Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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The following from the Fort Worth Star Telegram of Mar 10. 2003
under the byline of Adrianna Torrez:
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Mexican immigrants participating in a forum Sunday issued a resolution demanding the right to vote from abroad, probably by the next presidential election in 2006. In a resolution that is expected to be presented to their country's congress the participants also asked Mexican political parties to include Mexicans living abroad among candidates for office. They also supported a bill repealing the deadline for those wishing to reinstate their Mexican citizenship if they adopte3d a new one before 1996.
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So much for assimilating our Mexican immigrants

The article goes on to state that the meeting was sponsored by
various US government agencies and a number of "community groups".

One of the Mexicans said "Although we live here we still contribute there....We have rights" spoken like a true American.

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oxsan


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Registered: Jul 2000
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that's...just odd.

but i guess i can see their point. many of them probably still have entire families living in mexico and want to ensure that they're taken care of by their government.

but it's still odd.

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Registered: Aug 2001
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Give them US citizenship and insist that they give up Mexican citizenship, then (in fact, I think that the US does insist that you give up any other passports when you take on US citizenship already; apparently a lot of US Jews vote in Israel though, and some Israelis vote in the US elections, precisely because they have retained two passports, so I guess that in practice it is unenforcable).

Otherwise all other aliens in the US are going to be eligible to vote in their domestic elections. Americans abroad can vote in the US elections by post, I thought?

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If these guys are green card holders, then they are still mexican citizens, so their government ought to give them the right to vote. If they are illegal immigrants, then they can still vote in Mexico, obviously, although I am not sure why the US government would be encouraging Mexico to do it for those people.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Americans living abroad can vote absentee if they are american citizens but there is a lot of formality to it and it is a bit of a problem to accomplish. If however they have accepted the citizenship of another country they automatically lose their American citizenship. The US does not recognize dual citizenship. I will be the first to admit though that this is all theoretical because our state department and the INS are as useless as tits on a boar hog. They will never find out that you have accepted
citizenship of another country---nor will they find out anything about anything. I know numbers of Brits in the US who have become US citizens and renounced their UK citizenship at the naturalization service but who still retain their
British passports and travel on which ever one pleases them.
For various reasons I have had as many as three different passports at one time all in the same name and no one ever questioned it. UK as I understand it takes the position"Once a Brit always a Brit". I think Israelis feel the same way.

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As I understand it, although the US might insist that you are a US citizen only, no other country is going to give them details of who holds their passports (and quite right too!) so it will be impossible to enforce. I think that there are a number of countries who refuse to recognise dual nationality, all with little effect, I gather. As you say, I think that the UK government don't mind dual nationaility, although I am pretty sure that you can renounce your nationality (so they won't always consider you to be British, if you do that) but you don't automatically lose UK citizenship when you take up another citizenship.

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I don't see a problem with that. I was just talking to a Chinese guy at the office who is here on a work visa, hoping for a green card. He was saying that he likes it here, but that if the government in China wasn't such a bunch of douchebags, he'd move back.

I don't fault him for getting the hell out of there and hanging out here. He's contributing while he's here. If he were able to work to improve life in China, from here, to the extent that he decided to move back, then I'd be pretty happy with the role we played in the process.

Of course, he's not Mexican. That's different.

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The US and UK had a little war about this very question once in 1812. The British government claimed dominance of the seas and the right to search any US ship commercial or military--or any other nation's ships and remove any person from that ship that they "thought" might be or have ever been a citizen of the UK regardless of what documentation he possessed to the effect that he was a citizen of the US or whatever other country. The last Battle of that little War was fought at New Orleans with Andrew Jackson commanding for the US and the Duke of Wellington's brother-in-law Edward Packenham commanding for the British. They were not aware that the war had been over for three days. The Treaty which ended that War states unequivocally that UK will honor the documentation of U.S. citizenship and will acknowledge that the seas are a free and open international waterway. Which they have done BTW.

