Anchor babies, birthright citizenship, and the 14th Amendment

Colorado Alliiance for Immigration Reform ^ | unknown | unknown

[piytar]

Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."

[piytar]

Educate yourselves, Bill O'Reilly and various other bloviating dolts...

[Tennessee Nana]

Mark had a professor on tonight who laid it all out once and for all..

[taxcontrol]

This author articulates what they wish the current jurisprudence to be. However, that is not reality and as my father was fond of say “Wish in one hand, spit in the other and see which one fills up first.”

I don’t like birthright citizenship and would gladly support a repeal/replace of the 14th amendment. But anyone who thinks that the current SCOTUS, Congress, and President will do anything to change the current jurisprudence is simply fooling themselves .... and wishing in one hand.

[PubliusMM]

BOR’s repulsive bloviating on this subject, about which he is obviously ignorant, has nearly cost me a nice flat screen TV in the last couple of days.
Again, this evening, he put his penultimate ignorance on display for the FOX News world.
Of course, even Judge Napolitano is wrong on this one, so...

[familyop]

There are some verbose arguments against the Fourteenth Amendment, but they come from individuals whose parents or grandparents are from Cuba, or Germany around World War 2 or before. Those of you who want to turn our United States into Soviet Balkan Germanistan, get out of my country.

If you want to enforce existing laws against the flood of slave peasants and rich foreign tyrants, stick with that. Stop judicial activism. It comes from “der old country,” and it’s gone way too far. If you only want to come here for the money instead of becoming a real American, go away.

[ConservativeInPA]

All that is needed is a bill passed by congress and signed into law by the President. Text of law: “Childern born in America to a (certain class) are not citizens.” It works same way as current law for foreign diplomats, just fill in ‘certain class’ with ‘illegal aliens, foreign nations legally visiting etc’. The 14a doesn’t need to be touched.

[piytar]

What are you talking about? Did you read the article? Look into the SCOTUS cases? Clearly not.

I’m all for the 14th Amendment. I’m just against libs who read things into it that aren’t there for political convenience, kind of like libs who read things into the 2nd Amendment that weren’t there until that was settled by the SCOTUS in Keller et al.

[piytar]

EXACTLY!

[familyop]

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

To be subject to the jurisdiction of a defined area is to be subject to the laws and presiding courts of that area. Foreign visitors are subject to the laws of the United States and the state that they are visiting with a few exceptions (e.g., foreign diplomats).

The Law Dictionary
Featuring Black's Law
Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary 2nd Ed

Law Dictionary: What is JURISDICTION? definition of JURISDICTION (Black's Law Dictionary)

The power and authority constitutionally conferred upon (or constitutionally recognized as existing in) a court or judge to pronounce the sentence of the law, or to award the remedies provided by law, upon a state of facts, proved or ad- mitted, referred to the tribunal for decision, and authorized by law to be the subject of investigation or action by that tribunal, and in favor of or against persons (or a res) who present themselves, or who are brought, before the court in some manner sanctioned by law as proper and sufficient. 1 Black, Judgm.

[piytar]

Not what the term meant when the Amendment was proposed and passed per the Congressional record. Sorry, not going to spend more time arguing against willful ignorance.

[piytar]

Apologies. That was overly harsh. Let’s agree that we disagree and leave it to the scholars and bloviators to settle.

[Swordmaker]

All that is needed is a bill passed by congress and signed into law by the President. Text of law: “Childern born in America to a (certain class) are not citizens.” It works same way as current law for foreign diplomats, just fill in ‘certain class’ with ‘illegal aliens, foreign nations legally visiting etc’. The 14a doesn’t need to be touched.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

Many people are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and of the State wherein they reside yet are NOT citizens. . . so ergo just being born here does not make one a citizen. The people who claim so are ignoring the inclusive clause of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", which does not include resident or non-resident aliens per the author of the Amendment.

Actually, it doesn't even require that. The law is currently being flouted by the Executive Branch (the Department of State) in that it is ignoring the actually wording of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. If this were not so, why would there be a need of a qualifying clause obviously intended to limit the sweeping nature of the previous clause in that sentence? Since it did not specify who was excluded, it must include only those that are included, those NATURAL Citizens already born there of current citizens who can confer citizenship and those who become legally Naturalized Citizens, no one else.

The Anchor Baby fait accompli was a decision of some nameless bureaucratic nobodies in the State Department that has had countless expensive policy and societal repercussions down through many years. . . a decision that whoever it was that made it had no power and no authority under law to make, but did anyway and NO ONE CHALLENGED IT!

All it would actually take is an Executive Order from the President of the United States for employees of the State Department to follow the 14th Amendment AS WRITTEN and apply the law as written. . . and that children born to persons within the borders of the United States who are not subject to the Jurisdiction thereof, meaning who do not owe allegiance to The United States of America, are not automatically citizens of the United States of America and would be natural and regular citizens or subjects of the nation to which their parents own allegiance.

