Birthright Citizenship

ridski said:
To be fair to the AP, the US is one of a tiny minority of countries where a person comes in and has a baby and that baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. You don't get that if you have the baby in Canada or, say, Argentina. So believe it or not, Trump is right.

 this not correct. And once again Trump is lying. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/30/trump-says-no-other-country-has-birthright-citizenship-hes-wrong/

and even if we were the only country that offered birthright citizenship, what's the problem. It's been our practice for generations. I thought that the US was supposed to be exceptional 

ml1 said:

ridski said:
To be fair to the AP, the US is one of a tiny minority of countries where a person comes in and has a baby and that baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. You don't get that if you have the baby in Canada or, say, Argentina. So believe it or not, Trump is right.

 this not correct. And once again Trump is lying. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/30/trump-says-no-other-country-has-birthright-citizenship-hes-wrong/

 I think Ridski's post is a perhaps too-clever-by-half attempt at word play. I had to read it a few times before I got it. At least, I think I got it.

ml1 said:

ridski said:
To be fair to the AP, the US is one of a tiny minority of countries where a person comes in and has a baby and that baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. You don't get that if you have the baby in Canada or, say, Argentina. So believe it or not, Trump is right.

 this not correct. And once again Trump is lying. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/30/trump-says-no-other-country-has-birthright-citizenship-hes-wrong/

 Trump says the US is the only country where you can have a baby and it will become a US citizen. If I took a pregnant French lady to Peru, it won't become a US citizen, even though Peru also has birthright citizenship.

drummerboy said:

Robert_Casotto said:

“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.”

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1.


“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.“


U.S. Supreme Court, Slaughterhouse Cases, 1873


https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/83/36

 yeah, not so much. This is the precedent case, not Slaughterhouse.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark



United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled 6–2 that a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese nationality who at the time had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and were carrying on business there but not as employees of the Chinese government, automatically became a U.S. citizen. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873, to Chinese parents who were legally domiciled and resident there at the time and not employed by the Chinese government, had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration and prohibiting immigrants from China from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, holding that the citizenship language in the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed the circumstances of his birth.
The case highlighted disagreements over the precise meaning of one phrase in the Citizenship Clause—namely, the provision that a person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof acquires automatic citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority concluded that this phrase referred to being required to obey U.S. law; on this basis, they interpreted the language of the Fourteenth Amendment in a way that granted U.S. citizenship to at least some children born of foreigners because they were born on American soil (a concept known as jus soli). The court's dissenters argued that being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not being subject to any foreign power—that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent)—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded "the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country".
In the words of a 2007 legal analysis of events following the Wong Kim Ark decision, "The parameters of the jus soli principle, as stated by the court in Wong Kim Ark, have never been seriously questioned by the Supreme Court, and have been accepted as dogma by lower courts." A 2010 review of the history of the Citizenship Clause notes that the Wong Kim Ark decision held that the guarantee of birthright citizenship "applies to children of foreigners present on American soil" and states that the Supreme Court "has not re-examined this issue since the concept of 'illegal alien' entered the language". Since the 1990s, however, controversy has arisen over the longstanding practice of granting automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and legal scholars disagree over whether the Wong Kim Ark precedent applies when alien parents are in the country illegally. Attempts have been made from time to time in Congress to restrict birthright citizenship, either via statutory redefinition of the term jurisdiction, or by overriding both the Wong Kim Ark ruling and the Citizenship Clause itself through an amendment to the Constitution, but no such proposal has been enacted.

 As usual, wrong.

Wong Kim applied only to children of permanent legal resident aliens.  As even a cursory reading of the actual case would reveal.

According to the BBC, Canada recently voted to change their birthright citizenship act.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46034989

(Way down in the article)

Robert_Casotto said:
How can we deny 14A birthright to children born in the U.S. to foreign Diplomats?


Have we no sense of decency?



https://www.uscis.gov/greencard/born-in-us-to-foreign-diplomat

  
“A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States is not subject to the jurisdiction of United States law. Therefore, that person cannot be considered a U.S. citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

 I think that statement about jurisdiction is being misinterpretted.  The first sentence stands alone.  The part about jurisdiction relates to how the states deal with their residents or others present in their state, but doesn't (or shouldn't) invalidate the citizenship statement in the first sentence.

