Paul Finkelman

After my last blog about slave breeding I became increasingly interested in the historian, Paul Finkelman. It didn’t take long for me to find a blog of his. The topic I chose was immigration and more specifically the proposed revision of the fourteenth amendment. Distinguished members of the Republican Party have considered denying citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Paul Finkelman and two other historians teamed up to discuss why this was unreasonable.

They began by stating that all three of them are grandchildren of illegal immigrants. They go on to describe personal stories of how each of their grandparents gained access to the U.S. I believe this was explained due to the fact that thousands of others will have similar stories. Finkelman in particular told the history of his grandfather, who had poor vision, and when immigration inspectors were unmistakably denying entrance to those who could not work; his grandfather took no chances and entered through Canada.

They go forward to expose problems with the proposition. They described a domino effect. If children of those who are undocumented are not allowed citizenship then by the same means their children and grandchildren won’t be granted citizenship either. Therefore generations will be denied even though America has been their only home. Also, as a recent fact, those that are being denied are mainly of Hispanic descent. As much as race has been worked to be kept out of laws, it will be a forced factor. Several have and may take this as an attack on the Hispanic community.

The three scholars come right out and declared that citizen proposal is a mistake. Direct sponsorship of the fourteenth amendment was given by the Republican Party after the Civil War. They claim it is a shame that current Republican leaders want to go away from their history. Although I do believe they forgot to acknowledge that the party was not the same back then as it is now. In addition they disapprove the claim that parents want their children born in the U.S. to one day have that child sponsor visas. It is federal law that prohibits sponsoring parents for immigration until the age of 21. Parents do not receive a “get in free card” by any means.

Punishing the child for the wrong doing of the parent is “un-American” (Finkelman 8/2010). The children, in a case like this, are completely innocent. One is responsible for ones own acts. As a final point they make sure to cite the Dred Scott case of 1857. It was ruled in this case by the Supreme Court that blacks, even free ones, could never be U.S. citizens. This was the case that particularly brought about the fourteenth amendment, to remove citizenship from politics. Citizenship is not a category that should be swayed in different time periods.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-finkelman