Rethinking Birthright Citizenship

[George Plimpton]

From Feudalism to Consent: Rethinking Birthright Citizenship

by John C. Eastman, Ph.D

http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm18.cfm

It is today routinely believed that under the Citi­zenship Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain
U.S. citizen­ship. However strong this commonly believed inter­pretation
might appear, it is incompatible not only with the text of the
Citizenship Clause (particularly as informed by the debate surrounding
its adoption), but also with the political theory of the American Founding.

It is time for Congress to reassert its plenary authority and make
clear, by resolution, its view that the “subject to the jurisdiction”
phrase of the Citizen­ship Clause has meaning of fundamental importance
to the naturalization policy of the nation.

The Original Understanding of the Citizenship Clause

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amend­ment provides that “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.”[1] As manifest by the con­junctive “and,” the
clause mandates citizenship to those who meet both of the constitutional
prerequi­sites: (1) birth (or naturalization) in the United States and
(2) being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

The widely held, though erroneous, view today is that any person
entering the territory of the United States—even for a short visit; even
illegally—is considered to have subjected himself to the juris­diction
of the United States, which is to say, sub­jected himself to the laws of
the United States. Surely one who is actually born in the United States
is therefore “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and
entitled to full citizenship as a result, or so the common reasoning goes.

Textually, such an interpretation is manifestly erroneous, for it
renders the entire “subject to the jurisdiction” clause redundant.
Anyone who is “born” in the United States is, under this
interpre­tation, necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United
States. Yet it is a well-established doc­trine of legal interpretation
that legal texts, includ­ing the Constitution, are not to be interpreted
to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to
absurd results.[2]

The “subject to the jurisdiction” provision must therefore require
something in addition to mere birth on U.S. soil. The language of the
1866 Civil Rights Act, from which the Citizenship Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment was derived, provides the key to its meaning. The
1866 Act provides: “All persons born in the United States, and not
subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby
declared to be citizens of the United States.”[3] As this formulation
makes clear, any child born on U.S. soil to parents who were temporary
visitors to this country and who, as a result of the foreign citizenship
of the child’s par­ents, remained a citizen or subject of the parents’
home country was not entitled to claim the birth­right citizenship
provided by the 1866 Act.

The jurisdiction clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is somewhat
different from the juris­diction clause of the 1866 Act, of course. The
pos­itively phrased “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States
might easily have been intended to describe a broader grant of
citizenship than the negatively phrased language from the 1866 Act, one
more in line with the modern understanding. But the relatively sparse
debate we have regarding this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment does
not support such a reading.

When pressed about whether Indians living on reservations would be
covered by the clause since they were “most clearly subject to our
jurisdiction, both civil and military,” for example, Senator Lyman
Trumbull, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment, responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United
States meant subject to its “complete” juris­diction, “[n]ot owing
allegiance to anybody else.”[4] And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced
the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate,
contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete
jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies
to every citizen of the United States now”[5] (i.e., under the 1866
Act). That meant that the children of Indians who still “belong[ed] to a
tribal relation” and hence owed allegiance to another sovereign (however
dependent the sovereign was) would not qualify for citizenship under the
clause. Because of this interpretative gloss, provided by the authors of
the provision, an amendment offered by Senator James Doolittle of
Wisconsin explicitly to exclude “Indians not taxed,” as the 1866 Act had
done, was rejected as redundant.[6]

The interpretative gloss offered by Senators Trumbull and Howard was
also accepted by the Supreme Court—by both the majority and the
dis­senting justices—in The Slaughter-House Cases.[7] The majority in
that case correctly noted that the “main purpose” of the clause “was to
establish the citizenship of the negro” and that “[t]he 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.”[8] Justice Steven Field, joined by Chief
Justice Chase and Justices Swayne and Brad­ley in dissent from the
principal holding of the case, likewise acknowledged that the clause was
designed to remove any doubts about the constitu­tionality of the 1866
Civil Rights Act, which pro­vided that all persons born in the United
States were as a result citizens both of the United States and of the
state in which they resided, provided they were not at the time subjects
of any foreign power.[9]

Although the statement by the majority in Slaughter-House was dicta, the
position regarding the “subject to the jurisdiction” language advanced
there was subsequently adopted as holding by the Supreme Court in Elk v.
Wilkins.[10] John Elk was born on an Indian reservation and subsequently
moved to non-reservation U.S. territory, renounced his former tribal
allegiance, and claimed U.S. citizenship by virtue of the Citizen­ship
Clause. This Court held that the claimant was not “subject to the
jurisdiction” of the United States at birth, which required that he be
“not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the
United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction,
and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.”[11] Elk did not meet
the jurisdictional test because, as a mem­ber of an Indian tribe at his
birth, he “owed imme­diate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the
United States. Although “Indian tribes, being within the territorial
limits of the United States, were not, strictly speaking, foreign
states,” “they were alien nations, distinct political communities,”
accord­ing to the Court.[12]

Drawing explicitly on the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the
Court continued:

Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members
of, and owing immediate allegiance to, one of the Indian tribes (an
alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in
the United States, are no more “born in the United States and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof,” within the meaning of the first section of
the fourteenth amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign
government born within the domain of that government, or the children
born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers
of foreign nations.[13]

Indeed, if anything, American Indians, as mem­bers of tribes that were
themselves dependent upon the United States (and hence themselves
subject to its jurisdiction), had a stronger claim to citizenship under
the Fourteenth Amendment merely by virtue of their birth within the
territorial jurisdiction of the United States than did children of
foreign nationals. But the Court in Elk rejected even that claim and in
the process necessarily rejected the claim that the phrase, “subject to
the jurisdiction” of the United States, meant merely territorial
jurisdiction as opposed to complete, political jurisdiction.

Such was the interpretation of the Citizenship Clause initially given by
the Supreme Court, and it was the correct interpretation. As Thomas
Cooley noted in his treatise, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the
United States “meant full and complete jurisdic­tion to which citizens
are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction,
such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.”[14]

The Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn in Wong Kim Ark

Despite the clear holding of Elk and the persua­sive dicta from
Slaughter-House that mere birth on U.S. soil is not sufficient to meet
the constitutional prerequisites for birthright citizenship, the Supreme
Court held otherwise in United States v. Wong Kim Ark,[15] with
expansive language even more broad than the holding of the case itself.
It is that erroneous interpretation of the Citizenship Clause, adopted
30 years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, that has
colored basic questions of citizenship ever since.

In Wong Kim Ark, Justice Horace Gray, writing for the Court, held that
“a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who
at the time of his birth were subjects of the emperor of China, but have
a permanent domicile and resi­dence in the United States,” was, merely
by virtue of his birth in the United States, a citizen of the United
States as a result of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.[16] Justice Gray cor­rectly noted that the language to the
contrary in The Slaughter-House Cases was merely dicta and therefore not
binding precedent.[17] He found the Slaughter-House dicta unpersuasive
because of a subsequent decision, in which the author of the majority
opinion in Slaughter-House had con­curred, holding that foreign consuls
(unlike ambassadors) were “subject to the jurisdiction, civil and
criminal, of the courts of the country in which they reside.”[18]

Justice Gray appears not to have appreciated the distinction between
partial, territorial jurisdiction, which subjects all who are present
within the terri­tory of a sovereign to the jurisdiction of that
sover­eign’s laws, and complete political jurisdiction, which requires
allegiance to the sovereign as well.

