Posted on 04/24/2013 6:53:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Not a single word in the 844-page "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act" introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and the "Gang of Eight" addresses the controversial practice of "birthright citizenship."
Birthright citizenship is the common description given to the automatic grant of U.S. citizenship to babies born in the U.S. regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. Many experts agree with the verdict of law professor Lino Graglia -- that the practice generates "perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."
The failure of Congress to confront the subject is nothing new. The "four pillars" of the reform framework floated by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham back in 2010 also avoided mention of the gaping "hole in the fence" created by the "magnet" of the birthright practice.
While Rubio touted the newest bipartisan proposal and appeared to "backtrack" on the border fence as illegals continue to climb over it, our government creates even more incentives for illegals to have children here. Besides potential ObamaCare benefits, many provisions in the Gang's new package increase the allure and impact of the birthright magnet.
Conservative columnist Ann Coulter penned a scathing analysis titled "If Rubio's Amnesty is So Great, Why is He Lying?" Near the end of her litany of damning facts and figures, Coulter wrote: "The children of illegal aliens become automatic citizens under our current insane interpretation of the 14th Amendment."
The insanity, however, goes beyond the "illegal" argument. Coulter noted statistics and dollars relating to the children of illegals; however, she didn't mention that the practice also awards citizenship to the babies of virtually anyone legally but temporarily present, including "birth tourists."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
That in itself disqualifies him from birthright citizenship as the 14th Amendment was written and intended to require "the complete jurisdiction thereof" of the U.S.
Sources: Judiciary Committee Chairman Trumbull, Senator Howard, originators of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause.
And so do they. They meet the legal requirements as well.
There is no requirement that your parents must be citizens in order to become a citizen of the US. None whatsoever. What you are proposing is to strip citizenship from certain citizens of the United States.
Actually, American law presumes that American citizenship prevails for those born in America.
And unfortunately for you - American law prevails for those born in America. They can exercise their British citizenship - but in situations where you have dual citizenship - the American law prevails. Every time.
The child is a citizen - by law of the United States.
According to what?
Cite it, specifically.
There is no need for American law to "prevail" as those born subject to another country's nationality law are not birthright citizens per the 14th Amendment as written and intended.
The Supreme Court has loosened the 14th Amendment's requirements somewhat in ruling that children born in the U.S. to parents who were permanently domiciled in the U.S. at the time of the child's birth also confers birthright citizenship. - U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark
Those born in the U.S. to a temporary resident alien are not legally born U.S. citizens at all, let alone natural born citizens.
That in itself disqualifies him from birthright citizenship as the 14th Amendment was written and intended to require "the complete jurisdiction thereof" of the U.S. Sources: Judiciary Committee Chairman Trumbull, Senator Howard, originators of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause.
How long will you people keep repeating things that aren't so?
There have been thousands, if not millions, of Americans born here from the founding of our country, that other countries gave citizenship at birth to as well.
I think there was even a freeper here whose grandmother or grandfather was from Italy, and by the laws of Italy that person was born an Italian citizen as well as a US one.
And it doesn't matter one damn bit.
As far as "subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof," when Trumbull said those words, who exactly was he talking about?
You never mention that, do you?
Was he talking about the children born here, in American society, of non-citizen parents?
No. ABSOLUTELY NOT.
He was speaking about INDIANS, who had been BORN IN INDIAN TRIBES.
Here's the entire quote:
Now, does the Senator from Wisconsin pretend to say that the Navajoe Indians are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? What do we mean by “complete jurisdiction thereof?” Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means. Can you sue a Navajoe Indian in court? Are they in any sense subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? By no means. We make treaties with them, and therefore they are not subject to our jurisdiction. If they were, we would not make treaties with them. If we want to control the Navajoes… Do we pass a law to control them? Are they subject to our jurisdiction in that sense?
This is what people who make the kinds of claims you're making do. Take a quote, strip it of its context, and make it say something that IT NEVER SAID IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Trumbull NEVER, EVER said that non-citizens living in our society were not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States," and he NEVER, EVER said that the children born here of non-citizen parents were anything other than natural-born US citizens.
In fact, he said the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you claim:
Trumbull: I should like to inquire of my friend from Pennsylvania, if the children of Chinese now born in this country are not citizens?
Cowan: I think not.
Trumbull: I understand that under the naturalization laws the children who are born here of parents who have not been naturalized are citizens. That is the law, as I understand it, at the present time. Is not the child born in this country of German parents a citizen? I am afraid we have got very few citizens in some of the counties of good old Pennsylvania if the children born of German parents are not citizens.
Cowan: The honorable Senator assumes that which is not the fact. The children of German parents are citizens; but Germans are not Chinese; Germans are not Australians, nor Hottentots, nor anything of the kind. That is the fallacy of his argument.
Trumbull: If the Senator from Pennsylvania will show me in the law any distinction made between the children of German parents and the children of Asiatic parents, I might be able to appreciate the point which he makes; but the law makes no such distinction; and the child of an Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child of a European.
Now he got it slightly wrong: It wasn't under the naturalization laws that such people were born citizens, but under the rule of citizenship that had always prevailed here. It was a matter of definition and of American common law.
But in general, he got it right: the children of immigrants are, and always were, natural born citizens.
Cite them.
I think there was even a freeper here whose grandmother or grandfather was from Italy, and by the laws of Italy that person was born an Italian citizen as well as a US one.
