“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.”
> It has been proposed that the US citizenship model was always like the Swiss model - you could only be a citizen if you were born of at least 1 citizen (naturalized or otherwise). For reasons I'm not clear, this has not been strictly enforced for some time.
I think any clear reading of the 14th amendment shows that you are incorrect.
"and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"
seems critical to make a determination on whether you are correct or not.
Take the act of a random french spy who goes to the UK for the purpose of defecting, without express permission of either government. Does that make him a subject to the UK crown? I think the historical outcome of such situation would be crystal-clear.
The 14th amendment discusses who is a citizen. It does not capture who is a subject to US jurisdictions, or not. That part is open to interpretation , likely because it is based in common law.
Not only is that not in the text of the 14th, it's different from your original proposal two comments ago. If you really want to do this fine-grained reading to try to support your point, you might notice that 1. the subject to the jurisdiction clause is the baby, not the parents, 2. breaking a law does not mean you are not subject to the jurisdiction of the state you reside in.
The only reason they go to jail is because de-facto that is is fair for the victimm in that he/she gets "Restitution" in the form of jail time for the non-citizen, and presumably, the foreign country may even be able to challenge that.
The dejure interpretation may be he should be banished, although that would be unfair to the victim.
SCOTUS response: “LOL”. 6-2 (1 abstention) in favor of him being a citizen. The majority assent lays out pretty clearly that the jurisdiction language was to except diplomats and Native American tribespeople who had different treaties and status.
The Wong Kim Ark ruling is super, super, super clear that it would only be in EXTRAORDINARY circumstances that the 14th wouldn’t apply. For instance, two people in an invasion force sent by King George to take back the colonies have a baby with each other on US soil: probably not a citizen. Even then, if those two were in prison and had the baby: probably a citizen. Baby of two diplomats: not a citizen (called out in the ruling).
The dissent says: The 14th was really about Dredd Scott, and giving former slaves born in US soil full citizenship rights, and therefore “jurisdiction” is obviously only for naturalized citizens: Mr. Ark didn’t seek citizenship and therefore didn’t have it, since he wasn’t a former slave or child of a former slave, the 14th doesn’t apply.
The current attempt to reframe the 14th while including the Ark ruling relies on the very novel idea that anyone in the country without permission is not “subject to the jurisdiction of the US”. ICE’s actions clearly bely that take. It’s not a tenable angle to try and get rid of birthright citizenship, full stop.
However, as you well said, this is the interpretation of the amendment at the time based on that particular case.
The SCOTUS ruling is based the understanding of the 14th amendment for that particular case. Laws are re-interpreted based on originalist or expansionist understanding of the law at the time is was written. It could very well be that this was one of the latter examples, and that there is ample evidence of it that simply didn't make it to Ark. A legal scholar will need to do the work to really understand what was the intent of the 14th as it was written, and present its case to SCOTUS to persevere. The administration could really be attempting to reframe without any legal basis, and if so, the EO won't survive, and we will be able to move on with a full understanding of the 14th.
That Yale article points out European countries have more traditionally relied on "jus sanguinis" -- parentage-based nationality, where UK, US and LatAm countries are mostly "jus soli" with "sanguinis" additions for, say, kids born in foreign countries to nationals.
Anyway - it would be pretty surprising to hear that this is not a reframe. I'll be reading the case with interest.
It means that the parents must be immune from the US government actions. For example, if they are diplomats and literally can't be arrested even if they commit a murder in the plain sight.
I like this a lot. That makes total sense and would take away the incentive to cross the border to give birth.
Just Apu from the Simpsons is only possible due to our immigration. Just the very fucking iconic cartoon character. This is not from legal immigration. Taco Tuesdays, every Irish pub, like, it sounds silly, but what they offer America is ten fold. I do not care about the best and the brightest, give us your tired and poor.
The American right-wing reeks of elitism (soft language for racist/xenophobic) and it is the antithesis of the American spirit and dream. I'm not with it.
This will be one of my final posts on this topic because I believe we are only in month five, and have 3.5 years to go. I pray the midterms are a landslide, and I pray the next Democrat grants Amnesty. See you all on the other side, because to me this issue is no different than the anit-gay marriage bullshit from the 2000s that we wiped the table clean of once and for all. We are a nation of immigrants and we will be so until eternity.