More troubling than his rejection of the persua­sive dicta from
Slaughter-House, though, was the fact that Justice Gray also repudiated
the actual holding in Elk, which he himself had authored. After quoting
extensively from the opinion in Elk, including the portion, reprinted
above, noting that the children of Indians owing allegiance to an Indian
tribe were no more “subject to the jurisdic­tion” of the United States
within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment than were the chil­dren
of ambassadors and other public ministers of foreign nations born in the
United States, Justice Gray simply held, without any analysis, that Elk
“concerned only members of the Indian tribes within the United States,
and had no tendency to deny citizenship to children born in the United
States of foreign parents of Caucasian, African, or Mongolian descent,
not in the diplomatic service of a foreign country.”[19]

By limiting the “subject to the jurisdiction” clause to the children of
diplomats, who neither owed alle­giance to the United States nor were
(at least at the ambassadorial level) subject to its laws merely by
virtue of their residence in the United States as the result of the
long-established international law fic­tion of extraterritoriality by
which the sovereignty of a diplomat is said to follow him wherever he
goes, Justice Gray simply failed to appreciate what he seemed to have
understood in Elk, namely, that there is a difference between
territorial jurisdiction, on the one hand, and the more complete,
alle­giance-obliging jurisdiction that the Fourteenth Amendment
codified, on the other.

Justice Gray’s failure even to address, much less appreciate, the
distinction was taken to task by Justice Fuller, joined by Justice
Harlan, in dissent. Drawing on an impressive array of legal scholars,
from Vattel to Blackstone, Justice Fuller correctly noted that there was
a distinction between the two sorts of allegiance—“the one, natural and
perpet­ual; the other, local and temporary.”[20] The Citizen­ship Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment referred only to the former, he contended.
He noted that the absolute birthright citizenship urged by Justice Gray
was really a lingering vestige of a feudalism that the Americans had
rejected, implicitly at the time of the Revolution and explic­itly with
the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Four­teenth Amendment.[21]

Quite apart from the fact that Justice Fuller’s dis­sent was logically
compelled by the text and his­tory of the Citizenship Clause, Justice
Gray’s broad interpretation led him to make some astoundingly incorrect
assertions. He claimed, for example, that “a stranger born, for so long
as he continues within the dominions of a foreign government, owes
obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for
treason.”[22] And he was compelled to recognize dual citizenship as a
neces­sary implication of his position,[23] despite the fact that ever
since the Naturalization Act of 1795, “applicants for naturalization
were required to take, not simply an oath to support the constitu­tion
of the United States, but of absolute renuncia­tion and abjuration of
all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince or state, and
particularly to the prince or state of which they were before the
citizens or subjects.”[24]

Finally, Justice Gray’s position is incompatible with the notion of
consent that underlay the sover­eign’s power over naturalization. What
it meant, fundamentally, was that foreign nationals could secure
American citizenship for their children merely by giving birth on
American soil, whether or not their arrival on America’s shores was
legal or illegal, temporary or permanent.

Justice Gray stated that the children of only two classes of foreigner
nationals were not entitled to the birthright citizenship he thought
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

First, as noted above, were the children of ambassadors and other
foreign diplomats who, as the result of the fiction of
extraterritoriality, were not even considered subject to the territorial
juris­diction of the United States.

Second were the children of members of invad­ing armies who were born on
U.S. soil while it was occupied by the foreign army. But apart from
these two narrow exceptions, all children of foreign nationals who
managed to be born on U.S. soil were, in Justice Gray’s formulation,
citizens of the United States. Children born of parents who had been
offered permanent residence but were not yet citizens, and who as a
result had not yet renounced their allegiance to their prior sovereign,
would become citizens by birth on U.S. soil. This was true even if, as
was the case in Wong Kim Ark itself, the parents were, by treaty, unable
ever to become citizens.

Children of parents residing only temporarily in the United States on a
student or work visa would also become U.S. citizens. Children of
parents who had overstayed their temporary visas would like­wise become
U.S. citizens, even though born of parents who were now in the United
States ille­gally. And, perhaps most troubling from the “con­sent”
rationale, even children of parents who never were in the United States
legally would become citizens as the direct result of the illegal action
by their parents. This would be true even if the par­ents were nationals
of a regime at war with the United States and even if the parents were
here to commit acts of sabotage against the United States, at least as
long as the sabotage did not actually involve occupying a portion of the
territory of the United States. The notion that the framers of the
Fourteenth Amendment, when seeking to guaran­tee the right of
citizenship to former slaves, also sought to guarantee citizenship to
the children of enemies of the United States who were in its terri­tory
illegally is simply too absurd to be a credible interpretation of the
Citizenship Clause.

Although hard to sustain under the broad lan­guage used by Justice Gray,
the actual holding of Wong Kim Ark is actually much more narrow, and the
case need not be read so expansively as to pro­duce such absurd results.
Because of the Chinese Exclusion Acts,[25] Wong Kim Ark’s parents were
ineligible for citizenship even if they had renounced their Chinese
citizenship and subjected themselves to the exclusive jurisdiction of
the United States. As such, Wong Kim Ark arguably would have been
entitled to citizenship because, like his parents, he would in fact have
been “sub­ject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the
complete, allegiance-obliging sense intended by the phrase.[26]

This is not to say that Congress could not, pur­suant to its
naturalization power, choose to grant citizenship to the children of
foreign nationals.[27] But thus far it has not done so. Instead, the
lan­guage of the current naturalization statute simply tracks the
minimum constitutional guarantee— anyone “born in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” is a citizen.[28] Indeed, Congress
has by its own actions with respect to Native Americans—both before and
after this Court’s decision in Wong Kim Ark—rejected the claim that the
Citizenship Clause itself confers citi­zenship merely by accident of
birth.[29] None of these citizenship acts would have been
neces­sary—indeed, all would have been redundant— under the expansive
view of the Citizenship Clause propounded by Justice Gray.

A Citizenship of Consent, not Feudal Allegiance

Once one considers the full import of Justice Gray’s language in Wong
Kim Ark, it becomes clear that his proposition is simply incompatible
not only with the text of the Citizenship Clause, but with the political
theory of the American Found­ing as well.

At its core, as articulated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of
Independence, that political theory posits the following: Governments
are insti­tuted among particular peoples, comprised of nat­urally equal
human beings, to secure for themselves certain unalienable rights. Such
gov­ernments, in order to be legitimate, must be grounded in the consent
of the governed—a nec­essary corollary to the self-evident proposition
of equality.[30] This consent must be present, either explicitly or
tacitly, not just in the formation of the government, but also in the
ongoing decision whether to embrace others within the social com­pact of
the particular people. As formulated in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights
of 1780:

The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of
government, is to secure the existence of the body-politic, to protect
it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of
enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights…. The
body-politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is
a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen
and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by
certain laws for the common good.[31]

Thus, as Professor Edward Erler has noted:

[T]he social contract requires reciprocal consent. Not only must the
individual consent to be governed, but he must also be accepted by the
community as a whole. If all persons born within the geographical limits
of the United States are to be counted citizens—even those whose parents
are in the United States illegally— then this would be tantamount to the
conferral of citizenship without the consent of “the whole people.”[32]

In other words, birthright citizenship is contrary to the principle of
consent that is one of the bed­rock principles of the American regime.