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But Cage would you allow the Chinese to come over here and grab your Chinaman and trasnsport him back to the Chinese Army? The British were impressing people off the streets of New York City in early 1812.. They had the mightiestr Navy in the World and we had something like three frigates. WE built a Navy pretty quick though with new=builds and with captured British ships.

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I read that in fact the ability of the British to grab anyone on the high seas and impress them into the navy was actually repealed before the war of 1812 was declared, but that it wasn't really the only reason that the war was imminent anyway. The US declared war in any case.

The most important part of the treaty, as far as I am aware, was that borders would remain as they were prior to the declaration of war by the US.

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There were lots of other reasons for the war; for example, the British were supporting native urprisings against the Americans, the Americans were supplying our enemies, the French. The really important battle (that saved the US from ending up worse off than it started the war) was the naval battle of Plattsburgh, I read, which for reasons of supply lines ended the serious British advance into America that was in progress at the time. New Orleans was interesting as a battle and a great victory for the US side, but not relevant to the war itself. I also read that the only really significant thing about the whole war (apart from it giving Canadians a reason to laugh at Americans for ever after 3 US invasions of Canada failed) was that it killed the Federalist movement in New England, which might have led to secession of 7 states from the US.

Most of this is from memory, though; I looked up loads of this stuff a while back but couldn't find any of those links this time around.

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Hmm, according to encyclopedia.com US neutral rights were recognised in 1812 just before the declaration of war (finally honouring an agreement dating from 1809 that had been blocked by a change or personnel within the British government), so that US sailors couldn't be impressed anymore anyway. Encyclopedia.com also says that the peace treaty that ended the war (the treaty of Ghent) did not in fact deal with neutral rights and impressment, either.

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Well Smug left out the three most important facts of the War of 1812 which were:

The Brits landed at Baltimore and marched down to Washington and burned down our pretty Whitehouse and we had to build another.

The War of 1812 made us just cockier than hell and we set out to conquer the North American Continent

We became a great Naval Power that we would not otherwise have beenI think that the War of 1812 was the last time that a foreign nation invaded US Continental soil until 9-11-01.

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I was being gentlemanly not mentioning the burning of the Whitehouse. Or the genocide of the Native Americans that followed the war. The US navy was pretty sucessful as long as they weren't far out to sea anyway; Plattsburgh was what saved the US from a potentially nastier invasion (that and that bastard Napoleon; I hope that the Americans are suitably grateful to those doughty Frenchmen).

If the WTC attack was an invasion by a foreign power (which I dispute) then the earlier attempt to blow up the WTC was, too.

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"The US Navy was pretty successful as long as theu werem't too far ouit to sea anyway. "

Smug wrote something like above.

Yea verily, Smug, when John Paul Jones sailed round the island of England and captured an English frigate he sailed very close to shore. No guts that one. JPJ that is.

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It was the Brits first introduced small pox knowingly to the Natives here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
[BJones sailed round the island of England and captured an English frigate he sailed very close to shore. No guts that one. JPJ that is. [/B]

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Last edited by Smug Git on 03-12-2003 at 06:50 AM

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I don't think that we 'merkins can discuss our Indian Policy with either a straight face or a sense of a job well done. It was incoherent, dishonest, illegal, rife with corruption and expressed an ignorance of the Indian culture which was monumental. We didn't do them right. Neither did the Spanish before us. Generally speaking the French were the most sensible and sensitive to the
Indians.

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Amen.

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quote:

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You will even see people crediting the War of 1812 with providing the impetus westwards. (stealing Canada didn't work so lets steal from the Indians) in the quest for land and wealth. Lebensraum perhaps.

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Strangely, I don't find the US character to be significantly different to that of the UK, which is to say that, both put in the same environment, I don't think that UK and US people are terribly different (unless that environment is a fast food restaurant). There are probably other countries that are similar, too, I reckon.

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That is the first time I ever heard a Limey say "I reckon".

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