{"id":44,"date":"2005-03-22T11:35:55","date_gmt":"2005-03-22T15:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/03\/22\/immigration-reform-meets-dual-citi"},"modified":"2005-03-22T11:35:55","modified_gmt":"2005-03-22T15:35:55","slug":"immigration-reform-meets-dual-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/03\/22\/immigration-reform-meets-dual-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration reform meets dual citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

By John Fonte, The Washington Times, March 22, 2005<\/p>\n

When President Bush discusses immigration policy with Mexican President
\nVicente Fox in Texas tomorrow, he should challenge the purpose and
\nlegitimacy of Mexico’s promotion of dual citizenship. To understand the
\nsignificance of this issue, let us examine the case of Manual de la
\nCruz. Mr. de la Cruz emigrated from Mexico in the early 1970s.
\nEventually, he became an American citizen and took the Oath of
\nAllegiance in which he “absolutely and entirely renounced all
\nallegiance and fidelity” to any “foreign state.” Yet in 2004 Mr. de la
\nCruz was elected to the Zacatecas state legislature and declared
\nloyalty to the Mexican Republic, violating the Oath of Allegiance that
\nhe took to the United States. The point is not to pick on Mr. de la
\nCruz, who seems to be a very gifted individual, but to examine the
\nrelationship between dual citizenship and American democracy.<\/p>\n

Unlike many other nations, American citizenship is not based on racial,
\nreligious or ethnic identity. It is based, instead, on political
\nloyalty to American constitutional democracy. People from anywhere in
\nthe world can become Americans. But if our great historical success in
\nassimilating millions of immigrants is going to continue, ultimately
\nnewcomers must be loyal to the U.S. Constitution and not to any other
\nconstitution…<\/p>\n

Mr. de la Cruz was elected as a member of the traditionally populist
\nanti-American, Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), whose Web site in
\n2003 had pictures not only of the currently fashionable Che Guevara,
\nbut of V.I. Lenin.<\/p>\n

The coming debate over immigration should not simply focus on
\nlabor-market economics, while ignoring the integrity of U.S.
\ncitizenship. When Congress and the Bush administration address changes
\nin immigration laws, they must address the threat that increasing dual
\n(and thus racial-ethnic) citizenship poses to the traditional American
\nconcept that a naturalized citizen transfers political allegiance to
\nthe United States.<\/p>\n

In 1967, by a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 200 years
\nof constitutional practice by prohibiting Congress from stripping U.S.
\ncitizenship from naturalized citizens who vote in foreign elections.
\nNevertheless, Congress has authority to enact legislation establishing
\nlegal sanctions (such as heavy fines) against naturalized citizens who
\nclearly violate the Oath of Allegiance they freely took by voting in
\nforeign elections and being elected to foreign legislatures. These
\nsanctions would serve two purposes: (1) to discourage the practice, and
\n(2) to remind everyone (Americans and the rest of the world alike) we
\nare serious about the Oath of Allegiance and about our traditional
\nideal of political rather than racial or ethnic citizenship. It is time
\nto add the idea of challenging and curbing dual citizenship to our
\nimmigration reform discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Fonte, The Washington Times, March 22, 2005 When President Bush discusses immigration policy with Mexican President Vicente Fox in Texas tomorrow, he should challenge the purpose and legitimacy of Mexico’s promotion of dual citizenship. To understand the significance of this issue, let us examine the case of Manual de la Cruz. Mr. de […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}