Such a claim of birthright citizenship traces its roots not to the
republicanism of the American Founding, grounded as it was in the
consent of the governed, but to the feudalism of medieval England,
grounded in the notion that a subject owed perpetual allegiance and
fealty to his sover­eign.[33] A necessary corollary of the feudal notion
of citizenship was the ban on expatriation, embraced by England and
described by Blackstone as follows:

Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king’s
dominions immediately upon their birth. For, immediately upon their
birth, they are under the king’s protection…. Natural allegiance is
therefore a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, canceled, or
altered, by any change of time, place, or circumstance…. For it is a
principle of universal law, that the natural-born subject of one prince
cannot by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another,
put off or discharge his natural allegiance to the former: for this
natural allegiance was intrinsic, and primitive, and antecedent to the
other, and cannot be divested without the concurrence act of that prince
to whom it was first due.[34]

Thus, when Congress passed as a companion to the Fourteenth Amendment
the Expatriation Act of 1868, which provided simply that “the right of
expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people,
indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happi­ness,” it necessarily rejected the feudal birthright
citizenship doctrine of medieval England as fun­damentally incompatible
with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. As
Representa­tive Woodward of Pennsylvania noted on the floor of the House
of Representatives: “It is high time that feudalism were driven from our
shores and eliminated from our law, and now is the time to declare it.”[35]

Such remnants of feudalism were rejected by our nation’s Founders when
they declared to a candid world that they no longer owed allegiance to
the king of their birth. They were rejected again by the Congress in
1866 and by the nation when it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.

Reviving Congress’s Constitutional Power Over Naturalization

It is time for the courts, and for the political branches as well, to
revisit Justice Gray’s erroneous interpretation of the Citizenship
Clause, restoring to the constitutional mandate what its drafters
actually intended: that only a complete jurisdic­tion, of the kind that
brings with it a total and exclusive allegiance, is sufficient to
qualify for the grant of citizenship to which the people of the United
States actually consented.

Of course, Congress has in analogous contexts been hesitant to exercise
its own constitutional authority to interpret the Constitution in ways
contrary to the pronouncements of the courts. Even if that course is
warranted in most situations so as to avoid a constitutional conflict
with a co-equal branch of the government, it is not war­ranted here for
at least two reasons.

First, as the Supreme Court itself has repeat­edly acknowledged,
Congress’s power over natu­ralization is “plenary,” while “judicial
power over immigration and naturalization is extremely lim­ited.”[36]
While that recognition of plenary power does not permit Congress to dip
below the con­stitutional floor, it does counsel against any judi­cial
interpretation that provides a broader grant of citizenship than is
actually supported by the Constitution’s text.

Second, the gloss that has been placed on the Wong Kim Ark decision is
actually much broader than the actual holding of the case. Congress
should therefore adopt a narrow reading of the decision that does not
intrude on the plenary power of Congress in this area any more than the
actual holding of the case requires. Wong Kim Ark’s parents were
actually in this country both legally and permanently, yet were barred
from even pursuing citizenship (and renouncing their former allegiance)
by a treaty that closed that door to all Chinese immigrants. They were
therefore as fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States as
they were legally permitted to be, and under those circumstances, it is
not a surprise that the Court would extend the Constitution’s grant of
birthright citizenship to their children. But the effort to read Wong
Kim Ark more broadly than that, as interpreting the Citizenship Clause
to con­fer birthright citizenship on the children of those not subject
to the full and sovereign (as opposed to territorial) jurisdiction of
the United States, not only ignores the text, history, and theory of the
Citizenship Clause, but also permits the Court to intrude upon a plenary
power assigned to Con­gress itself.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/24/2012 10:14 AM, Baxter wrote:
> -
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Free Software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "George Plimpton" <geo...@si.not> wrote in message
> news:CNSdnTzy_Pt9DP3N...@giganews.com...

>> From Feudalism to Consent: Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
>>
>> by John C. Eastman, Ph.D
>>
>> http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm18.cfm
>>

>> It is today routinely believed that under the Citi�zenship Clause of the

>> Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain U.S.

>> citizen�ship. However strong this commonly believed inter�pretation might

>> appear, it is incompatible not only with the text of the Citizenship
>> Clause (particularly as informed by the debate surrounding its adoption),
>> but also with the political theory of the American Founding.
>>
>> It is time for Congress to reassert its plenary authority and make clear,

>> by resolution, its view that the �subject to the jurisdiction� phrase of
>> the Citizen�ship Clause has meaning of fundamental importance to the

>> naturalization policy of the nation.
>

> It has already been decided by the courts.

It hasn't, and the courts are not the ultimate word in what's in our
Constitution.

[Matt Warner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:

> It is today routinely believed that under the Citi­zenship Clause of the
> Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain
> U.S. citizen­ship.

The only way birthright citizenship can be changed is by a constitutional
amendment. Good luck.

[Matt Warner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:47:36 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:

> It hasn't, and the courts are not the ultimate word in what's in our
> Constitution.

You live in a fantasy land.

[George Plimpton]

No, that's false. Birthright citizenship could be ditched by the
Supreme Court at the stroke of a pen, if the right cases make it before
the court. The court can - and should - repudiate Wong Kim Ark. It
would be just as easy as when they repudiated Plessy v. Ferguson.

There are two specific categories of anchor babies from whom citizenship
absolutely should be withheld: children born to illegal aliens, and
children born to "birth tourists." The Supreme Court could, with absurd
ease, say that both categories of children are not born "subject to the
jurisdiction" of the United States, as that term is intended to be
meant, meaning: owing *complete* allegiance to the US and no other
place. The parents of all categories of anchor babies are not subject
to the jurisdiction of the United States, in the intended sense of owing
unconditional and exclusive allegiance to the country. As a result, the
babies also are not born subject to the jurisdiction of the country,
either - they owe their allegiance to their parents' country or countries.

[George Plimpton]

I don't; you do. The courts do not write the Constitution.

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:

> There are two specific categories of anchor babies from whom citizenship
> absolutely should be withheld: children born to illegal aliens, and
> children born to "birth tourists." The Supreme Court could, with absurd
> ease, say that both categories of children are not born "subject to the
> jurisdiction" of the United States,

Sure they could if they suddenly lost their marbles.

What are you claiming? Do you think that
all foreigners are not subject to US jurisdiction
just like foreign diplomats? Do you think all
foreigners should have immunity from prosecution?

Unlike you the supreme court judges know what
jurisdiction means.

[God's Debris]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:35:03 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not>

You are entirely correct.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/24/2012 5:57 PM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>> There are two specific categories of anchor babies from whom citizenship
>> absolutely should be withheld: children born to illegal aliens, and
>> children born to "birth tourists." The Supreme Court could, with absurd
>> ease, say that both categories of children are not born "subject to the
>> jurisdiction" of the United States,
>
> Sure they could if they suddenly lost their marbles.

No, they would simply have to follow the intent of the authors of the
14th amendment.

