Exactly right. The Constitution only mentions Aliens, Naturalized Citizens and Natural Born Citizens. There is no half-caste of Citizenship where you aren’t Naturalized, but you aren’t Natural Born.
I think the correct interpretation of Aliens is people subject to another government. And the idea that children of aliens become citizens by birth location is a fairly new idea here in America.
But NBC merely means you didn’t gain citizenship by getting naturalized. Everything else is made up and British 1600s crap.
The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that 'all persons born r naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' Amend. art. 14. In this, as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the constitution.
I think the correct interpretation of Aliens is people subject to another government. And the idea that children of aliens become citizens by birth location is a fairly new idea here in America.
It is not a new idea at all. As British law, it was the law in the colonies. It continued as law after independence. 14A did not create birthright citizenship, but placed it beyond the authority of Congress to change.
The U.S. Supreme Court Opinion in the leading precedential case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702 (28 March 1898):
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.
Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 662-63:
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said: "All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens.
Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 658-59:
It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 73 (1872)
The first observation we have to make on this clause is that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, "subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.
https://fam.state.gov/FAM/08FAM/08FAM030101.html#M301_1_1
In Schick v. United States, at page 69, the Court said:
“That,” said Mr. Justice Bradley in Moore v. United States, 91 U. S. 270, 91 U. S. 274, referring to the common law, “is the system from which our judicial ideas and legal definitions are derived. The language of the Constitution and of many acts of Congress could not be understood without reference to the common law.”Again, in Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 124 U. S. 478, is this declaration by Mr. Justice Matthews: “The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 169 U. S. 654, Mr. Justice Gray used this language: “In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Ex Parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 417, 114 U. S. 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 624-625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465.”
See also Kepner v. United States, post, p. 195 U. S. 100; 1 Kent, Com. 336.
Blackstone’s Commentaries are accepted as the most satisfactory exposition of the common law of England. At the time of the adoption of the federal Constitution, it had been published about twenty years, and it has been said that more copies of the work had been sold in this country than in England, so that undoubtedly the framers of the Constitution were familiar with it.
[State Department, Foreign Affairs Manual]
8 FAM 301.1-1 INTRODUCTION
(a) Acquisition of U.S. citizenship generally is not affected by the fact that the parents may be in the United States temporarily or illegally; and that; and(b) A child born in an immigration detention center physically located in the United States is considered to have been born in the United States and be subject to its jurisdiction. This is so even if the child’s parents have not been legally admitted to the United States and, for immigration purposes, may be viewed as not being in the United States.