A Short Primer on the Citizenship Clause in the 14th Amendment

[rightwinger]

Persons means citizens.

All citizens are citizens
That would make no sense

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Trump will lose this case.

 

[pknopp]

If you read the debates the senate had, they referred to the "complete authority", meaning, owing no allegiance to any other country, and no country can claim authority over them.

A child born here is under the jurisdiction of their parents, who's home country can claim authority over them and they owe allegiance to that country.


It doesn't matter though, this isn't going anywhere.

I wasn't sure at first but after reading more I think they very well might rule the EO Unconstitutional.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

All citizens are citizens
That would make no sense

All persons does not mean all 7 billion people on the planet.
It means all citizens.

 

[my2¢]

The timing of the 14th amendment needs to be taken into consideration. It was proposed by Congress in 1866 two years after The Immigration Act of 1864 which encouraged immigration to deal with the nation's labor shortage due to the Civil War. There were railroads to be built and coal to mine, so birthright citizenship wasn't of any concern.

 

[ThisIsMe]

But they never upheld BRC.

Well, the wong kim ark decision.

 

[ThisIsMe]

I wasn't sure at first but after reading more I think they very well might rule the EO Unconstitutional.

Of course they will. This case isn't going anywhere. They are not going to overturn BRC. I predict 9-0 against trump.

 

[pknopp]

Of course they will. This case isn't going anywhere. They are not going to overturn BRC. I predict 9-0 against trump.

On the EO but on being able to operate despite a lower court ruling? They may throw him a bone there.

But still, that is all still temporary.

 

[excalibur]

Well, the wong kim ark decision.

Dealt with the child of legal resident aliens.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Dealt with the child of legal resident aliens.

It makes no change. It will be 9-0, excalibur.

 

[BULLDOG]

There is a difference between being subject to the law, and subject to the jurisdiction.

Explain being one without the other

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

There is a difference between being subject to the law, and subject to the jurisdiction.

Bulldog: Explain being one without the other

God loves you even if all those fake Christians do

John Edgar Slow Horses: Explain it slowly for me, please.

 

[rightwinger]

All persons does not mean all 7 billion people on the planet.
It means all citizens.

Of course not

Only those born in this country
Like the 14th amendment says

 

[rightwinger]

It makes no change. It will be 9-0, excalibur.

7-2

With Thomas and Alito opposed

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

7-2

With Thomas and Alito opposed

... this time I am not sure.

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

Of course not

Only those born in this country
Like the 14th amendment says

Born to American parents

 

[SweetTea]

It should be interpreted to mean born of legal parents, but I am not sure they will do it. Common sense tells you that their intent was not for what is going on now to be the law of the land.

My question is why are Democrats so hell bent on keeping the current interpretation? They think it is good that anybody can come to the US, legally or illegally, and have a baby that is a citizen?

 

[toobfreak]

A Short Primer on the Citizenship Clause​

AN EVEN SHORTER PRIMER:

1. They passed the 14th Am. in 1866 so that the slaves brought over from Africa born there now freed after the Civil War had birthright citizenship to be now considered full and legal US citizens now anyway despite not being born in America.
2. It did not include the Indians.
3. At that time, foreign immigration from far off lands and other countries was virtually unknown as it took months at sea or over land to even try to get here and they were too destitute and poor to do it on their own.
4. 58 years later, they passed a separate bill in 1924 to make Indians citizens here too despite still originally owning allegiance to their tribe.
5. None of this was ever intended to apply to an organized mass invasion of foreigners over our borders otherwise there would have been no need for #4, and doing so conflicts with the intent of #1.
6. Foreign non-citizens owe their allegiance to the country they are from so do any children they have, even if they try to come here just to have the kid.

 

[Care4all]

It should be interpreted to mean born of legal parents, but I am not sure they will do it. Common sense tells you that their intent was not for what is going on now to be the law of the land.