> What are you claiming? Do you think that
> all foreigners are not subject to US jurisdiction
> just like foreign diplomats? Do you think all
> foreigners should have immunity from prosecution?

The jurisdiction is not merely the jurisdiction of the law, as the
authors of the 14th amendment made clear, and as the Supreme Court
clearly understood in Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins. It is a
fuller jurisdiction, one to which no alien is subject.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/24/2012 6:06 PM, God's Debris wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:35:03 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not>
> wrote:
>
>> On 9/24/2012 5:13 PM, Matt Warner wrote:
>>> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>>>

>>>> It is today routinely believed that under the Citi述enship Clause of the

>>>> Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain

>>>> U.S. citizen貞hip.

>>>
>>> The only way birthright citizenship can be changed is by a constitutional
>>> amendment. Good luck.
>>
>> No, that's false. Birthright citizenship could be ditched by the
>> Supreme Court at the stroke of a pen, if the right cases make it before
>> the court. The court can - and should - repudiate Wong Kim Ark. It
>> would be just as easy as when they repudiated Plessy v. Ferguson.
>>
>> There are two specific categories of anchor babies from whom citizenship
>> absolutely should be withheld: children born to illegal aliens, and
>> children born to "birth tourists." The Supreme Court could, with absurd
>> ease, say that both categories of children are not born "subject to the
>> jurisdiction" of the United States, as that term is intended to be
>> meant, meaning: owing *complete* allegiance to the US and no other
>> place. The parents of all categories of anchor babies are not subject
>> to the jurisdiction of the United States, in the intended sense of owing
>> unconditional and exclusive allegiance to the country. As a result, the
>> babies also are not born subject to the jurisdiction of the country,
>> either - they owe their allegiance to their parents' country or countries.
>
>
> You are entirely correct.

Justice Scalia thinks so, too.

[Gunner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:13:59 -0700, Matt Warner <Ma...@gmail.com-spam>
wrote:

>On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>

>> It is today routinely believed that under the Citi述enship Clause of the

>> Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain

>> U.S. citizen貞hip.

>
> The only way birthright citizenship can be changed is by a constitutional
>amendment. Good luck.

Actually...not true. Its been a matter of interpretation for some 150
yrs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_Clause

As was noted in Dred Scott and many many others


Gunner

--
"Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to
clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are
so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

[jim]

Expanding the meaning of "jurisdiction" doesn't
change the fact that without jurisdiction the govt
and the courts cannot prosecute for violations of the law.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/24/2012 6:56 PM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>> On 9/24/2012 5:57 PM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> George Plimpton wrote:
>>>
>>>> There are two specific categories of anchor babies from whom citizenship
>>>> absolutely should be withheld: children born to illegal aliens, and
>>>> children born to "birth tourists." The Supreme Court could, with absurd
>>>> ease, say that both categories of children are not born "subject to the
>>>> jurisdiction" of the United States,
>>>
>>> Sure they could if they suddenly lost their marbles.
>>
>> No, they would simply have to follow the intent of the authors of the
>> 14th amendment.
>>
>>> What are you claiming? Do you think that
>>> all foreigners are not subject to US jurisdiction
>>> just like foreign diplomats? Do you think all
>>> foreigners should have immunity from prosecution?
>>
>> The jurisdiction is not merely the jurisdiction of the law, as the
>> authors of the 14th amendment made clear, and as the Supreme Court
>> clearly understood in Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins. It is a
>> fuller jurisdiction, one to which no alien is subject.
>
> Expanding the meaning of "jurisdiction"

No, there is no "expansion" of it. The authors of the 14th amendment,
and the decisions in Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins, were very
clear on the *narrower* meaning of the word in the amendment.

It does not mean mere jurisdiction of the laws.

> doesn't change the fact that without jurisdiction the govt
> and the courts cannot prosecute for violations of the law.

It isn't mere legal jurisdiction.

Jacob Howard, author of the citizenship clause:

The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all "persons
born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they
reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except
that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this
body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This
amendment which I have offered is 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 law 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.

Lyman Trumbull, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee debating the
amendment:

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
‘complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody
else. That is what it means.

*NOT* merely legal jurisdiction - it means a *complete* political
jurisdiction based on allegiance owed.


Justice Gray, in Elk v. Wilkins:

The main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth
Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a
difference of opinion throughout the country and in this Court, as
to the citizenship of free negroes, and to put it beyond doubt
that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or
not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no
allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United
States and of the state in which they reside. This section
contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only:
birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are
"all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last
words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the

jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their

political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate
allegiance.


Any tourist or illegal alien here is subject to our laws, but he does
not owe any allegiance to the United States and *therefore* is not
"subject to the jurisdiction" in sense intended by the 14th amendment.

The Supreme Court can and should recognize this sense once again, and
declare that anchor babies are not citizens because their parents are
not subject to the complete political jurisdiction of the United States,
and therefore neither are the anchor babies.

[Matt Warner]

You are right. My bad. I should read more carefully instead of assuming
something that is wrong. Of course, Congress and the states decide which
amendments get added to the constitution by a vote.

[Matt Warner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:35:03 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:

> No, that's false. Birthright citizenship could be ditched by the
> Supreme Court at the stroke of a pen, if the right cases make it before
> the court.

You don't have the votes in the Supreme Court to rule that birthright
citizenship is not in the 14th amendment. As far as birthright citizenship
goes, I fully support it because conservatives like Michelle Malkin who
are born here become citizens when her parents were here on a visa.

The more the merrier.

[George Plimpton]

However, the courts do interpret the existing text of the Constitution
and its amendments, and sometimes they change their mind. The courts
once said that separate but equal was constitutional, and then not 60
years later they said the opposite. No change to the Constitution
underlay their reversal decision; they simply reversed what had been
seen as a terrible decision.

So it might go with birthright citizenship. The decision that said that
anyone who happened to be born in the US was a citizen is a horrible
decision. It completely negated the obvious and stated intent of the
authors of the citizenship clause, an intent that was acknowledged and
upheld in two prior landmark decisions. It threw out more than that -
it discarded over 100 year of American citizenship policy. All it would
take to be reversed is for the right test case to make it before the
courts.

[Bill Shatzer]

Well shoot, there goes Willard Romney's candidacy then as under that
logic, he's not a US citizen either.

peace and justice,

[Bill Shatzer]

Gunner wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:13:59 -0700, Matt Warner <Ma...@gmail.com-spam>
> wrote:
>
>
>>On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>>
>>

>>>It is today routinely believed that under the Citi�zenship Clause of the

>>>Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain

>>>U.S. citizen�ship.

>>
>>The only way birthright citizenship can be changed is by a constitutional
>>amendment. Good luck.
>
>
>
> Actually...not true. Its been a matter of interpretation for some 150
> yrs
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_Clause
>
> As was noted in Dred Scott and many many others

As Dred Scott preceded the 14th amendment by a decade, I fail to see
what relevance it might have.

peace and justice,

[Bill Shatzer]

George Plimpton wrote:

> On 9/24/2012 8:59 PM, Matt Warner wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:36:01 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/24/2012 5:20 PM, Matt Warner wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:47:36 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> It hasn't, and the courts are not the ultimate word in what's in our
>>>>> Constitution.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You live in a fantasy land.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't; you do. The courts do not write the Constitution.
>>
>>
>> You are right. My bad. I should read more carefully instead of assuming
>> something that is wrong. Of course, Congress and the states decide which
>> amendments get added to the constitution by a vote.