Robert_Casotto said:

drummerboy said:

Robert_Casotto said:

“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.”

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1.


“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.“


U.S. Supreme Court, Slaughterhouse Cases, 1873


https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/83/36

 yeah, not so much. This is the precedent case, not Slaughterhouse.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark



United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled 6–2 that a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese nationality who at the time had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and were carrying on business there but not as employees of the Chinese government, automatically became a U.S. citizen. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873, to Chinese parents who were legally domiciled and resident there at the time and not employed by the Chinese government, had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration and prohibiting immigrants from China from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, holding that the citizenship language in the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed the circumstances of his birth.
The case highlighted disagreements over the precise meaning of one phrase in the Citizenship Clause—namely, the provision that a person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof acquires automatic citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority concluded that this phrase referred to being required to obey U.S. law; on this basis, they interpreted the language of the Fourteenth Amendment in a way that granted U.S. citizenship to at least some children born of foreigners because they were born on American soil (a concept known as jus soli). The court's dissenters argued that being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not being subject to any foreign power—that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent)—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded "the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country".
In the words of a 2007 legal analysis of events following the Wong Kim Ark decision, "The parameters of the jus soli principle, as stated by the court in Wong Kim Ark, have never been seriously questioned by the Supreme Court, and have been accepted as dogma by lower courts." A 2010 review of the history of the Citizenship Clause notes that the Wong Kim Ark decision held that the guarantee of birthright citizenship "applies to children of foreigners present on American soil" and states that the Supreme Court "has not re-examined this issue since the concept of 'illegal alien' entered the language". Since the 1990s, however, controversy has arisen over the longstanding practice of granting automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and legal scholars disagree over whether the Wong Kim Ark precedent applies when alien parents are in the country illegally. Attempts have been made from time to time in Congress to restrict birthright citizenship, either via statutory redefinition of the term jurisdiction, or by overriding both the Wong Kim Ark ruling and the Citizenship Clause itself through an amendment to the Constitution, but no such proposal has been enacted.

 As usual, wrong.


Wong Kim applied only to children of permanent legal resident aliens.  As even a cursory reading of the actual case would reveal.

 I'm sorry that you have a reading disability.

ridski said:

ml1 said:

ridski said:
To be fair to the AP, the US is one of a tiny minority of countries where a person comes in and has a baby and that baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. You don't get that if you have the baby in Canada or, say, Argentina. So believe it or not, Trump is right.

 this not correct. And once again Trump is lying. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/30/trump-says-no-other-country-has-birthright-citizenship-hes-wrong/

 Trump says the US is the only country where you can have a baby and it will become a US citizen. If I took a pregnant French lady to Peru, it won't become a US citizen, even though Peru also has birthright citizenship.

 I should have known that you knew why you're talking about

joanne said:
According to the BBC, Canada recently voted to change their birthright citizenship act.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46034989
(Way down in the article)

 it actually says that one of Canada's  parties voted that way at their convention. 

thanks! *wry smile* reading with a headache, and feeling concerned about all this growing xenophobia doesn’t help early morning comprehension.

all these attacks on immigration are short-sighted and stupid. Our country would be stagnant economically without immigration 

Foreign-born Americans and their descendants have been the main driver of U.S. population growth, as well as of national racial and ethnic change, since passage of the 1965 law that rewrote national immigration policy. They also will be the central force in U.S. population growth and change over the next 50 years.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/chapter-2-immigrations-impact-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/

Part of me wishes Trump would try issuing the executive order. It would be easier to impeach him.

Tom_Reingold said:
Part of me wishes Trump would try issuing the executive order. It would be easier to impeach him.

 What makes you think that today's Supreme Court wouldn't rule in his favor? Do you think the WH just pulled this out of their collective *****?

drummerboy said:

Tom_Reingold said:
Part of me wishes Trump would try issuing the executive order. It would be easier to impeach him.

 What makes you think that today's Supreme Court wouldn't rule in his favor? Do you think the WH just pulled this out of their collective *****?

