Although David and Raphael were born in Mexico, they are both natural-born American citizens, by dint of being sons of an American citizen (me). I have their birth certificates to prove it. They state that my sons "acquired U.S. citizenship at birth."
In order to obtain each birth certificate, I had to take each little baby several hundred miles to a U.S. consulate in another city. I had to turn in a lot of paperwork to process the application. I had to provide documentation to prove that I myself was an American citizen who had lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years. I had to pay for copies of documents and for official photographs. The burden of proof was on me to prove that I was an American.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining. I understand that my situation is special and I have to play by the rules. And both times, the consular service was excellent.
But while I have to play by the rules, another class of people does not. They don't have to prove they're American citizens—they aren't. They don't have to prove they lived in the U.S. for 5 years – they may not have. They don't have to pay for paperwork to be processed. This class of people is granted a number of privileges that I, an American citizen, am not entitled to.
To what privileged class of people do I refer? I refer to the illegal aliens in the U.S.A. Under the insane anchor baby policy, an illegal alien can cross the border, have a baby five minutes later, and that baby is automatically declared a citizen of the U.S.A.
The illegal aliens don't have to go through any of the things that I did. They are exempt from it.
They are rewarded for flouting U.S. law by having their U.S.-born children granted automatic citizenship.
You might ask me, "Well, why didn't you arrange to have your son be born in the U.S.A.?" I would have preferred that, but it wasn't so easy. When David was born, I didn't have U.S. medical insurance. Illegal aliens don't have medical insurance either. No problem—my government pays for them, and their children are automatically declared citizens. A lowly American citizen, such as myself, however, is not entitled to the taxpayer-supported privileges that illegal aliens receive – unless, of course, his wife is also prepared to exploit the emergency room system.
By the time Raphael was born, I did have U.S. medical insurance. But my school year was beginning, and it was more convenient for him to be born in Mexico. Anyway, it had worked before with David's birth and registration.
Having been born in Mexico, my sons also have Mexican birth certificates. These birth certificates were issued to my wife and myself by a Mexican registrar. But since I was a foreigner, the registrar required me to show her my Mexican work permit in order to process the paperwork.
I had to prove I was in Mexico legally for my son to have a birth certificate!
When Raphael was born this process hit a hitch. My work permit was being renewed for the year, so it was temporarily out of my possession. The registrar would not issue the birth certificate until I had showed her my work permit. So it took us several more weeks to obtain it.
Can you imagine what would happen in the United States if they refused a birth certificate to the child of an illegal alien?
The U.S. constitution has been twisted to justify the automatic birth citizenship of children of illegal aliens. The Mexican constitution (Capitulo II, Articulo 30) actually stipulates that any baby born in Mexican territory, regardless of parentage, is Mexican. But apparently they've found a way around that—refusing to issue birth certificates if one or both parents is not in the country legally! How very clever!
And yes, my sons are dual citizens of the United States and Mexico.
Do I believe in dual citizenship? No, I don't.
Does that make me a hypocrite, to oppose dual citizenship when my own sons are dual citizens?
I hope not.
But I have a proposition to make.
Whenever the U.S. government gets serious about U.S. citizenship, it will require all dual citizens to renounce one or the other citizenship upon reaching adulthood. When they get around to doing that, I would be willing to put David and Raphael in the renunciation line. But that line had better have a lot more people in it than my sons.
For example, Juan Hernandez and Candido Morales, high-profile dual-citizen agents of the Mexican government had better be in that line.
Champion boxer Oscar de la Hoya had better be in that line. In 1999, de la Hoya – born in the U.S.A.! - officially became a Mexican. He said that "To be a Mexican citizen is something I have always wanted to be."
Then there's long-time Hollywood actor Ricardo Montalban. Born in Mexico, Montalban became an American citizen in the mid-1990s. Just recently (March 18th, 2003), he regained his Mexican citizenship.
He better be in that line too.
These famous dual citizens are not alone. Thousands upon thousands of Mexican immigrants who took a U.S. citizenship oath to "renounce and abjure" their loyalty to Mexico have been lining up at Mexican consulates to regain their Mexican nationality.
Even many U.S. born Americans of Mexican ancestry have shown up to "regain" a citizenship they never had! And our government does nothing.
There are millions of dual citizens and potential dual citizens, who share their allegiance with various other nations. According to one calculation there could be 40 million American citizens with dual citizenship.
So get that line started, and I'll have my sons there.
In the meantime - what's the point?
American citizen Allan Wall lives and works legally in Mexico, where he holds an FM-2 residency and work permit, but serves six weeks a year with the Texas Army National Guard, in a unit composed almost entirely of Americans of Mexican ancestry. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived here; his website is here. Readers can contact Allan Wall at allan39@prodigy.net.mx.