> However, the courts do interpret the existing text of the Constitution
> and its amendments, and sometimes they change their mind. The courts
> once said that separate but equal was constitutional, and then not 60
> years later they said the opposite. No change to the Constitution
> underlay their reversal decision; they simply reversed what had been
> seen as a terrible decision.

Actually, they couldn't quite bring themselves to reverse Plessy's
separate but equal doctrine. Ultimately what they settled on was to
declare that in the field of public education, segregated schools were
-inherently- unequal and could not be made equal.

"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of
‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal. . ."

- Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brown vs Board of Education -

Thus leaving open the possibility that Plessy might remain viable in
other fields.

peace and justice,

[George Plimpton]

Mitt Romney is, of course, a citizen of the US - not only a citizen, but
a full-fledged natural born citizen. Mitt Romney was born in the US to
parents both of whom were US citizens. George Romney may not have been
a natural born citizen, but he unambiguously was a citizen. Lenore
Romney, Mitt Romney's mother, of course was a natural born US citizen.
As Mitt Romney was born in the US to US citizen parents, one of whom
without any doubt was a natural born citizen herself, Mitt Romney is a
natural born citizen. I'm happy to clarify that for you and correct
your error.

Barry Soetoro's citizenship, of course, will forever be in doubt. There
is a cloud of suspicion over his place of birth that will never
dissipate. All of the evidence purporting to show his birth in Hawaii,
including birth announcements in newspapers, belatedly produced Adobe
Acrobat images of an alleged long-form birth certificate, and anything
else, is under a permanent cloud of suspicion. What is interesting
about your claim regarding Romney is that his claim to not only American
citizenship but unquestioned natural born status is far stronger than
Barry Soetoro's, so if you're going to question Romney's, you *must*
question Barry Soetoro's.

Mitt Romney is a natural born citizen - not in any rational dispute.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/24/2012 9:30 PM, Matt Warner wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:35:03 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>
>> No, that's false. Birthright citizenship could be ditched by the
>> Supreme Court at the stroke of a pen, if the right cases make it before
>> the court.
>
> You don't have the votes in the Supreme Court to rule that birthright
> citizenship is not in the 14th amendment.

That's not at all obvious. There are three certain votes to throw out
the current interpretation, and a fourth likely; that leaves a need to
get a fifth.

It's important to point out that the decision would not be to declare
that birthright citizenship is "not in the 14th amendment"; it would be
to restrict the scope of the amendment to those the authors of the
amendment intended. The clause in the amendment is "born or naturalized
in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." By
"subject to the jurisdiction", the authors of the amendment did *NOT*
mean merely subject to the jurisdiction of the laws; they meant a
*complete* political jurisdiction, i.e. owing allegiance to the country,
and they said so. Any tourist traveling through the US is subject to
our laws, but does *NOT* owe any form of allegiance to the country - he
may not be drafted into our military, may not be tried for treason.

The jurisdiction contemplated in the amendment is *NOT* merely legal; it
is political and national. The authors of the amendment made that
clear, and the courts in the years following acknowledged it explicitly.

Justice Gray, in Elk v. Wilkins:

The main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth
Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a
difference of opinion throughout the country and in this Court, as
to the citizenship of free negroes, and to put it beyond doubt
that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or

not, born or naturalized in the United States, *and owing no*
*allegiance to any alien power*, should be citizens of the United

States and of the state in which they reside. This section
contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only:
birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are
"all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last

words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the
jurisdiction of the United States, but *completely subject to*
*their political jurisdiction* and *owing them direct and*
*immediate allegiance*.

Clearly - beyond all rational dispute - "completely subject to [the
United States'] political jurisdiction and owing them direct and
immediate allegiance" goes *FAR* beyond mere legal jurisdiction, to
which anyone in the country except diplomats is subject.

[George Plimpton]

You, of course, harbor no doubt whatever that they *completely and
unequivocally* repudiated the doctrine of separate but equal.

liberty and property,

[DCI]

I recommend that a reading the of the series of posts by George Plimpton in regard to the past and current issues of the US Constitution's 14th Amendment. He captures the facts, points out the interpretation and conveys the long held notion the US Constitution is a living dynamic document that has kept abreast of the times, the US Supreme Court has the obligation to interpret what the Constitution, its meaning and has changed or altered its opinions over periods of time and change.

I truly enjoy his presentations and efforts to shine a light on many issues, especially, the issues of citizenship.

And that's the way I feel, period!

DCI

[Gunner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:30:33 -0700, Matt Warner <Ma...@gmail.com-spam>
wrote:

It has nothing to do with birthright citizenship..but its
interpretation.

If the wife of say..a German diplomat gives birth in a US hospital..is
the baby a US citizen?

No..its not. Even when it was born on US soil.

Read the details...its the details......

[Gunner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:59:37 -0700, Bill Shatzer <ww...@NOcornell.edu>
wrote:

So neither of his parents were US citizens?

The Slaughter-House Cases

In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) — a civil rights case
not dealing specifically with birthright citizenship — a majority of
the Supreme Court mentioned in passing that "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".[36]
Elk v. Wilkins

In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884), the Supreme Court denied the
birthright citizenship claim of an American Indian. The court ruled
that being born in the territory of the United States is not
sufficient for citizenship; those who wish to claim citizenship by
birth must be born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
The court's majority held that the children of Native Americans were

"no more 'born in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof,' within the meaning of the first section of the

Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign

government born within the domain of that government, or the children

born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers
of foreign nations."[37]



Current controversy
Original meaning

During the original debate over the 14th Amendment Senator Jacob M.
Howard of Michigan—the sponsor of the Citizenship Clause—described the
clause as having the same content, despite different wording, as the
earlier Civil Rights Act of 1866, namely, that it excludes American
Indians who maintain their tribal ties and "persons born in the United

States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of

ambassadors or foreign ministers."[42] Others also agreed that the
children of ambassadors and foreign ministers were to be
excluded.[43][44] However, concerning the children born in the United
States to parents who are not U.S. citizens (and not foreign
diplomats), three senators, including Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Lyman Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act, as well
as President Andrew Johnson, asserted that both the Civil Rights Act
and the 14th Amendment would confer citizenship on them at birth, and
no senator offered a contrary opinion.[45][46][47]

Most of the debate on this section of the Amendment centered on
whether the wording in the Civil Rights Act or Howard's proposal more
effectively excluded Aboriginal Americans on reservations and in U.S.
territories from citizenship. Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin
asserted that all Native Americans are subject to the jurisdiction of
the United States, so that the phrase "Indians not taxed" would be
preferable,[48] but Trumbull and Howard disputed this, arguing that
the U.S. government did not have full jurisdiction over Native
American tribes, which govern themselves and make treaties with the
United States.[49][50]

