Posted on 08/19/2015 5:37:41 PM PDT by EXCH54FE
Now that Donald Trump is talking about ending birthright citizenship, other candidates who have never mentioned it before like Scott Walker are as well. But contrary to what the media would have you believe, the Constitution doesn't have to be amended to end birthright citizenship. All it would take would be an act of Congress.
If an illegal alien has a child on American soil, the Constitution does not require the child be granted American citizenship. Congress can give citizenship to anyone it wants, but the Fourteenth Amendment only commands citizenship to persons born on U.S. soil to parents who are not citizens of a foreign country.
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment begins, “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.”
This makes it appear that illegal alien children are citizens, if they are "born" in the United States, right? Not so. The key phrase here is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Babies born in the U.S. are citizens if they are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Illegal aliens, by virtue of not being citizens, or even being in the country legally, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They're foreigners. Therefore, illegal children born here are not subject to citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I am going by a story my Father told me and it was told to him by his CO during WWII.
He said there were reports that George Washington was going to be assassinated. He ordered that all the guards be soldiers whose parents were born in America.
The Nwo can run in millions of illegals and try to pull this. What a sham this govt has become. Without us they are nothibg. I llegal children arent citizens.
It is not even necessary for us to interpret the 14th amendment. The Senator from Ohio who wrote it, has already said what he meant.
That was posted here of FR some time ago. The purpose was to make the slaves citizens and to keep other out.
There was at least two attempts by Georgia Congressman Deal once in 2005 and 2007 and both ended going nowhere.
Boehner, Ditch, and W Bush let the legislation die even though it had 70 cosponsors.
Yes....you're correct, but I believe my response to the poster was regarding Bobby and Marco.
This is a fine point that will be argued to the nth degree until the SCOTUS throws out any law that congress manages to get through.
Luckily we rely on the text of the amendment, not on the comments of some legislator, in this case Sen. Howard (of Michigan, BTW), author of the Citizenship Clause. There was extensive debate at the time about the meaning of the amendment and Senator Turnbull and President Johnson, among others, weighed in on the side saying that it meant children of aliens would become citizens.
Like it or not the reality is we interpret amendments based upon what they say, and the Supreme Court is the venue we use to resolve disputes. So despite what Sen. Howard wanted the amendment to mean it actually means what the courts have consistently ruled for well over a century.
Actually, no court has ever ruled in favor of "birthright citizenship" as it applies to an illegal alien.
It is thought that the State Department somehow started the trend.
Wong Kim Ark, recall, did not apply to illegal aliens. The parents were clearly U.S. citizens.
Actually, I think they were legal residents at the time, not citizens. I’ve not had anyone explain why we would have more jurisdiction over a legal alien than an illegal one. Are there some laws we can enforce against legal aliens that we can’t enforce against illegals just because they are illegal?
Except that citizenship law is expressly reserved to the Congress...by the Constitution.
Yes. We can’t convict illegals of treason.
Absurd. All persons in the country are subject to it’s laws
except, as you correctly state, those with diplomatic immunity.
Perhaps you could explain why the authors of the 14th amendment inserted the clause”and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” if ANYONE born to foreign nationals who have NO political allegiance to this country is automatically a citizen.
I am convinced you are truly an idiot.
Rather than "...under the jurisdiction thereof" , read it as "...owing allegiance to".
If President Trump wants to kick out anchor babies and their mamacitas he can do it. All he has to say is they are not under the jurisdiction of the USA and out they go.
Rubio’s and Jindal’s Parents were Illegal Invaders?
News to me.
‘subject to the jurisdiction”
That’s a little confusing but not really if you turn it around.
While you are in Mexico, you are subject to their criminal laws, but you don’t pay property taxes—because you can’t buy real property there; you can’t be drafted, but that’s unlikely anyway since they don’t usually fight in wars with the other civilized nations against tyranny; you have no duty to cooperate with the census, no duties of jury service, voting, etc.; IOW, all the rights and duties of Mexican citizenship, sure I missed some or probably added some they would scratch their cabezas over.
Important to remember: the founding fathers were not US citizens. All of them, they were British, Scots or Irish, Germans, French, Dutch, etc.—unless they were born after July 4, 1776, as determined after Civil War I.
So the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adams, Hamiltons, et al.—subject to the jurisdiction of the USA after running off the British, and naturalized, they were US citizens. After the Civil War.
They earned it.
How did a Mexican or Costa Rican, Chinese or Guatemalan cowbird waddling across our border so she could drop her kid in one of our hospitals, quite often at our expense—exactly how was citizenship earned there? Because their kid was born here. Period.
You and me? We were born here. Immigrants? At some point, yeah. Like the framers, we are subject to the jurisdiction of the USA.
But there are a lot of people who want to come here, to raise families, to be subject to our jurisdiction—people who are waiting their turns, filling our the paperwork, jumping through the hoops: “obeying the law” as it used to be called.
I don’t know about you, but my people didn’t break the law so we could take advantage of the largesse of the most generous nation on Earth.
We shouldn’t put up with this nonsense called “birthright citizenship” any longer; it sounds too much like bulls*** citizenship.
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http://www.federalistblog.us/2007/09/revisiting_subject_to_the_jurisdiction/
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Let’s give them a crack at the second amendment next. We will see if they can mess that up too.
Unfortunately for me in matters of law the way I read it matters a lot less than the way the legislators drafted it and the courts apply it. If they meant allegiance they probably should have said so.
Actually, a British Sniper had General Washington in his Sights, but he didn’t want to shoot him in the back because it wasn’t the Honorable thing to do.
That one shot would have changed History.
I wonder of your story happened before or after that event, or should I say non-event? Was this when Washington was President or when he was a General?
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