Posted on 08/18/2015 6:39:22 AM PDT by xzins
Critics claim that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are here illegally. But that ignores the text and legislative history of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 to extend citizenship to freed slaves and their children.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That second conditional phrase is conveniently misinterpreted by advocates of “birthright” citizenship.
Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike.
But that is not what that phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.
Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included not owing allegiance to any other country.
Federal law offers them no help either. U.S. immigration law (8 U.S.C. § 1401) simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment, including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The State Department has interpreted that statute to provide passports to anyone regardless of whether their parents are here illegally ... birthright citizenship has been implemented by executive fiat, not because it is required by federal law or the Constitution.
We are only one of a very small number of countries that provides birthright citizenship, and we do so based upon an erroneous executive interpretation. Congress should clarify the law according to the original meaning of the 14th Amendment and reverse this practice.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
See Post 97.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen this article before.
Pretty clear.
Thank you for clarifying how the SCOTUS has ruled on this.
FWIW, from a practical standpoint I see no way a majority of Americans will ever support the deportation of American citizens because their parents came here illegally. We might be able to get a law passed that stops birthright citizenship from the date of passage forward, but you can bet the courts would rule against it.
Indeed, dear Hostage: That is the very problem. It seems this question has been kept "open" until now.
But it definitely needs to be addressed, before the United States is bankrupted because having to pay for an influx of people from anywhere and everywhere who do not care a fig for American values and principles (indeed, may even be actively hostile to them), a great many of whom cannot even write their own name, who would destroy our Republic from within, economically, socially, culturally. These people come from cultures of poverty and ignorance, mostly looking for a better life.
Yet as much empathy and sympathy for such people as we Americans may feel, given their sub-human existential plight (mainly because of their noxious governments), not even the total receipts of the American people — i.e., a 100% tax rate, which equals total confiscation of the genius and productivity of the American people — could bail out this human plight after a year or so.
Maggie Thatcher once said something to the effect that the fundamental, inevitably fatal problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, it runs out of "rich people": There's nobody left to plunder. Everybody in society has been "equalized" on the level of poverty, financial and spiritual. Thus, the government has nobody left to hand the bills to, for which they issue demands under force of law that they be paid.
But you can't get blood out of a stone.
Therefore, one should consider the wisdom of Aesop's Fable about the Golden Goose....
Excellent essay/post, dear Hostage! I very much admire your proposed constitutional Amendment XXX. It would "nail down the language" — which nowadays would be very refreshing, considering that words of long, historical meaning have been converted, even inverted, to "define" a "new" meaning.
Examples from more-or-less recent times: e.g., the definition of "liberal"; the definition of "marriage." It appears there is not yet a scientifically precise "definition" of human sexuality. Seems to me, that is perennially an open question.
But not so "open" that it's not under God. Still, given the current morally-ambivalent public climate, it appears that a public case can be made that definitions regarding human sexuality itself are up for grabs.
Certainly, people are trying to do just that. I give you Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner as evidence.
Everybody seems to have gotten on-board with addressing "he" as "she," "him" as "her." Score 1 to BJ.
However, until and unless BJ can give me documented evidence that he has had a successful DNA transplant, I will never call him a "her."
But I digress. :>)
Thanks so much for writing, dear Hostage! Please keep me posted on developments!
Not to be rude..to the FReeper who brought this to your attention.
But, anyone reading the 14th with comprehension knows what it says.
Our "leaders" know what it says...but choose to ignore what it says.
Amen...!!
Just creating the perception that this is what Pubs want drives the "moderates" into the waiting arms of the Rats and reinforces the idea that conservatism is racist.
I understand many times this has been raised and always tabled.....so it looks like they really don’t want to “settle” the matter let alone argue it..
Arguably, illegals aliens are the functional equivalent of the children of an invading army, which WKA specifically mentioned as NOT being citizens by birth.
“but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States”
That is quite different from an illegal alien...
bump
Rush was hitting the subject very hard in his last hour of his show about as hard as I ever heard him. He won’t even use the term “illegal immigration” as that is the wrong term to use and a misnomer. Rush believes that those words together give quasi credibility for breaking the law.
I strongly recommend that read a transcript of the Ark case.
The wording was very clear - parents had to be here legally for their child to be considered a citizen. And NEVER was mentioned that the kid was a natural born citizen, but merely a citizen.
Illegal aliens cannot drop anchor babies.
Did the 14th refer to those related to slaves?
I don’t think it had anything to do with just anybody.
You’re correct. Where our side wins is with a message of enforce the law and entitlement reform. That is a winning message.
Reforming the 14th rabbit hole could be replaced with entitlement reform, i.e. no Fed bennies for children of non-citizens.
It’s the anchor baby money suck that’s killing us. Take the incentive away and we’ll get less of it.
Yep, that is a good find.
BTW, that article cannot in any way be cited as law or even judicial dicta. Jacob Howard’s explanation of the clause as he helped draft it is more compelling in that regard. What this article does though is to point out the common contemporary understanding of those who ratified it which, from the perspective of an originalist, is just as important as the intent of those who drafted the legislation.
“The fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in the declaration that ‘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,’ contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only,-birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.”
The above is directly from the Ark case. That is clear as crystal.
Why don’t you go read the amendment yourself?
The arguments over who is and who isn’t a citizen have been going on for quite a while. Most were resolved before WWI.
The arguments over natural born citizenship was supposedly satisfied in 1960 when Gov.George Romney, Republican of Michigan ( father of Millard, or Mitt Romney), was told by lawyers he wasn’t eligible to run for President because he was born in Mexico of U.S. citizen parents. Sen.Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory but that was acceptable because that territory was considered by SCOTUS as an incorporated territory attached to the U.S.
See Here.
So it was the predecessor of 8 USC 1401? Be interesting to know the legislative history.
Would think it would have been referenced in all the famous cases - Ark, Elk, Slaughterhouse.
As usual, the important part is left out — what does “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” mean. In other words, mommy and daddy have to here in the U.S. legally.
Arguments during the Ark case made that clear that Ark was born here and his parents, due to a treaty between the U.S. and the Emperor of China, could not become naturalized citizens.
See: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/169/649.html
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