Back to the Days of Christopher Robin, When He Came and Went as He Pleased

     If you would, read the Constitution -- thoughtfully and carefully. If you do, you just might question whether it grants any authority to restrict immigration. Now, shouldn't it -- the Constitution -- be our authority on immigration?

    Shouldn't it be our guide in defining who gets to stay and who doesn't?

    It does talk about naturalization. In Article I, Section 8, in enumerating the powers of Congress, it spells out that the federal government has authority, "to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization."

     So, we should ask: Is "naturalization" the very same thing as "immigration"? Are the two terms identical? Are they interchangeable? Or, do they have two different meanings because they are two different words? Are they complete synonyms? Are they? Or, does "naturalization" refer only to the process of granting citizenship once people arrive -- with no restriction on whether they arrive? 

   

    And -- this is key -- does the fact the Constitution uses the word "naturalization" instead of "immigration" or "migration" suggest the founding fathers were well aware people were coming of their own free will, without government restriction?

  
   This has got to be interesting.

   Simply said, naturalization is the process by which those born abroad are granted equal status with those born here. Naturalization does not mean you need authority to come, it means here is how you earn the honor of being titled a citizen once you do get here.

  

   Two things to cement what I'm saying. One) The Declaration of Independence lists refusal of the king to allow free immigration as one of the reasons we went to war in the first place. Read it. It's in there. Two) The first Congress of the United States quickly spelled out what needed to be done to become a U.S. Citizen. The Constitution had said they hadthe authority to "establish a Rule of Naturalization," and so they did exactly that.

   You needed to be a free white person with good character and you needed to have established yourself by being here two years. While we certainly don't like the part allowing for slavery, the bottom line is that they said one of the requisites for citizenship is that, after arriving, you needed to stay here two years in order to earn your citizenship.

   It said nothing at all about deportation. It didn't suggest it, and it didn't infer it.

   Maybe we should go back to doing things the way the founding fathers set them up. Would that be asking too much?