to the careless ignorance, callous lies, and useless talking points that are what most Americans seem to talk about when they talk about immigration.

And what better way to begin this conversation than to remind you:

There is no line!