The UnConstitutionality of Citizenship by Birth to Non-Americans

Immigration News ^ | February 1, 2005 | P.A. Madison

[Founding Father]

Wake up Scalia, Thomas, etc.

[savedbygrace]

To study later. Sounds intriguing.

[Andy from Beaverton]

My grandma was born in Oregon City in the 1890's. She married a citizen of Germany in the early 20's. She lost her citizenship and had to reapply during WWII in order to get food rations during the war.

[Ahban]

Great catch

[dagnabbit]

You presume we still have a constitution, when what we really have now are just some fancy old papers, used primarily as tea cozies by the members of our Supreme Super-Legislature.

[Sterco]

Imagine the clowns on the ninth circus court will have their own interpetation.

[Publius6961]

This, to me, seems clear enough and beyond any argument; how any court could twist the meaning to mean the direct opposite should be a fascinating story:

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.

[Mgm3com]

What if one of the parents is a citizen and the other is not but the child is born in the U.S., is the child then an American Citizen or not?

[Publius6961]

Do any legal types out there have a clue as to what court decision established that the children of the persons actually listed could claim citizenship?
Although, clearly, that was not the intent.

[eno_]

Well now. This is almost as big as the Commerce Clause abuse we have suffered since FDR's court stacking coup against the Constitution.

[middie]

What a large cache of foolish clap-trap. The doctrine is not only well settled, it makes perfectly sound jurisprudental sense. Your tortured interpetation is so far afield that is not capable of a reasoned discussion. Irrational premises cannot be debated rationally.

[Congressman Billybob]

I put this precise point in my column this week. I also pointed out that Congress has the power, now, to cure the problem of "anchor babies" by legislation.

Citizenship by alien birth in the US geographically does NOT have to wait for a cure from the Supreme Court. It can be done by Congress. Click below for examples.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Double Crossing at the Rio Grande II."

[eno_]

Can you clarify which way you stand on this issue?

[Congressman Billybob]

You are off base. The way that Congress can solve this problem by legislation is in my column. Read that, and report back.

John / Billybob

[Sterco]

Excuse me? Are you saying the child of someone who has crossed our border illegally as in the manner of invasion should automatically be a US citizen. To me that is the most absurd notion that I can think of. The founding fathers were thinking of this issue when the issue was addressed. They always rewarded those breaking our laws in the Constitution didn't you know that?

[Publius6961]

Namecalling is cute but inconclusive and useless.
Can you provide any facts to support your namecalling?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

While I agree with your desire to not have citizenship be granted in so arbitrary a manner as it is now, unfortunately, the 14th amendment does not put any such restrictions on citizenship. The framers of the 14th amendment may have WANTED to bar the children of non-citizens to automatically become citizens upon birth here, that may have been their intent, but they didn't write it into the amendment itself. All it says is, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside". There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity; if you are born here you are a citizen. If the writers of the amendment were so strongly for barring foreigner's children from becoming automatic citizens, they should have made that explicit. They didn't. What is needed is an amendment that actually clarifies this point.

[Publius6961]

...it makes perfectly sound jurisprudental sense.

Not to everyone, apparently.
Other than knowing big words, can you explain how and why it makes "perfectly sound jurisprudental sense"?

Hint: circular reasoning won't work for this one. What is the end and what is the means?

[tenuredprof]

I don't normally like to weigh in on such matters without thinking them through first, but let's not write this one off too quickly. The key language, it seems to me, is the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." As the materials in the original post indicate, everyone in the United States, whether here legally or illegally, is in some sense "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." That is, there is a purely territorial element to governmental jurisdiction. If that is the sense in which the Fourteenth Amendment uses the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," the phrase is utterly pointless. If it means anything else, the most plausible meaning may well be something like "subject to full jurisdiction." On the other hand, it also seems unlikely that only children of citizens are automatically citizens, because it would have been very easy to use the word "citizens" in that context.

The Fourteenth Amendment was a botch-job of major proportions, and this may be one more example of that principle. Bottom line: don't make hasty assumptions in either direction on this point.

[TheOracleAtLilac]

Thank Ted Kennedy.

1965 Immigration Reform Act