Edward Erler argues that since the Wong Kim Ark case dealt with
someone whose parents were in the United States legally, there is no
valid basis under the 14th Amendment for the practice of granting
citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants: "Even if the
logic is that Wong Kim Ark became a citizen by birth with the
permission of the United States when it admitted his parents to the
country, no such permission has been given to those who enter
illegally."[51] Angelo Ancheta, by contrast, criticizes the
"consent-based theory of citizenship", saying that "The Fourteenth
Amendment was designed to ensure citizenship for 'all persons' born in
the United States, particularly in response to ambiguities in legal
status that attached to being the descendants of an outsider class,
namely slaves."[52]
Modern dispute

In the late 1990s opposition arose over the longstanding practice of
granting automatic citizenship on a jus soli basis[53] as fears grew
in some circles that the existing law encouraged parents-to-be to come
to the United States to have children in order to improve the parents'
chances of attaining legal residency themselves.[54][55] Some media
correspondents[56][57] and public leaders, including former
congressman Virgil Goode, have controversially dubbed this the "anchor
baby" situation,[58][59] and politicians have proposed legislation on
this basis that might alter how birthright citizenship is awarded.[60]

The Pew Hispanic Center determined that according to an analysis of
Census Bureau data about 8 percent of children born in the United
States in 2008 — about 340,000 — were offspring of unauthorized
immigrants. In total, about four million American-born children of
unauthorized immigrant parents resided in this country in 2009, along
with about 1.1 million foreign-born children of unauthorized immigrant
parents.[61] The Center for Immigration Studies—a think tank which
favors stricter controls on immigration—claims that between 300,000
and 400,000 children are born each year to illegal immigrants in the
U.S.[62][63]

Bills have been introduced from time to time in Congress which have
sought to declare American-born children of foreign nationals not to
be "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States", and thus not
entitled to citizenship via the 14th Amendment, unless at least one
parent was an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident.

Both Democrats and Republicans have introduced legislation aimed at
narrowing the application of the Citizenship Clause. In 1993, Sen.
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation what would limit birthright
citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens and legally resident
aliens, and similar bills have been introduced by other legislators in
every Congress since.[64] For example, U.S. Representative Nathan
Deal, a Republican from the State of Georgia, introduced the
"Citizenship Reform Act of 2005" (H.R. 698) in the 109th Congress,[65]
the "Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007" (H.R. 1940)[66] in the 110th
Congress, and the "Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009" (H.R. 1868)[67]
in the 111th Congress. However, neither these nor any similar bill has
ever been passed by Congress.

Some legislators, unsure whether such Acts of Congress would survive
court challenges, have proposed that the Citizenship Clause be changed
through a constitutional amendment.[68] Senate Joint Resolution 6,
introduced on January 16, 2009 in the 111th Congress, proposes such an
amendment;[69] however, neither this, nor any other proposed
amendment, has yet been approved by Congress for ratification by the
states.

The most recent judge to weigh in on the issue as to whether a
constitutional amendment would be necessary to change the policy is
Judge Richard Posner who remarked in a 2003 case that "Congress would
not be flouting the Constitution if it amended the Immigration and
Nationality Act to put an end to the nonsense." He explained, "A
constitutional amendment may be required to change the rule whereby
birth in this country automatically confers U.S. citizenship, but I
doubt it." Posner also wrote, that automatic birthright citizenship is
a policy that "Congress should rethink" and that the United States
"should not be encouraging foreigners to come to the United States
solely to enable them to confer U.S. citizenship on their future
children."[70]

Professor Edward J. Erler of the California State University has
argued that "Congress began to pass legislation offering citizenship
to Indians on a tribe by tribe basis. Finally, in 1923, there was a
universal offer to all tribes. Any Indian who consented could become
an American citizen. This citizenship was based on reciprocal consent:
an offer on the part of the U.S. and acceptance on the part of an
individual. Thus Congress used its legislative powers under the
Fourteenth Amendment to determine who was within the jurisdiction of
the U.S. It could make a similar determination today, based on this
legislative precedent, that children born in the U.S. to illegal
aliens are not subject to American jurisdiction. A constitutional
amendment is no more required now than it was in 1923."[71] Some
others have disagreed with this interpretation, contending that while
Congress can define territories (such as an Indian Reservation) as US
jurisdiction, it has no power to define people as under US
jurisdiction aside from where they were born.[72]

Republicans in the State of Arizona have indicated an intention to
introduce state legislation which would seek to deny American
citizenship to Arizona-born children of illegal immigrant parents by
prohibiting the issuance of a birth certificate unless at least one
parent has legal status.[73][74] However, critics argue that the child
or parents could immediately sue the state for discrimination and that
the federal courts would immediately force the state to issue the
birth certificate.[72]

A report by an organization called the National Foundation for
American Policy (NFAP) in 2012 asserted that revoking birthright
citizenship would be bureaucratic, expensive, would result in a
national ID card, and would not slow illegal immigration.[72] Under
current law, if a citizen parent gives birth in a foreign country,
they must prove their own citizenship in order for their baby to have
citizenship. The NFAP estimated this to cost $600 per baby, not
including legal fees. The report alleged that if birthright
citizenship were eliminated, every baby in the United States would be
subject to this cost. For the four million babies born each year in
the U.S., this would total $24 billion per year. In addition,
currently the US government does not keep any record of births,
instead using the records of individual states to issue passports. The
report alleged that the end of birthright citizenship would leave the
states unable to verify whether a new baby should be granted
citizenship, requiring the federal government instead to issue birth
certificates, and likely a national ID card.

Finally, the report claimed that eliminating birthright citizenship
would not reduce illegal immigration. The report said that immigrants
come to the United States for economic reasons, and illegal immigrants
cannot use a citizen child to be granted citizenship. The report also
said that all proposals to end birthright citizenship, aside from a
constitutional amendment, would be unconstitutional and quickly be
overturned in court.[72]


The Center for Immigration Studies disputed these conclusions,
asserting in its own 2012 report that the NFAP's claims were
"unsupported", that a bureaucratic overhaul would not be necessary,
and that ending automatic birthright citizenship would not cost
parents money, result in a caste system, or create stateless
children.[75]

[Gunner]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:03:51 -0700, Bill Shatzer <ww...@NOcornell.edu>
wrote:

>Gunner wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:13:59 -0700, Matt Warner <Ma...@gmail.com-spam>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:01:20 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>>>
>>>

>>>>It is today routinely believed that under the Citi述enship Clause of the

>>>>Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain

>>>>U.S. citizen貞hip.

>>>
>>>The only way birthright citizenship can be changed is by a constitutional
>>>amendment. Good luck.
>>
>>
>>
>> Actually...not true. Its been a matter of interpretation for some 150
>> yrs
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_Clause
>>
>> As was noted in Dred Scott and many many others
>
>As Dred Scott preceded the 14th amendment by a decade, I fail to see
>what relevance it might have.
>
>peace and justice,

Out behind the bus garage smoking a doobie on that day in Gov 101?