 I fear that as well. The other part of me is terrified that he will try.

drummerboy said:

Tom_Reingold said:
Part of me wishes Trump would try issuing the executive order. It would be easier to impeach him.

 What makes you think that today's Supreme Court wouldn't rule in his favor? Do you think the WH just pulled this out of their collective *****?

 so much winning 

I’m curious: hypothetically, if they do this, can you imagine the enormous queues in the courts of people trying to establish their rights to citizenship??! (I mean those who should have no trouble, who should have no fear of being stopped or questioned... who should perhaps consider challenging the change ‘in order to keep the vote, and their passport’ etc) I mean, has anyone thought to check how many people in Congress you might lose? Judges? In your military? general voters? Etc...

How many generations back do you go?

joanne said:
I’m curious: hypothetically, if they do this, can you imagine the enormous queues in the courts of people trying to establish their rights to citizenship??! (I mean those who should have no trouble, who should have no fear of being stopped or questioned... who should perhaps consider challenging the change ‘in order to keep the vote, and their passport’ etc) I mean, has anyone thought to check how many people in Congress you might lose? Judges? In your military? general voters? Etc...
How many generations back do you go?

 I'm pretty sure the ensuing chaos is part of the plan.

drummerboy said:

joanne said:
I’m curious: hypothetically, if they do this, can you imagine the enormous queues in the courts of people trying to establish their rights to citizenship??! (I mean those who should have no trouble, who should have no fear of being stopped or questioned... who should perhaps consider challenging the change ‘in order to keep the vote, and their passport’ etc) I mean, has anyone thought to check how many people in Congress you might lose? Judges? In your military? general voters? Etc...
How many generations back do you go?

 I'm pretty sure the ensuing chaos is part of the plan.

 (Sorry, I know we’re meant to start on top of the quote, but my fingers won’t fit on tat part of the screen)

I think the chaos they’re counting on is that of “caught”/challenged people that they’re trying to remove. Not people they’d like to theoretically keep: someone who’s a well-admired philanthropist, perhaps, or a noted judge, or business person or architect whose grandfather was the one granted citizenship...let’s find a prominent spiritual leader they admire who might of questionable citizenship, for starters. 

I prefer replies at the bottom. I don't know who thought of replying at the top, putting the text in a screwy inside-out order.

Hubris city

drummerboy said:

 What makes you think that today's Supreme Court wouldn't rule in his favor? Do you think the WH just pulled this out of their collective *****?

 That's exactly what he did. Just one distraction after another and one toss of red meat to "The Base" after another. 

If the republicans hold Congress they are not likely to do a friggin thing about immigration, but they will attack "entitlements", ie Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. 

Trump's view on the 14th amendment is incoherent. 

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States"

Is he trying to claim that children of undocumented immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? No need to fight about DACA anymore then, I suppose, as this means ICE's lost much of its authority to be involved here -- if Trump wants to deport any of these children, he'll have to negotiate with their parents' home governments to do so, since he's apparently giving up the US government's authority here.

Or is he trying to claim that the children's parents are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US? Same problem as above, plus of course it makes a hash of the plain text meaning of the amendment.

I guess I never realized Trump was a closet "abolish ICE" supporter.

PVW said:
Trump's view on the 14th amendment is incoherent. 
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States"

Is he trying to claim that children of undocumented immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? 

When refugees apply for asylum these days, their children are definitely "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" because they are taken away from their parents by the government.  I can't see any reason why it would be any different for children who happen to be born on this side of the border.  So by his own administration's actions, Trump has already undercut his pathetic argument.

It seems to me that the language refers only to diplomats who have immunity from US laws.

LOST said:
It seems to me that the language refers only to diplomats who have immunity from US laws.

It does. Diplomats are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. (Diplomatic immunity.) 

Persons who are here illegally are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. (no immunity.)

That's how it's been applied for about 150 years. Admirers of Trump think he knows better.

It might be worth changing the constitution.  The way it is currently working is a not a great plan.   

notupset said:
It might be worth changing the constitution.  The way it is currently working is a not a great plan.   

 What parts would you like to see changed?

did anyone see the political cartoon in the star ledger today-says it all  ( sorry no pic)