It is NOT a thing, has never BEEN a thing, and ought never to BE a thing. Period fucking dot.
The 14th Amendment does not confer automatic citizenship
Claremont Institute scholars, including me, Ed Erler, Tom West, John Marini, and Michael Anton, President Trump’s incoming Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, have been contending for years—decades, really—that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship for everyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances. Other prominent scholars, such as the late University of Texas law Professor Lino Graglia, University of Pennsylvania Professor Rogers Smith, and Yale Law Professor Emeritus Peter Schuck, have come to the same conclusion based on their own extensive scholarly research.Claremont scholars have made the argument in books, law review articles, congressional testimony, and legal briefs. President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, even joined one of those briefs, in which we argued against treating enemy combatant Yaser Esam Hamdi as a citizen merely because he had been born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while his father was working in the U.S. on a temporary work visa. Perhaps as a result of our brief in that case, the late Justice Antonin Scalia referred to Hamdi as a “presumed citizen” in his dissenting opinion.
Our argument is straightforward. The text of the 14th Amendment contains two requirements for acquiring automatic citizenship by birth: one must be born in the United States and be subject to its jurisdiction. The proper understanding of the Citizenship Clause therefore turns on what the drafters of the amendment, and those who ratified it, meant by “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Was it merely a partial, temporary jurisdiction, such as applies to anyone (except for diplomats) who are subject to our laws while they are within our borders? Or does it instead apply only to those who are subject to a more complete jurisdiction, one which manifests itself as owing allegiance to the United States and not to any foreign power?
Think of it this way. Someone from Great Britain visiting the United States is subject to our laws while here, which is to say subject to our partial or territorial jurisdiction. He must drive on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left, for example. But he does not thereby owe allegiance to the United States; he is not subject to being drafted into our army; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason (as opposed to ordinary violations of law) if he takes up arms against the United States, for he has breached no oath of allegiance.
So which understanding of “subject to the jurisdiction” did the drafters of the 14th Amendment have in mind?
Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”
Covers the bases pretty well, I should think, although there are still plenty more indisputable proofs perusable at the link. Which, of course, doesn’t by any means suggest that shitlibs are going to cease and desist soiling their Underoos, wailing and weeping, and waving their chubby fists around demanding that saner sorts recognize this nonexistent “right” immediately. Not anytime soon, they ain’t. It’s an approach Real Americans would do well to adopt for themselves: no discussion, no debate, no controversy is truly concluded until the Left has gotten its way.
Apropos of nothing: if you check the date on the article (1/28/25), you’ll see that this one has just about got to be the all-time record holder in the Most Consecutive Days Spent Languishing In An Open Tab Waiting For Ye Aulde Blogghoste To Finally Get Around To Posting On It™ category.
- Entries
This has been the common understanding of the 14th amendment since the 1860s when it was drafted.
Otherwise babies born at Ellis Island would have been considered US citizens, when they were no such thing.
“Subject to the jurisdiction” wasn’t a mystery phrase, and didn’t end up in the amendment by accident.
Acknowledgment that imaginary birthright citizenship is not a thing nor ever was should have been a foregone conclusion any time the question was raised.
Pretty much like everyone knew which “people” the Second Amendment referred to, and that it was never “the militia”.
SCOTUS needs to end that bid of jurisprudential pussyfooting, drop the hammer, and let ICE naturalize anyone who applies who thought their parents had it, and figure out whether or not to naturalize or deport the rest.
Former “anchor babies” finding out they’re not natural-born citizens, and never were, would be a healthy thing for the republic, while slamming the brakes on thousands of visa flights and taxi runs for the border by every pregnant Turd Word immigrant the minute their water breaks.
“SCOTUS needs to…”
I have zero faith in that bunch to do anything right.
I tend to agree, but absent them ruling correctly we continue the absurd status quo.
Amen.