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ANCHOR BABIES Continued from page 8
The Pew Hispanic Center corroborates this. It found that only 9 percent of undocumented women who’ve given birth have recently crossed into the U.S. Sixty percent arrived before 2004, and 30 percent between 2004 and 2007. Tara Manthey is spokesperson for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in Little Rock. She says denying babies an American birthright poses a certain danger. “We are concerned that if a fundamental right like having citizenship at birth is taken away, you would have a very large population of children who are children without a nation,” she said. “They would live on the outside margins of society, would be subject to exploitation, or deportation to a country they’ve never known, not get an education, or access to preventive services, possibly becoming ill, and not being able to help our economy and country move ahead when they are adults.” Under an amended birthright citizenship law, if at least one parent is legal, the infant will be as well. Nationwide, the number of children born to at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent in 2009 was 350,000 — 8 percent of all U.S. newborns. It’s been several months since the birthright citizenship bill has been considered, what with more pressing congressional issues — the federal budget, deficit reductions, unrest in the Middle East. But once the immigration debate resurfaces, Americans will be given an opportunity to study up on birthright citizenship as stated in the 14th amendment: “All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” That middle clause — “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — has divided both politicians and constitutional scholars. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to protect the civil liberties of freed slaves. Thirty years later the U.S. Supreme Court considered the provision and found it indeed provides citizenship to a child born to immigrant parents. But now, lawmakers in a dozen states seek to end birthright citizenship. On March 17, Arizona lawmakers, the first to try, voted against two birthrightcitizenship bills. According to the Arizona Republic, state Democrats stood in opposition with Republicans being divided. If enacted, Arizona-born babies would be naturalized as citizens of the state and U.S. only if at least one of their parents were either a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent U.S. resident. But even if a bill passes, any repeal will likely end up back in the U.S. Supreme Court. This article is drawn from a piece the writer first reported on KUAF-FM.
INSIDER
Continued from page 3 has choked off the flow of Diamond Bear’s bottled brews to retailers. Russ Melton, president of Diamond Bear, said the company has been struggling since late January to sort out problems with a more sophisticated bottling machine. Though they plan to start putting out bottled product at full bore again this week, the ensuing beer drought has been bad enough that Diamond Bear sent a letter to stores and other distributors, explaining why they couldn’t supply them with bottled beer. Melton said their old bottler could fill and seal 60 bottles a minute. Their new bottler
has the potential to churn out 300 a minute, while allowing less air into the bottle that could affect shelf-life and taste. Melton said they had planned to buy the bottler just before they were ready to move to North Little Rock, but it was a situation where they either had to purchase the used machine now or lose the opportunity. Given that, they went ahead and bought it, then moved it to their current space on South Cross Street in Little Rock. “When [the new bottler] was moved, it wasn’t properly secured,” Melton said. “That, in addition to its complexity, just made it a difficult start-up ... it’s like going from a biplane to a Phantom jet.” On the plus side, Melton said that last month was their best month ever for draft
beer sales, and the major kinks with the new bottler have been worked out.
ASU buys in Chenal
The Arkansas State University Board of Trustees has purchased a home at 4 Lacelle Court in Chenal for new ASU system president Dr. Charles “Chuck” Welch. The board paid $750,000 to Steven L. and Theresa Middleton. The board announced in January it would buy a house in Little Rock for the system president. An opinion piece in the Herald, the ASU student newspaper, in February criticized the move, quoting students who said Welch would not be actively engaged in the Jonesboro campus or community if he lived in Little Rock.
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