Born in America, but NOT guaranteed citizenship?

S

Shane Tuttle

Staff
I have a gentleman's bet with a fellow coworker. The argument was even though you're born in America, doesn't necessarily guarantee citizenship.

The debate was sparked during the discussion of an aquaintance stated he was born in San Diego. Served his country. Contributed to society. However, he stated that his mother was NOT a citizen at the time of his birth. We put two and two together and eventually got the gumption to ask for clarification. Our assumption was confirmed. His mother crossed the border illegally from Mexico to San Diego in order for him to be born in America.

Amendment XIV, Section 1 comes to mind...

AMENDMENT XIV
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment.
Section 1.
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

For disclaimer, I cut and pasted from this link:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

So, what's everybody's take on this? I want to get some input before I disclose my position...:)
 
If you're born here and subject to jurisdiction (e.g., not in a foreign embassy) then you are a citizen. The 109th Congress introduced a bill to statutorily bar children of illegal aliens from citizenship, arguing that the 14th Amendment never meant to confer it. This was in response to the "anchor baby" phenomenon. There also was an Amendment discussed but, of course, nothing came of it.
 
I think I know

it going to be another one faulting the liberals for believing the Constitution grants citizenship to the illegal kinds born in the country. :rolleyes:
 
Liberal for not wanting to screw around with the Constitution? That could come back to haunt us. So, if that's your definition of liberal, then I guess I am.
 
Until changed, the law is the law

Children born in the US are US citizens. That is how the law reads. The law says nothing about the citizenship status of the parents being in any way relevant.

In some cases, children born of foreign parents may have dual citizenship, but that is still US citizenship.

Anchor babies are the fault of administration, not the law. Don't like the situation?, then change either the administrative codes, or change the law that the codes and regulations derive their authority from.

To answer your question, under current law, a baby physically born in the USA is automatically a US citizen. The parents are not automatically granted citizenship, only the baby.
 
To answer your question, under current law, a baby physically born in the USA is automatically a US citizen. The parents are not automatically granted citizenship, only the baby.
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Exactly. The issue is just how we deal with that situation.

Personally, I think the best solution is to give parents the option; their kid is a citizen, no doubt there. So they can either take their child back to Mexico with them (and the child can retain its citizenship, and come back when they are no longer dependent on their parents) or they can leave the child here to be adopted or with any family they might have in the country. I don't much care which.

You could even throw in some fun provisions permanently barring any such parent from receiving citizenship in the future, to remove any remaining personal incentive to go this route (as being brought over as a family member of a citizen in 18 years would beat nothing at all). Sure, I guess they still have the incentive to have the child here for the child's future, but I'm not seeing a tremendous downside to that. With all the boomers getting ready to retire, we're going to need more young taxpayers anyway.


Anyway, the law is pretty clear. The child is a citizen. Period, full stop.
 
When pregnant women are coming over the border just to have their babies in US hospitals at taxpayer expense, and then those babies are automatic US citizens, that is one nutty situation. If it takes amending the Constitution to stop it, do it.

I'm certainly not anti-immigration, but there's a big difference between legal and illegal immigration.
 
When pregnant women are coming over the border just to have their babies in US hospitals at taxpayer expense, and then those babies are automatic US citizens, that is one nutty situation. If it takes amending the Constitution to stop it, do it.

I'm certainly not anti-immigration, but there's a big difference between legal and illegal immigration.
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Well, we've done this thread before but I'll bite.

I think amending the Constitution just stands to add unnecessary complication for at least some that should [EDIT: by what I presume are your standards, obviously I support simple birthright citizenship] legitimately be citizens, all to address a problem that is much more easily and effectively in ways other than a Constitutional amendment.

I think my suggestion, for instance, would remove much of the incentive behind the practice while not requiring such a drastic change.


The babies aren't illegal immigrants...the mothers are. The babies meet the same requirement that I met to become a citizen; they were dragged kicking and screaming into the world above US soil. I don't necessarily think the accomplishments of my parents or lack thereof are particularly relevant to this...I should be judged as an individual. Besides which, neither of my parents did a whole lot to earn their citizenship...simply born in the right place as well. All the way back a couple more generations, to where a few people came over on a boat back before quotas.

A few people managed to come over on a boat over a hundred years ago, and suddenly that give me more right to citizenship than anybody else born here? I don't think that anything your parents do or don't do should have much to do with the treatment you receive from the legal system. You don't go to prison because your father committed a crime, I don't see why suddenly your being born here is less worthy of citizenship simply because your mother was illegal.
 
Let's not forget that between 20 and 40% of the illegal aliens in this country come from Canada, not Mexico. So does our bigotry extend to our neighbors to the north as well our neighbors to the south?

Bob
 
Let's not forget that between 20% and 40% of the illegal aliens in this country come from Canada, not Mexico. So does our bigotry extend to our neighbors to the north as well our neighbors to the south?
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I'd really like to see a citation on that. It just seems a little hard to believe.

But, while most here will state that the law is the law and they feel the same way about Canadian illegal immigrants, in most cases our border-jumpers from the north are better educated, white, and speak English so they largely receive a pass. I'm sure most here would agree that they need to be sent home if found, but I don't recall anybody here (or elsewhere) ever calling for a concerted effort to actually round them up.
 
Let's not forget that between 20 and 40% of the illegal aliens in this country come from Canada, not Mexico. So does our bigotry extend to our neighbors to the north as well our neighbors to the south?
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WRONG!

nice try, no bananna
 
O.K., lets just do the practical thing. Let's just amend the Constitution to preclude citizenship of babies born in the U.S. to illegals from Mexico. Isn't that really what all the concern is about?
 
