Meme Analysis: Bobby Jindal and Birthright Citizenship

On August 17, Republican Presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal tweeted:

Nice. The internet responded with this meme:

The meme, however, has some problems.

First, as you can see from the tweet, Jindal didn’t use the phrase “anchor babies.” It distorts his words, which really don’t need embellishment.

Next, the facts. Jindal’s parents, Amar and Ray, did move to the United States four months before his birth. And they were noncitizens when he was born. But they were not “illegal immigrants,” which is the population whose access to birthright citizenship Jindal would like to restrict.

Also, Jindal’s parents could not have used Jindal’s citizenship “to become Americans” because his mother became a citizen in 1986, five years after Jindal’s birth, and his father became a citizen in 1986, when Jindal was just 15. As readers know, a USC must be 21 in order to sponsor noncitizen parents.

Perhaps the meme is meant in a less lawyerly, more loose context. Maybe the argument is that Jindal’s birthright citizenship helped support his parents’ applications for naturalization in some way. But I don’t think that’s the true message.

When there are such fertile legal and factual grounds to challenge a candidate’s position on the issues, I hate to see folks get carried away.

-KitJ