Bummer

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Justice Roger B. Taney in the majority opinion in Dred Scott v.
Sanford 60 U.S. (How. 19) 393 (1857) held that African Americans had
never been and could never become citizens of the United States.
Political scientist Stuart Streichler writes of the decision that
Taney's decision was based on "a skewed reading of history.".[22]
Justice Benjamin R. Curtis in his dissent showed that under the
Articles of Confederation blacks had been citizens in five states and
carried that citizenship forward when the Constitution was
ratified.[23] and wrote:

The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses
the language "a natural-born citizen." It thus assumes that
citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of
the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public
law, well understood in the history of this country at the time of the
adoption of the Constitution, which referred Citizenship to the place
of birth. At the Declaration of Independence, and ever since, the
received general doctrine has been, in conformity with the common law,
that free persons born within either of the colonies, were the
subjects of the King; that by the Declaration of independence, and the
consequent acquisition of sovereignty by the several States, all such
persons ceased to be subjects, and became citizens of the several
States ... The Constitution has left to the States the determination
what person, born within their respective limits, shall acquire by
birth citizenship of the United States...[24]

1862 opinion of the Attorney General of the United States

In 1862, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase sent a question to
Attorney General Edward Bates asking whether or not "colored men" can
be citizens of the United States. Attorney General Bates responded on
November 29, 1862, with a 27-page opinion concluding, "I conclude that
the free man of color, mentioned in your letter, if born in the United
States, is a citizen of the United States, ...[25][italics in
original]" In the course of that opinion, Bates commented at some
length on the nature of citizenship, and wrote,

... our constitution, in speaking of natural born citizens, uses
no affirmative language to make them such, but only recognizes and
reaffirms the universal principle, common to all nations, and as old
as political society, that the people born in a country do constitute
the nation, and, as individuals, are natural members of the body
politic.

If this be a true principle, and I do not doubt it, it follows
that every person born in a country is, at the moment of birth, prima
facie a citizen; and who would deny it must take upon himself the
burden of proving some great disfranchisement strong enough to
override the natural born right as recognized by the Constitution in
terms the most simple and comprehensive, and without any reference to
race or color, or any other accidental circumstance.[26][italics in
original]

Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared: "...all persons born in the

United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians
not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United

States."[27]
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution on
July 9, 1868, citizenship of persons born in the United States has
been controlled by its Citizenship Clause, which states:

"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."[3]

Expatriation Act of 1868
Main article: Expatriation Act of 1868

This act, a companion piece to the Fourteenth Amendment, was approved
on 27 July 1868.[28]

The Expatriation Act of 1868 led President Ulysses S. Grant to write
in 1873, that the United States had "led the way in the overthrow of
the feudal doctrine of perpetual allegiance".[29]

Dr. Edward J. Erler of California State University, San Bernardino,
and Dr. Brook Thomas of the University of California at Irvine, have
argued that this Act was an explicit rejection of birth-right
citizenship as the ground for American citizenship,[30] basing that
argument on the debate that surrounded the passage of this
act.[31][32]
1873 opinion of the Attorney General

In 1873, The Attorney General of the United States published the
following legal opinion concerning the Fourteenth Amendment:

"The word 'jurisdiction' must be understood to mean absolute and
complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens
before the adoption of this amendment. Aliens, among whom are persons
born here and naturalized abroad, dwelling or being in this country,
are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only to a limited
extent. Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to
them."[33]

Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
Main article: Indian Citizenship Act of 1924

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924[34] provided "That all noncitizen
Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be,
and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States".
This same provision (slightly reworded) is contained in present-day
law as section 301(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
(8 USC 1401(b)).

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:


> Jacob Howard, author of the citizenship clause:
>
> The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all "persons
> born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
> are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they
> reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except
> that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this
> body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This
> amendment which I have offered is 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 law 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.

That is exactly what I asked,

Are you proposing that all foreigners on US soil will
be given diplomatic immunity just like Ambassadors or
foreign ministers are?

That means that if any foreigner is caught committing
a crime on US soil, the only response is to deport
since they are not subject to US jurisdiction just
like foreigners who belong to the families of
ambassadors or foreign ministers.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/25/2012 5:14 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>
>> Jacob Howard, author of the citizenship clause:
>>
>> The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all "persons
>> born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
>> are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they
>> reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except
>> that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this
>> body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This
>> amendment which I have offered is 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 law 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.
>
> That is exactly what I asked,
>
> Are you proposing that all foreigners on US soil will
> be given diplomatic immunity just like Ambassadors or
> foreign ministers are?

I already explained to you: it means *more* than merely legal jurisdiction.

[jim]

You are just babbling your usual evasive nonsense.
The question you are evading has a simple yes or no answer.

Under your interpretation of the law does the govt have jurisdiction
to prosecute foreigners for violating US laws?

[George Plimpton]

I'm not.

>
> Under your interpretation of the law does the govt have jurisdiction
> to prosecute foreigners for violating US laws?

Of course - unless they're diplomats. Non-diplomatic foreigners in the
US are, of course, subject to the jurisdiction of our laws. But that is
*NOT* what "subject to the jurisdiction" in the citizenship clause
means. I've explained that to you, and given you citations to prove it.

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/24/2012 10:59 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> there goes Willard Romney's candidacy then as under that logic, he's not
> a US citizen ei

What would cause you to LIE like that again, Bill?

He was BORN in Michigan, you oaf!


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney
>
> Willard Mitt Romney[1] was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan,[2] the youngest child of George W. Romney, at the time an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), at the time a homemaker

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/24/2012 11:20 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
>
> peace and justice,
>

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bill Shatzer wrote:

And over 4,000 Americans have paid with their lives for that little
adventure. Plus a half a trillion dollars in national treasure
You might compare that with the number of lives lost on 9-11. Or the
economic injury incurred from that event.
It would have been cheaper in both lives and money to just suffer
another 9-11 every six or seven years.
Peace and justice,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


I think we can ALL do well to reflect on what kind of sick sociopath
would come up with those words in honor of 911...

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/24/2012 11:03 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> I fail to see what relevance it might have.

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/25/2012 7:57 AM, jim wrote:
> does the govt have jurisdiction
> to prosecute foreigners for violating US laws?

Do you propose that foreigners have all rights and protections of the US
Consitution.

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/24/2012 11:03 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:

> fail to see what relevance it might have.

I'm always reminded of YOUR very *special personal sentiments* regarding
the attacks of 911, Bill:

[George Plimpton]

On 9/25/2012 7:59 AM, somebody else made that happen wrote:
> On 9/24/2012 10:59 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
>> there goes Willard Romney's candidacy then as under that logic, he's not
>> a US citizen ei
>
> What would cause you to LIE like that again, Bill?
>
> He was BORN in Michigan, you oaf!

To parents *both* of whom were themselves citizens. His father, George
Romney, was born in Mexico and may not have been a "natural born"
citizen, but his mother Lenore was born in the US and most definitely
was a natural born citizen.

Birth in the US to two citizen parents, one of whom unequivocally was a
natural born citizen: Mitt Romney is a natural born citizen of the US -
not in rational dispute.

[Gunner]

They enjoy ALL protections..but only some rights.

They cant vote for example

Gunner

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends
of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli

[jim]

Your own quotation from Jacob Howard says that is
what it means.

He did not say "foreigners, aliens AND those who belong

to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers"

He said "foreigners, aliens, who belong to the
families of ambassadors or foreign ministers".

That is, he narrowed it down to a specific
class of foreigners who are not subject to
US jurisdiction. Under the same reasoning the
children of US diplomats abroad are considered to
be born on US soil under US jurisdiction.

That is the same theory that was applied in the case
you cited. Indians who were born on reservations were not
given US citizenship because the reservation was subject to
tribal law and not subject to US jurisdiction.