---
In the 1866 Senate ratification debate, the Citizenship Clause’s proponent, Jacob Howard of Michigan, said it was, "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural and national law, a citizen of the United States. … This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

Also, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a key drafter of the 14th Amendment, explained the jurisdiction requirement. "The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ … What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means."

Maryland’s Reverdy Johnson, the only Democrat in this Reconstruction-era debate, gave Trumbull bipartisan support. "Now all this amendment provides is, that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign Power … shall be considered as citizens of the United States." Johnson emphasized that the jurisdiction requirement meant the same as the phrase "not subject to any foreign Power" in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed by the same Congress that ratified the 14th Amendment. The import of the jurisdiction requirement, affirmed by its drafters’ expressed intent, is that after dealing with the special case of freedmen the Citizenship Clause confers birthright citizenship only on citizens’ children.

The Supreme Court honored the Citizenship Clause for 30 years, holding that the jurisdiction requirement’s distinction between those who do and do not owe complete allegiance to the United States is a critical test of citizenship. In The Slaughter House Cases (1873), the Court held that the jurisdiction requirement was "intended to exclude from [the Citizenship Clause’s] operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign states born within the United States."
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If you can't believe what the people who drafted, introduced, and backed the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court itself, said about its meaning, then who can you believe?

Alleykat - thinly veiled accusations of racism are beneath the dignity of this forum.
 
Exactly. The issue is just how we deal with that situation.

Personally, I think the best solution is to give parents the option; their kid is a citizen, no doubt there. So they can either take their child back to Mexico with them (and the child can retain its citizenship, and come back when they are no longer dependent on their parents) or they can leave the child here to be adopted or with any family they might have in the country. I don't much care which.

You could even throw in some fun provisions permanently barring any such parent from receiving citizenship in the future, to remove any remaining personal incentive to go this route (as being brought over as a family member of a citizen in 18 years would beat nothing at all). Sure, I guess they still have the incentive to have the child here for the child's future, but I'm not seeing a tremendous downside to that. With all the boomers getting ready to retire, we're going to need more young taxpayers anyway.


Anyway, the law is pretty clear. The child is a citizen. Period, full stop.
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This, only with the obvious qualifier that the adoption system needs drastic improvement.
 
What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means."
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Well, one could argue that crossing into another country and leaving the previous one behind removes whatever allegiance they have to any other country.
 
This, only with the obvious qualifier that the adoption system needs drastic improvement.
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True.

If you can't believe what the people who drafted, introduced, and backed the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court itself, said about its meaning, then who can you believe?
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And yet you don't bother to cite the Supreme Court decision that established birthright citizenship, US v Wong Kim Ark. If it was indeed the intent of the writers of the amendment to limit citizenship by birth to children of citizens, it was worded pretty poorly. As the above case showed, interpreting it in th context of English common law pretty clearly excludes only a small class of children born from citizenship.

I especially love this zinger:

wikipedia said:
In the view of the minority, excessive reliance on birthplace as the principal determiner of citizenship would lead to an untenable state of affairs in which "...the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not".
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I fail to see what the race of the children in question has to do with anything, and while I haven't read the dissent I suspect they don't address the fact that denying Wong Kim Ark citizenship wouldn't have suddenly made those children of citizens born abroad eligible for presidency...it would have just served to disqualify those darn dirty Mongols.


So yeah, it's not a stretch to interpret "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to mean pretty much anybody who isn't immune to our laws (for whatever reason). Which doesn't include the children of illegal aliens. If they meant it to include children of non-citizens, they should have worded it differently. Wong Kim Ark wasn't some recent decision trying to apply modern interpretation to the language of the time...it was (as you quoted) only 30 years later.
 
In the last couple of decades I have known several well to do white South Africans who purposefully came to the US to give birth so that their children would have dual citizenship in case things went bad there. Those children then grew up in South Africa, but currently live here in the US as adults.

Several royal saudi family members have done this as well -- I haven't known any, but have read about their stories in the press.

Personally, I'd like to see this situation rectified in some manner for persons from any country and any color. You should have at least one American citizen parent to automatically become a citizen regardless of what dirt you are born over (just my opinion -- obviously not the law).

And the constitution was meant to be changed, just as it was changed by the 14th amendment in the first place. To make sure that it is only changed when a vast majority of the country agrees, the process for changing the process was made very difficult. Which is a good thing.
 
Yes. Let's take children away from their families and place them with more acceptable families.

If we need a blue print, I think this was done in Poland about 65 years ago...
 
Yes. Let's take children away from their families and place them with more acceptable families.

If we need a blue print, I think this was done in Poland about 65 years ago...
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Hey, wow, way to misread my post.

We aren't taking kids. We're giving parents options. The child is a citizen, the parents are not. You can take the child home, and they can return when they're old enough to be independent. You can leave the child with a family in this country of your choosing (ideally it would be members of your own extended family). Or you can put the child into the foster/adoption system...never to be seen by you again. Obviously the last is not an option I'd choose, and I'd hope they wouldn't either...but it should be an option. The child is a citizen, and thus the parents should have every option available to have the child benefit from that citizenship.

They just shouldn't be able to benefit personally as the parent. Thus my other suggestion of permanently barring them from citizenship if they're not here legally.


Next time read whole posts before responding, and you'll sound less foolish.
 
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