Common notion, but based in ignorance. I've found that the left wing is more idealistic, but in the sense that they have chosen not to learn from history and rely on immediate emotional values. The right wing sees second order effects and acts on them.
Thus, you get the left calling the right heartless/immoral/racist, and the right calling the left idiots.
This is just an ad hominem, to prove it, I shall call you ignorant too.
Next:
The right wing sees second order effects and acts on them.
I need white people on the right to testify honestly that a Mexican took their job or out-bid them on a rental or real estate. So I would need millions of them to say "Hey I went for this job at Costco, but some cheaper Venezuelan got it". Or, "Hey I wanted an apartment, but since there are so many Mexicans, they all just gobbled it up". So, what I need is testimonies of this.
The reason we don't get such testimonies is because the truth is nastier. The truth is, "hmm, its a little too brown and dirty and all crime-like in my neighborhood now days". This they will never testify to.
You've clearly only paid attention to ragebait. Because "integrated members of our society" is exactly what the right wing is interested in. But this is not what happened in recent years. The entire reason for the deportations is because they are not becoming "integrated members of our society" - it instead became "all crime-like" in places it wasn't before, and the correlation with the alien imports is just too obvious. It happened too fast and too much, and now the correction is just as hard.
"They are simply sick" and you're...... proving my point.
It’s hard to take this one at good faith. The right wing is very publicly melting down the CDC for glue while the second order effects of a preventable measles epidemic spreads through the country. Is there a more targeted claim you want to make?
I suspect that you merely dislike the authoritarian things the government is currently doing; I dislike that the government is authoritarian. We are not the same.
Slavery, segregation, women’s suffrage, child labor protections, labor rights, Social Security, interracial marriage, homosexuality, civil rights legislation, same-sex marriage, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, prohibition, environmental protections, public education expansion, healthcare reform, voting rights expansion, immigration rights, disability rights, reproductive rights, minimum wage laws, workers’ compensation laws.
> considered unspeakably cruel
You're not disagreeing on any pragmatic basis, just the emotional one. Like I said.
They could have said things like 'reproductive rights leads to X goods for the populace' or 'prohibition was a net positive in Y ways' or 'minimum wage laws are shown to improve GDP by Z amt on average' - but they didn't. They used an emotional argument. Like I said they would.
And 'wrong side of history' (bandwagon fallacy) and references to 'cruelty' (appeal to emotions) is really, really bad epistemology.
The Republican party traded logic for populism long ago.
No, citizenship based solely on a person's birth within the territory is a common feature found in countries in the Americas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
It's always been like that. Otherwise, think of the first generation of citizens for each of these countries as they gained independence. They were citizens because they were born on that soil.
As to why this isn't the case for countries outside of the Americas, that's a more interesting question, IMO. Were people citizens in some informal sense before laws were written on the concept of a birthright to citizenship? Who knows...
Then, as welfare, lack of law enforcement and border grew, the broken citizenship process became a larger problem that now we have to deal with.
To me, the answer to your question of what is the alternative is as follows: The sole act of breaking laws and cutting the line to come into the country, to then birth babies here for the pusposes of straightjacketing the host's own response seems like should not be allowed, full stop. The premise of becoming a US citizen cannot be grounded in 2 crimes being committed before you are a citizen (1 illegal entry, 1 lying about your asylum petition).
We then have the issue of citizenship. It cannot be that because you come out of a womb that happens to be passing by a US hospital, you are a US citizen. US hospitals do not have magic pixie dust that grant american-ness. The Swiss have the right model that you actually have to come from at least 1 national parent, to foster national unity. The Swiss have the longest-lasting democracy in the world for a reason. Ignoring this seems suicidal. In nature and history, no humans prospered without an organized tribe centered around shared history and values.
Then there are the cases of people that came here, all legally, and found a life worth having by contributing to society. There should be a path for them to be citizens. What that path looks like, I dont know. But that's a conversation worth having soon since they are paying the price for the crimes and abuse committed by the 1st group.