Birthright Citizenship Should Be Abolished In The US.

Thanks. I'll firs present my own case, then, character permitting, refute yours. ==My case==Framework:Obs 1: You can only eliminate a policy if you have a viable alternative, so it isn't enough to merely show birthright citizenship to be bad, but my opponent must also show another system to be good. Further, all advantages he offers must be unique to abolishing birthright citizenship, or else I can just solve the problem by other means. Non unique advantages should be ignored because they can, by defintion, be achieved in a simpler or less damaging way. Obs 2: I am not obligated to defend the status quo, I must only defend the basic principle of birthright citizenship, because other harmful or adverse effects can be solved using other means. Nonetheless, if both of us refute eachothers contentions you vote Con because Con is the status quo. Contention one: The slippery slopeConsider the concept of legitimacy; all governments can only perform actions if their ability to do so is viewed as legitimate by the majority of their people. For example, if the U.S. governments ability to collect taxes lost it's legitimacy and the entire population refused to pay taxes there would be little if anything the government could do about it. Likewise, governments cannot undertake actions if it doesn't have the legitimate ability to do so. How does this relate the birthright citizenship? To abolish the institution would require an amendment to the constitution, either revoking or changing the 14th. In the past, the government has nly amended the constitution in the face of turmoil and public distress, and most if not all of those amendments were to give more rights to the people. Doing the opposite, taking away rights from a large subset of the population, legitimitizes governmental authority to change the constitution on a whim, and places every constitutional right in danger. My opponent has made no impact substaintial enough to warrant a change in our fundamental law, immigration is nowhere near significant enough to justify this. Reason magezine reports[1]: "Actual instances of “birth tourism,” where moms expressly came here to deliver babies on American soil, accounted for about two-tenths of 1 percent of all births in 2006. And most of these moms were not poor, illegal Hispanics—Smith’s target group. They were rich Chinese moms on tourist visas." 0.2% of all births does not warrant an amendment. Contention two: JusticeLet's consider what happens when we abolish Birthright Citizenship. To assume that it will make the illegals go home is woefully ignorant; what will happen is that we have a group of people who were born and raised in the U.S., followed it's laws, and become a part of its culture who are not citizens. When they become adults and apply for jobs or colleges, their illegal status will be discovered and they will be deported and sent "home" to a country they've never lived in and they know nothing about. The only way for them to avoid this would be to work in jobs that traditionally belong to the illegal population such as low paying construction or janatorial positions, which would create a permenant under class and stamps out any chance of success that these individuals may have had. It is fundamentally unjust to force someone out of their home without good reason, and simply not having the proper papers cannot warrant forcing someone off of their private property. My Opponent must prove:A. Birthright citizenship has multiple unique disadvantages that outwiegh any harms of a new system and the harm of implementing that system. B. Abolishing birthright citizenship will lead to his alternative and C. Birthright citizenship is a problem that warrants a change in the constitution.==Opponents case==1. CheatingThis contention shows a misunderstanding of immigration policy. First, a citizen can only sponsor their parents to be citizens when they turn 18[2], so the argument that " Birthright citizenship gives illegal immigrants a motive for cheating the system and finding way to become legalized citizens" is fundamentally flawed. My opponent has given no empirics on how much faster someone could become a citizen with a citizen child than someone without one, the reasn for this is because there is little to no difference. Pros impact is quite simply non existent, there is a reason that politfact states that having a child in order to gain citizenship would be "an extremely long-term, and uncertain, process."[3]Further, he's given you no theoretical why this is wrong; presuming that legal immigration is good, he doesn't tell you why illegal immigration is bad. No doubt, laws have been unjust before, so merely saying that one form of immigration is legal and the other isn't makes no moral difference; despite all the anti-illegal rhetoric, I've yet to see any reason to throw out these immigrants because they didn't jump through certain bureaucratic loopholes. 2. JusticeMy Opponents second point is all just rhetoric. The only person who benefits from birthright citizenship is the child themselves, who's done nothing wrong anyway. My opponents argument operates under the assumptions that A). Anchor babies give their parents citizenship, B) This is unfair and wrong, and C) This keeps legal immgrants from coming in. A & B have already been demonstrated as false, and C has no warrant or card backing it up. Theres no reason to believe that birthright citizenship will lead to less legal immigrants, and recall further that my opponent hasn't drawn any moral distinction between legal and illegal immigration. 3. Not planned This is irrelevant. The original meaning of the document doesn't matter, it's the current interpretation that does. My opponent hasn't even explained why the children of non citizens weren't considered in the amendment or given any card in support of this assertation, probably because they were. If the framers had indended it to only apply to free slaves and their children, they would have clarified that. The framers had a compelling interest in ensuring that no class/ethnicity living in the United States would ever be ostracized as non-citizens and discriminated against. The historical intent of the 14th amendment is much closer to the current interpretation of it than my opponents ideo of it is.Therefore you vote Con.1. http://reason.com...2. http://en.wikipedia.org...3. Ibid