Should US citizens be required to carry passports within the US?

One morning we were driving around the American town where hubby was born and raised, when he realized that all the identification he was carrying on him was foreign. Our car was registered to Ontario, our driver licences were from Ontario, and he had absolutely no proof that he was an American citizen. Come on, no one thinks to carry a passport when you’re going to get coffee and donuts. I’ve traveled all over Europe, and if I was not crossing a border, I kept my passport back at the hotel for safekeeping.

As anti-immigrant hysteria sweeps the US, more and more states are passing laws similar to Arizona’s draconian SB1070. This law requires the local police force to ask for US identification and proof of legal residence if they have any reason to interact with you. In hubby’s case, in the absence of proof of lawful presence in the US would require the police to report him to Homeland Security for immediate removal to an Immigrant Detention Center. How ironic that he could be arrested and detained by immigration authorities in the town he was born and raised in.

Now obviously we can produce a US passport for him, but immigration authorities will still incarcerate him pending presentation of that document.

It is only a matter of time before all states have passed their own form of SB1070 and more and more US citizens and legal immigrants will be detained.

For the first time hubby felt like an outsider in the town where he was born and raised.

Will my US born sons be stripped of their US citizenship?

Birthright citizenship looms as the next big immigration battle in the US. Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the father of the anti-immigrant bill SB 1070, has a new target in his cross hairs. "Anchor babies," the ugly epithet used to label children born of undocumented immigrants. He has even stated that an anchor baby is a baby born to a mother who is not a U.S. citizen at the time of the child’s birth. Note the word “mother”. Senator Pearce states that only non-US citizen mothers "drop anchor babies", and that fathers do not. My sons' US born father does not matter to Senator Pearce.

My children may be considered anchor babies, depending on how this legislation is written, since I was not a US citizen at the time my children were born. Does it matter that I was a “legal immigrant” the entire time I resided in the United States? It should! However, this immigrant hysteria has blurred the line between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants. Read this article "In any case, the proposal to abolish birthright citizenship also importantly applies to documented immigrants, even green card holders. So even children of fully legal immigrants should not, according to the bill, become citizens either."

Or read this article: "Birthright citizenship. Anchor babies. Both terms refer to the automatic conferring of American citizenship on any child born in the United States to an illegal immigrant or non-citizen mother which must be stopped".

The words "non-citizen mother" mean my children are considered anchor babies, and this puts them at risk of being stripped of their US citizenship.

I have followed this legislation closely. It all comes down to semantics.

The key phrase that this legislation hinges on is whether or not the mother was “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Sometimes the phrase “illegal immigrant” mother is used, and other times the words “non-citizen” mother is used. They are not interchangeable. If the legislation rolls as currently worded with “non-citizen” mother, then my sons are affected and may be stripped of their US citizenship and their birth certificates could be cancelled, while their mother is now a US citizen since she naturalized after they were born. This would be ironic!

Should birthright citizenship be abolished, it will create a new set of (through no fault of their own) stateless people who were born in the US. This is just heartless!

This immigrant hysteria is a big reason why I got my family out of the US.

As an immigrant I just didn't belong there.

Meanwhile, my (US citizen) immigrant husband has been living in Canada for 4 months now, and Canadians have made him very welcome.