The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling by the Supreme Court (1857) that held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.[1]
Section 1 formally defines citizenship and protects a person's civil and political rights from being abridged or denied by any state. This represented the overruling of the Dred Scott decision's ruling that black people were not, and could not become, citizens of the United States or enjoy any of the privileges and immunities of citizenship.[2] The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had already granted U.S. citizenship to all persons born in the United States, as long as those persons were not subject to a foreign power; the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment added this principle into the Constitution to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to be unconstitutional for lack of congressional authority to enact such a law and to prevent a future Congress from altering it by a mere majority vote.
This section was also in response to the Black Codes that southern states had passed in the wake of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.[3] The Black Codes attempted to return former slaves to something like their former condition by, among other things, restricting their movement, forcing them to enter into year-long labor contracts, prohibiting them from owning firearms, and by preventing them from suing or testifying in court.[4]
Finally, this section was in response to violence against black people within the southern states. A Joint Committee on Reconstruction found that only a Constitutional amendment could protect black people's rights and welfare within those states.[5]
There are varying interpretations of the original intent of Congress, based on statements made during the congressional debate over the amendment.[6][7] During the original debate over the amendment Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan—the author of the Citizenship Clause[8]—described the clause as having the same content, despite different wording, as the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1866, namely, that it excludes Native Americans who maintain their tribal ties and "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."[9] According to historian Glenn W. LaFantasie of Western Kentucky University, "A good number of his fellow senators supported his view of the citizenship clause."[8] Others also agreed that the children of ambassadors and foreign ministers were to be excluded.[10][11] However, concerning children born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens (and not foreign diplomats), three Senators, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lyman Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act, as well as President Andrew Johnson, asserted that both the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment would confer citizenship on them at birth, and no Senator offered a contrary opinion.[12][13][14]
To make it more clear. Children born to foreigners that are Ambassadors and ministers of their countries are citizens of their countries.
On the other hand children born to immigrants, who are not yet citizen and are not Diplomats and ministers of their countries are automatically US Citizen. Marco Rubio's parents were private citizen of Cuba and not diplomats or ministers
The argument is not that Rubio is not a citizen, but that he is not a special category of citizen called “natural born.” The 14th does not address that at all. The argument stems from a property of law where certain terms of art become shorthand for full blown legal concepts. If one accepts that “natural born citizen” was such a term of art, then the debate turns on discovering the legal concept the constitutional authors intended to convey by using that phrase, if one is a constitutional originalist, that is. Many believe that term has its origins in Vattel’s Law of Nations, an early attempt at international law. There are counterarguments, but I am not sure they disprove the point. In any event, an appeal to the 14th is largely irrelevant to the determination. Furthermore, I believe the Constitution is too important to get light treatment for the sake of political expediency. That is how we got where we now are, and we need to walk it back, even if it puts into question the presidential aspirations of a solid citizen and patriot, as Mr. Rubio no doubt is.
I never said that he was not a citizen. The 14th Amendment only addresses being a “citizen” In “Minor v. Happersett”, the Supreme Court said that to be a Natural Born Citizen, you must have two citizen parents.
I fully agree that when Rubio’s parents received their citizenship, Rubio also became a “citizen”. Just NOT a Natural Born Citizen.