Separation of Citizens

Among all the discussion about separation of citizens into Blacks and Whites and Hispanics and Asians and so on, there’s a separation that’s more accepted but less talked about which is the separation of the native-born and the naturalized. The constitution required naturalized citizens to have the same rights as their native born counterparts, but there are several laws and policies on the books today and several more news ideas burgeoning that effectively accomplish segregation of the two kinds of citizens and create the second class citizen.

The first separation is attributed to the constitution itself which simply says that only native born citizens can qualify to run for President. Given the lengths the constitution goes to create equality among citizens and also argues for equal rights for all people living in the US, I question the intent here. I for one believe what they were trying to say was that a President must have exclusive allegiance to the country and in those days they were simply native born. Today with “naturalization”, a foreign born swears to lay down all allegiance to a foreign land and in many cases looses citizenship of his or her birth country and becomes an exclusive citizen of the United States. I believe that the framers would see no issue with such people participating in the good of their country and running for the highest office. After all, these people are Americans by choice, not by mere accident of birth. They know who they want to be and strive to become that and are not simply living a fate. People on the other hand who are native born but own dual citizenship should be, based on the constitution’s intent, barred from running for President.

Naturalized citizens as they go through the long process of becoming a citizen have in that journey made a lot of accommodations that native born citizens have not and many will not. For example, from the day a person holds a visa to work in the US, they pay state and federal income taxes with no representation of any kind. It’s hard to assume that the makers of the constitution after having raised this as the primary grievance in the Declaration of Independence would have meant for this to be the norm for Naturalization. First generation Americans are subject to having their fingerprints recorded very much like incarcerated convicts. They are subject to drug and medical tests to qualify for permanent residence. They are required to keep the government apprised every time they move. They pay Social Security taxes even if their visa is of a temporary nature, which implies they have no way of receiving any of the benefits they are paying for. They are not allowed to avail public services for several years. While arguments can be made that these distinctions are necessary, at naturalization everything should be made on par with native born citizens, including retaining on Government records only information that’s maintained for native born citizens. The fact that there’s no real naturalization is apparent by the name change of INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) to USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services).

In addition to existing laws and policies there are several new proposals that further separate naturalized citizens from native born. The proposal by the Nevada Senator, John Ensign, to require that naturalized citizens demonstrate that they were in the nation on legal status from the day they arrived to receive social security benefits while may make the case to separate those that came here illegally from legally nevertheless imposes additional burden on naturalized citizens making them second class. The proposal by the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich to create a foreign person id card is another example. This policy while attempting to reduce identity theft creates more data that’s collected and retained on naturalized citizens that does not apply to native born. How’s a person not carrying the card going to establish that they are not of foreign origin? If they can with mechanisms that exist today, then what’s the need for the new system?

This divide between native born and naturalized citizens may not be of immediate concern for "main stream America" but is just as harmful as creating second class citizens based on any other criteria like race, religion or gender. The law of the land at various times has created such classes of citizens but have all been abolished as they were fundamentally unjust. The divide between naturalized citizens and native born citizens is still the law of the land and till we get rid of this and treat all citizens as one, we are not “one nation under God.”