The 14th Amendment was never intended to grant citizenship to children born to parents who are in the U.S. illegally. This is not even a close call. One early Supreme Court case ruled that the amendment did not even grant citizenship to newborns whose parents were foreign diplomats stationed in the U.S.
Proponents of birthright citizenship wrongly cite the 1898 Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, when in fact that case involved the children of lawful permanent residents, not the children of illegal immigrants. Wong Kim Ark actually went beyond original intent by including children of lawful permanent residents, but it stopped well short of granting citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil.
It is revealing the when the 14th Amendment was debated in Congress, its authors explained that it would not even grant citizenship to American Indians. That's why American Indians did not become citizens until 1924 when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act. This legislation was necessary because everyone understood what the 14th Amendment did and did not mean. Since the amendment did not confer citizenship on American Indians, how could anyone construe it as giving citizenship to children born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally, either after sneaking across the border or overstaying their visa?
A key phrase in the 14th Amendment is "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The authors of the amendment made it clear that this referred to full jurisdiction, not partial jurisdiction. Only U.S. citizens are subject to full U.S. jurisdiction. Being subject to the full jurisdiction of the U.S. means the U.S. Government can draft you into our military, require you to register for the draft, prosecute you for treason if you seek to harm the U.S., etc. The government can't do any of these things to illegal immigrants because they are not fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Illegal immigrants and foreign diplomats are only partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, which means, for example, that they have to obey our traffic laws and can be prosecuted if they commit a crime in our country (unless they have diplomatic immunity), but they cannot be drafted, cannot be forced to even register for the draft, cannot vote, cannot hold elected office, etc.
BTW, most nations in Europe, Asia, and Africa do
not offer automatic birthright citizenship. The following nations do
not offer birthright citizenship under any conditions or require that at least one parent be a citizen or a lawful permanent resident for the newborn to be granted citizenship: Norway, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Denmark, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Japan.
Some sources for further reading:
What’s the citizenship status of the children of illegal aliens? That question has spurred quite a debate over the 14th Amendment lately, with the news that several states—including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, and South Carolina—may launch efforts to deny automatic citizenship to...
www.heritage.org
