this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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So, it would be a false declaration, is my point. So he'd still be an illegal alien, just naturalised by fraud.
Is it fraud though? Not necessarily... You could just say "I found this baby, and now it's mine", and if it's young enough it'll get birthright citizenship
But this is mostly splitting hairs... But more fundamentally, I don't believe people can be illegal for existing, so I'm never going to say someone is.
But would Superman get deported if they knew his history? MAGA people are saying they'd deport Jesus if he didn't come in "the right way", you tell me
There is lies by omission. I've never found an extraterrestrial child and made a declaration to get them citizenship and adopt them, but I'd imagine the process isn't just based on trust. Otherwise, there would be no kids needing to normalise their status. All would just get 'adopted' by a citizen at a young age.
It's not meant to be an issue due to birthright citizenship and natural born etc, however. My recollection of the original movie is they found him in his spaceship. In Smallville, the spaceship was hidden in their barn. I think they told people in town he was from Martha's family elsewhere and they adopted him. I don't fully recall, but there was definitely subterfuge. I don't know what the comic said. I don't think they would go into the beurocracy of the adoption process, either way, but having gone through it in real life, I can tell you that it's long and slow with lots of checks and paperwork.
My point is that not only is he an immigrant, he's likely an illegal immigrant under false pretense.
How can a baby give false pretense though?
If you find a baby in a field (hiding the spaceship, let's just leave that quiet), what happens next?
A baby cannot bear false witness... It's a baby. The parents can, but that doesn't necessarily affect the baby's citizenship status
Trade it out for the assumed situation...a Kansas teen gave birth to the kid and left him in a field. This is an American with no documentation... But they're assumed to be legit by their age. And so they get documentation
And yeah, Superman doesn't match that situation exactly, but it looks the same from the outside. The state won't know the difference
Ultimately, there are no illegal people. All these roles are made up.... People live where they live. The system is the problem, not the people
I'm saying that to formally adopt him and to formally grant citizenship, lots of paperwork would need to be done. Some of that would require lies, so although the baby might not have lied, the Kent's would have.
First thing with a child found without parents would be to call the police. They would look for identification or signs of the parents where found. Oh, spaceship!