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What does that even mean (aside from the obvious white supremacist angle)? Citizenship is not a scarce resource.
What does this mean?
Opposing birthright citizenship is contrary to the ancient traditions of our people and thus unAmerican. But then, Erik Prince is a Dutch fifth columnist and not to be trusted.
What? Ancient traditions of a 300 year old country? One that didn't even exist at the founding of the country and was just a quirk of a post civil war law meant to force Southern states to accept Blacks as citizens.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but birthright citizenship was an explicit component of British Common Law since 1608 (see pgs. 698-701), although it was not initially raised in terms of immigration. However, this legal paradigm was broadly accepted in the United States to apply to children of foreigners (see pgs. 706-708). There were two principal exceptions: children born of foreign emissaries and children born of occupying soldiers.
I can already hear you typing, "But Scarecrow, didn't Lord Coke also declare that infidels were perpetual enemies of the crown, and so could not gain citizenship?" This is true (See footnote 295). "Didn't the U.S. not extend citizenship rights to Native Americans who were born on U.S. lands?" This was true initially, but was changed. "Didn't the document you just link to say that citizenship was extended to 'the children even of aliens born in a country, while the parents are there under protection of the government...'" These are all true.
However, these facts do not imply that the tradition of birthright citizenship does not comport with its' practice today. Lord Coke's argument was specifically about infidels and with respect to the Christian religion. As the government of the United States was and is a secular state, there is no fundamental source of permanent opposition which could justify this position. American Indians were not granted citizenship because they were understood as citizens of treaty-making nations independent of the United States, and this was expressed by Chief Justice Marshall. Even children whose parents were deported were able to remain in the United States (see Expelling the Poor.
I recognize there is more of a debate to be had here, but I think you were far too dismissive and ignored the much older heritage of the idea.
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In case the allusion to Dutch fifth columnists didn't make it clear: I am mocking appeals to tradition, which are typically appeal to cherrypicked history at best and are often wholly imaginary.
OP has posed a fairly ridiculous standard for who ought to qualify for American citizenship which has literally never applied and which, if applied, would disqualify the man he is approvingly quoting. The US has had unambiguous birthright citizenship for the majority of its existence (and a somewhat more patchwork de facto arrangement before that), as well as open borders or a functional equivalent. I somehow doubt that OP wants that aspect of late 18th/early 19th century policy back.
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I think in general for me, I want people here who generally want to contribute, are loyal to America over their home country, and aren’t net drains on resources. So I’d want people to learn English, get a job, and put down roots.
That's happening. The idea that immigrants are benefits sponges who refuse to learn English or get a job is a nativist shibboleth, not a description of reality. Hispanics have higher LFPR than the general population, have a similar likelihood of serving in the military to NH Whites, very high intermarriage rates, etc...
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Welfare, benefits, legal aid, and increasingly, as in this week in DC and already elsewhere, voting.
An enticing thesis in other contexts, but not here, as they are clearly speaking in reference to people who have American citizenship who feel they didn't deserve it and given the broader context of their conversation.
Also part of the ancient traditions of America
Yes, but what isn't in the ancient traditions of America is welcoming every vagrat who shows up on our shores. When those non-citizens were allowed to vote, they were essentially the same ethnically and culturally as the existing population, and when there were small differences in language or religion, the relative population size was also smaller.
I would be thrilled if we could reclaim the ancient traditions of America.
It literally was. The US had functionally open borders until the late 19th century, when it was decided that vagrants were fine as long as they weren't Chinese.
"These German and Irish papists can never be truly American"
I believed this as well, until I read Hidetaka Hirota's excellent book Expelling the Poor. It documents very compellingly how states with major ports like Massachusetts and New York frequently turned away immigrants arriving from Ireland who were judged to be at risk of entering poor houses. Massachusetts actively deported Irish immigrants from poor houses, including some illegally deporting some Irish who were citizens of the US.
The reality is that prior to the federalization of immigration policy, states have more leeway than is discussed in popular culture to restrict immigration and did use it. While I think historical US policy was more welcoming to immigrants than the policies today, I do not think the US had a policy of virtually open borders.
I'm aware of such policies, but as far as I know the number of people turned away or expelled on such grounds was fairly negligible relative to the overall scale of immigration (tens of thousands over decades versus tens of millions of arrivals). To make an analogy to a hypothetical modern US policy, if the US today said something to the effect of "anyone can obtain legal residence if they aren't a known criminal, mentally ill, or physically incapacitated", I wouldn't have a problem calling that "open borders" even if there are technically some minimal qualifications.
Also of relevance is that these policies weren't universal, and if NY or Boston weren't taking, you'd simply see people going to Baltimore (and indeed a lot of people did).
I agree that deportations were historically less common in the past (by a factor of 5 or 10 after adjusting for foreign born population size.) I think these deportations were still sizable representing around 1% of the immigrant population in 1880 around when the policies ended. I agree that if there were only minimum qualifications, I would consider the US had virtually open borders. I don't share the view that the only criteria were criminality, mental illness, or disability. Instead, it seems clear that some policies were specifically targeted at the Irish, and the poor Irish explicitly, in addition to the aforementioned criteria. The fact that the states with the largest ports had anti-immigrant policies makes me hesitant to characterize US policy as virtually open borders.
I agree that the lack of universality is important. Personally, I would welcome the devolution of immigration policy to the states. I suspect this would result in much higher levels of immigration.
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