April 28, 2003
Memo From Mexico, By
Allan Wall
My Two Sons And The National Question
My two sons, David Albert and
Raphael Alfred, were born in Mexico. David was born on
July 8th, 1999, and Raphael on August 14th,
2002. (click here to see what they look like.)
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.