My question is why are Democrats so hell bent on keeping the current interpretation? They think it is good that anybody can come to the US, legally or illegally, and have a baby that is a citizen?

Because it in in the constitution in plain words, ALL PERSONS....because we have over 100 years of precedence court cases, because laymen or presidents can not simply change the constitution with opinion...

A constitutional amendment is needed to change the constitution, under the constitution's rules.


It is LAWLESS to do it via executive order, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Do it the legal way, through a Constitutional Amendment...

 

[Care4all]

Foreign non-citizens owe their allegiance to the country they are from so do any children they have, even if they try to come here just to have the kid.

Not true! Look at the year of this court case...decided before the 14th amendment was written... Jus Soli, born on our soil, made one a citizen, with few exceptions

The Original Meaning of "Subject to the Jurisdiction" of the United States

In this post I'll consider the original meaning of the second requirement of the Constitution's citizenship clause: that a person…

reason.com

Also consistent with the idea of jurisdiction, the U.S.-born children of aliens (other than diplomats and armies) were considered U.S. citizens. In McCreery's Lessee v. Somerville (1824), for example, the Supreme Court (per Justice Story) treated as uncontroversial the U.S. citizenship of the U.S.-born child of Irish alien parents. In Lynch v. Clarke (1844), a New York court directly held that U.S.-born children of alien temporary visitors were U.S. citizens.

,--------------

Also, subject to the jurisdiction there of...had real meaning at the time...showing in other court cases...

The citizenship clause's text begins, as discussed in my prior post, with the requirement of birth "in the United States." It then adds the further requirement of birth "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. So our inquiry is framed as: in the nineteenth century language and context in which the clause was written, who was in the United States yet not subject to its jurisdiction?

As with the first part of the clause, Chief Justice Marshall provides a good beginning. In Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon (1812), writing for the Court, Marshall discussed "a nation's jurisdiction," which he equated with national sovereign authority. Generally, Marshall said, a nation had jurisdiction over all people and things within its territory. But there were three exceptions, which he listed: foreign sovereigns themselves, foreign ambassadors and foreign armies. These exception apart, though, Marshall emphasized that aliens within sovereign territory were otherwise "amenable to the jurisdiction" of the United States (meaning governed by U.S. law).

Henry Wheaton, the leading nineteenth-century American writer on international law, described national jurisdiction in a similar way, using the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction." Ordinarily, Wheaton wrote in Elements of International Law (1836), a nation had "jurisdiction," meaning "sovereign power of municipal legislation," within its territory. But, he continued, foreign ambassadors and their households had diplomatic immunity under international law and so were "excluded from the local jurisdiction." Immunity thus was an exception from the territorial jurisdiction to which they, as aliens within sovereign territory, would otherwise be subject.

There was another category of people described in the nineteenth century as in the United States but not subject to U.S. jurisdiction: tribal Native Americans. This sounds odd to modern ears because the U.S. claimed ultimate authority over the tribes. But the U.S. commonly (at the time) entered into treaties guaranteeing tribes authority over internal matters, including governance of tribal members. Some treaties expressly referred to tribal "jurisdiction." And key nineteenth-century writers such as James Kent described the situation (in Goodell v. Jackson, 1823): "Though born within our territorial limits, the Indians are considered as born under the jurisdiction of their tribes."

The nineteenth-century idea of national jurisdiction was interrelated with citizenship law. Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, citizenship law was mostly common law, and U.S. common law tracked the British principle of jus soli (birth within sovereign territory). A longstanding exception to jus soli citizenship was the children of diplomatic households, who were not U.S. citizens although born in U.S. territory. A similar exception existed (in theory) for children of foreign armies, again arising from their exclusion from U.S. jurisdiction; Justice Story, for example, directly linked these ideas in describing citizenship law in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor (1830). And likewise, Native Americans were not treated as citizens if they were born within tribal society because, as Kent explained in the passage quoted above, they were under the jurisdiction of the tribes, not the jurisdiction of the United States.