Such a person must APPLY for Italian citizenship. They do not automatically acquire it at birth as Obama acquired his British nationality automatically at birth.
Read Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs info on this. Scroll down to "Who can apply for Italian citizenship?"
http://www.esteri.it/MAE/EN/Ministero/Servizi/Sportello_Info/DomandeFrequenti/Cittadinanza/
Do we make treaties with the British? If so, Brits are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Obama was born a Brit.
Obama was born a Brit.
Fallacy. The children born here of non-citizen parents have always been US citizens. It doesn't matter whether another country also extends citizenship to them or not.
He had an American mother. But even if both of his parents had been un-naturalized British immigrants, and even if the laws of England therefore made him a British citizen by birth, he would still be a natural born US citizen.
You might not like that, but that's the way it is.
As far as "dual citizenship" is concerned, that doesn't matter either. 3 of our first 4 Presidents were dual citizens of France, while serving as President. Nobody cared.
Just as nobody cared when John Charles Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President, ran for the nation's highest office while proudly touting that he was the US-born son of a French citizen who never naturalized and never intended to.
As far as the point you're trying to make here, it's completely invalid.
Trumbull was clear that Indians born IN THE TRIBES were not subject to the full jurisdiction of the United States. They were PARTIALLY subject to US jurisdiction, because they were on United States land.
That's what the entire "subject to the complete jurisdiction" discussion was all about.
But Trumbull was equally clear that when those "wild Indians" left their tribes, their de facto separate nations, and came to dwell among the white man, in United States society, they BECAME subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States, and their children born in US society were citizens.
Similarly, the children of British people in Britain were not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States. In fact, they weren't subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at all.
But when British people came and lived among us, they became subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States, just as members of Indian tribes who came and lived among us became subject to our complete jurisdiction.
So I understand the argument you're trying to make here, but it's completely invalid.
Demonstrably false.
Secretary of State Frederick Frelinghuysen determined Ludwig Hausding, though born in the U.S., was not born a U.S. citizen because he was subject to a foreign power at birth having been born to a Saxon subject alien father.
Similarly, Secretary of State Thomas Bayard determined Richard Greisser, though born in Ohio, was not born a U.S. citizen because Greisser's father, too, was an alien, a German subject at the time of Greisser's birth. Bayard specifically stated that Greisser was at birth 'subject to a foreign power,' therefore not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
http://books.google.com/books?id=wdgxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Clearly NOT, as U.S. Secretaries of State have CONFIRMED what I've stated. See post 93.
In the late 1800s (1880s and 1890s) some US Secretaries of State began to increasingly deny citizenship to people who had been born here to alien parents and then left the country, mostly by being carried abroad as children. But as long as they stayed in the country, no one ever pretended they were anything but US citizens.
There were several examples of this, culminating in the case of Wong Kim Ark, who was denied reentry to the United States on the supposed grounds that he was not a US citizen.
Wong’s case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1898.
They decided that from the beginning of the country, the same rule had always applied. In fact, they decided that not only was the child born here of non-citizen immigrant parents himself born a citizen, it didn’t even matter whether his parents were themselves legally capable of ever becoming US citizens or not.
It was legally impossible for Wong’s parents ever to become US citizens. But Wong himself, born here, was a natural born US citizen.
And yes, that’s how it ALWAYS was, from the beginning of the country. That some Secretaries of State tried to change the rule, outside of law, in the 1880s and 1890s, doesn’t change what the law itself actually was.
The Supreme Court said, in essence, that those Secretaries of State were completely wrong about what “not subject to a foreign power” and “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” actually meant. And if you read the history, the law, and the debates in Congress on the Civil Rights Act and 14th Amendment - the US Supreme Court was absolutely correct.
So... NOT everyone born in the U.S. was a U.S. citizen.
And the reasons the Secretaries of State explicity gave for that was that such persons weren't U.S. citizens because they were born "'subject to a foreign power,' therefore not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States"
FACTS are a bi*ch, huh Jeff...
Here's what the Supreme Court actually said...
"The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative."
In the cases I cited, both men had alien fathers who were not permanently domiciled in the U.S.
Not everybody born in the US was a US citizen, but some or most of those particular people, legally speaking, actually were. Even if the State Department denied the fact.
This is according to the ancient rule of citizenship which the Court (accurately) told us had always applied.
People who were NOT US citizens included:
There's an argument to be made for children of illegal aliens and even of temporary visitors as well.
I think there's actually at least SOME argument to be made against people here on temporary visas. I think the argument is a weak one and would likely not stand. But I think there's enough wiggle-room in Wong Kim Ark that the argument could at least be MADE.
There is no longer any such wiggle room when it comes to the children of aliens who actually reside here.
And in Obama's case, he had a citizen mother. So there's no argument there. That's plenty. Like it or not, he's a natural born citizen.
[snip]Birthright Citizenship is the automatic granting of citizenship to children born within a nation’s borders or territories. The United States and Canada are the only developed nations in the world to still offer Birthright Citizenship to tourists and illegal aliens.
The following are among the nations repealing Birthright Citizenship in recent years:
* Australia (2007)
* New Zealand (2005)
* Ireland (2005)
* France (1993)
* India (1987)
* Malta (1989)
* UK (1983)
* Portugal (1981)
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/issues/birthright-citizenship/nations-granting-birthright-citizenship.html
PSSST!! They repealed it because it’s INSANITY!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.