To become citizens of the United States of America, they would have to apply for naturalized status. That Executive Order should further provide an instruction to Congress that such children who were born here and assumed to be citizens, educated here, and have lived in the US for all of their lives, should be fast-tracked for naturalization, as should their children. . . however, that most certainly is the province of Congress and a new law to handle, not an executive order.

[Swordmaker]

To be subject to the jurisdiction of a defined area is to be subject to the laws and presiding courts of that area. Foreign visitors are subject to the laws of the United States and the state that they are visiting with a few exceptions (e.g., foreign diplomats).

Are illegal Aliens who break our laws to get here to drop a baby, subject to the laws they break to drop that baby? Not unless they've agreed to do it. They are subject to the laws of their home country. The author of the 14th Amendment said that it did NOT include American Indians who were subject to their Tribal Laws, or visiting aliens who are here on visas, because they are subject to the jurisdiction of their home nations . . . so why would it apply to an alien who slipped through the border who is also still subject to their home nations?

Why is does the first sentence of the 14th Amendment have that limiting clause "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" which limits the first clause?

Everyone within the area inside the borders except Diplomats is covered without that clause. . . so why include it? Every visiting alien can be arrested under the jurisdiction of the criminal law and sued under jurisdiction of civil law, but that doesn't make them Citizens.

There's a reason why that clause was included. The reason is that there are people within the jurisdiction who ARE NOT subject to the jurisdiction by the definition of "Jurisdiction" at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified during 1866-1868, not what it means today, who were not citizens and who could not confer citizenship by giving birth to their offspring.

Consider to what we pledge allegiance, that is part of what jurisdiction meant then.

[Texas Patriot61]

Exactly right!

[SkyDancer]

They’re invader babies, like aliens in a science fiction movie; they come in to assimilate and blend in, then take over. The only people left in Mexico are drug czars and politicians. Okay, the military too.

[LibertyOh]

While Black’s Law is interesting, it is not controlling. The problem we have is lack of a Supreme Court ruling on the matter (closest case was from the 1800’s finding citizenship for a child born to permanent residents here legally).

There are a couple of ways to solve the problem. A Supreme Court decision properly construing “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as being born to parents lawfully residing in the country (or more narrowly to at least one citizen parent) based on the understanding of those terms at the time the amendment was passed. Alternatively, Congress could pass a law clarifying what being subject to jurisdiction means for purposes of the 14th amendment and citizenship.

There are other examples of rules that need clarification. For example, with respect to who has to pay taxes - see 31 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Section 515.329:

§ 515.329 Person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
The term person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States includes:
(a) Any individual, wherever located, who is a citizen or resident of the United States;
(b) Any person within the United States as defined in § 515.330;
(c) Any corporation, partnership, association, or other organization organized under the laws of the United States or of any State, territory, possession, or district of the United States; and
(d) Any corporation, partnership, association, or other organization, wherever organized or doing business, that is owned or controlled by persons specified in paragraphs (a) or (c) of this section.]
[50 FR 27437, July 3, 1985, as amended at 68 FR 14145, Mar. 24, 2003]

A new president could through a rule change solve the problem with the rules/regulations by further clarifying subject to tax authority.

[etcb]

To be subject to the jurisdiction of a defined area is to be subject to the laws and presiding courts of that area. Foreign visitors are subject to the laws of the United States and the state that they are visiting with a few exceptions (e.g., foreign diplomats).

This issue is not likely to be resolved any time soon but it does provide for an interesting discussion. I was thinking about your argument that aliens are subject to the presiding courts but, doesn't the term "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" refer not just to the courts but to the United States as a nation and the states as a sovereign entity.

The reason I mention this is that I can think of several obligation imposed by both the United States and the various states on citizens subject to full jurisdiction that are not imposed on illegal aliens or casual visitors. Included in these obligation are registration for the military draft, reporting income earned outside the United States, presenting a passport prior to traveling outside the United States, serving on juries, both state and federal, obtaining a social security number prior to a given age, compulsory education and several others. In addition there are the matters prohibited to illegal aliens and visitors such as voting, holding elective office, serving in certain professions and several others.

My point is that jurisdiction as expressed in the 14th amendment does not seem to be confined to relationship to the judiciary. Citizenship is full lifetime membership in a nation. Members can pass that blessing on to their children without restriction but the membership reserves the right, through their congress, to determine who and how many others to admit to membership.

[familyop]

"This issue is not likely to be resolved any time soon..."

As the issue is publicized enough, it will be resolved soon. In my opinion, political efforts would best be spent toward cutting government spending to avert repudiations and collapse, especially for the sakes of the 40 million or so self-described conservative political folks dependent on such spending.

But people like me won't slow the bandwagon of personalities down. On the contrary, the machine appears to be reacting contrarily.

[Scrambler Bob]

So when El Chappo sends his wife over the border to drop a kid, we can tax his profits?

Give up the kid’s citizenship, or pay.