[George Plimpton]

little jimmie, showing he *still* isn't paying attention, blabbered:

No, it doesn't.

> He did not say "foreigners, aliens AND those who belong
> to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers"

Right: There is an implied "or".

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:

> >
> > Your own quotation from Jacob Howard says that is
> > what it means.
>
> No, it doesn't.
>
> > He did not say "foreigners, aliens AND those who belong
> > to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers"
>
> Right: There is an implied "or".

I see so you think there is an implied "or" along
with an implied removal of an apostrophe.
And then if you change the common meaning of
the word "jurisdiction", you can twist the
14th amendment to mean what you want it to mean.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/25/2012 11:06 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Your own quotation from Jacob Howard says that is
>>> what it means.
>>
>> No, it doesn't.
>>
>>> He did not say "foreigners, aliens AND those who belong
>>> to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers"
>>
>> Right: There is an implied "or".
>
> I see so you think there is an implied "or" along
> with an implied removal of an apostrophe.

There was no apostrophe either implied or written.

[jim]

Yes you're right I meant a comma has to be removed.

Your claim is that an "or" needs to be added and
a comma removed. According to you the sentence was
supposed to read:

"This will not, of course, include persons born in the

United States who are foreigners, aliens or 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."

Instead of what it actually says which is:

"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."

Apparently you think phrase "persons not subject
to US jurisdiction" Has the same meaning as foreigner,
but since foreigners on US soil are indeed subject
to US jurisdiction you claim the word "jurisdiction"
has a completely different meaning when used in the 14th
amendment than it has when used everywhere else.

That is some pretty twisted logic - even for you.

[George Plimpton]

There is no implied "and". He's talking about two separate classes of
people. This is clear - it's clear to you, too, but you're a lying
left-wing sophist trying to preserve the anchor baby toehold for illegals.

[somebody else made that happen]

And there are some protections they don't enjoy either. For example as
an unarmed enemy combatant that may receive due process here in the USA.

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:

> >
> > Instead of what it actually says which is:
> >
> > "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."
>
> There is no implied "and". He's talking about two separate classes of
> people. This is clear - it's clear to you, too,

The words are clear as they stand.
There is no need to add or subtract or rearrange
to get the meaning you want.

The two classes of which he speaks are
1) foreign diplomats and their families
2) everybody else.

Foreign diplomats and their families are people who
may have children on US soil but are not "subject to the
jurisdiction thereof"

[George Plimpton]

On 9/25/2012 2:34 PM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Instead of what it actually says which is:
>>>
>>> "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."
>>
>> There is no implied "and". He's talking about two separate classes of
>> people. This is clear - it's clear to you, too,
>
> The words are clear as they stand.

Yes: it is clear that there is no "and" limiting his exclusion to only
the families of diplomats. He clearly intended that "subject to the
jurisdiction" *excludes* aliens.

[jim]

I'm afraid you don't know enough English to
understand that sentence. Look up the meaning of
"appositive".

The meaning is in spite of your attempts
to pervert the meaning

[George Plimpton]

On 9/25/2012 3:52 PM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>> On 9/25/2012 2:34 PM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> George Plimpton wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Instead of what it actually says which is:
>>>>>
>>>>> "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."
>>>>
>>>> There is no implied "and". He's talking about two separate classes of
>>>> people. This is clear - it's clear to you, too,
>>>
>>> The words are clear as they stand.
>>
>> Yes: it is clear that there is no "and" limiting his exclusion to only
>> the families of diplomats. He clearly intended that "subject to the
>> jurisdiction" *excludes* aliens.
>
> I'm afraid you don't know enough English to
> understand that sentence.

I know it just fine.

I'm afraid your rigid far-left ideology is leading you astray, yet again.

[jim]

Sure you mangle the grammar and then blame it on the bogey man.

[somebody else made that happen]

Why are you defending anchor-babys?

Do we still have Chinamen building railroads and the children of slaves
to worry about?

Grow up.

[jim]

Why do you defend lies?

The meaning of the 14th amendment is clear.
You can't just change the meaning of words to make
them whatever you want them to be.

[George Plimpton]

I didn't mangle anything. I got it exactly right: there is an implied
"or" in what Howard said. He said preceding that, that he regarded the
amendment as "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
already", which was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law had a
slightly differently worded citizenship clause:

That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
be citizens of the United States


"Not subject to any foreign power" - what does that mean? It means not
owing any allegiance to any foreign power. *All* aliens here, not just
diplomats, owe allegiance to their country of citizenship. The
allegiance of the child follows that of the parents. A child born here
to aliens is subject to a foreign power, and is not subject the the
*full and complete* jurisdiction of the US. The child is not a citizen.

[George Plimpton]

It sure is: US-born children of illegal aliens aren't citizens.

[somebody else made that happen]

Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.

> The meaning of the 14th amendment is clear.
> You can't just change the meaning of words to make
> them whatever you want them to be.

Not to worry, it was a moot question, you and your lib ilk want to see
this nation birth-bombed into the third world.

[pyotr filipivich]

Gunner <gunne...@gmail.com> on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 03:42:41 -0700 typed
in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
>On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:30:33 -0700, Matt Warner <Ma...@gmail.com-spam>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:35:03 -0700, George Plimpton <geo...@si.not> wrote:
>>
>>> No, that's false. Birthright citizenship could be ditched by the
>>> Supreme Court at the stroke of a pen, if the right cases make it before
>>> the court.
>>
>>You don't have the votes in the Supreme Court to rule that birthright
>>citizenship is not in the 14th amendment. As far as birthright citizenship
>>goes, I fully support it because conservatives like Michelle Malkin who
>>are born here become citizens when her parents were here on a visa.
>>
>>The more the merrier.
>
>It has nothing to do with birthright citizenship..but its
>interpretation.
>
>If the wife of say..a German diplomat gives birth in a US hospital..is
>the baby a US citizen?
>
>No..its not. Even when it was born on US soil.
>
>Read the details...its the details......

Doesn't always work that way, though. Lot of guys have to be
careful where they travel, that while they were born in an Army
Hospital to American citizens, the host country still considers them
"nationals" and liable for government service - read "draft". And
just because you left the country when a baby and came back a middle
aged tourist, doesn't matter.
>
>
>Gunner
--
pyotr
Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And
you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the
question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers
does it take to change a lightbulb.

[jim]

You have to add an "or" and remove a comma in order to change
the meaning into what you want it to be.

> He said preceding that, that he regarded the
> amendment as "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
> already", which was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law had a
> slightly differently worded citizenship clause:
>
> That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
> foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
> be citizens of the United States
>
> "Not subject to any foreign power" - what does that mean? It means not
> owing any allegiance to any foreign power.

No. those two do not mean the same.

> *All* aliens here, not just
> diplomats, owe allegiance to their country of citizenship.

Where is the evidence for that? The simple fact
is only diplomats and there families are subject indeed
subject to a foreign power. The rest of the lot are
subject to the laws of the US when on US soil.

You can't have it both ways. If you claim they
are not subject to US jurisdiction, then they have
the same legal status (immunity) as diplomats.

> The
> allegiance of the child follows that of the parents. A child born here
> to aliens is subject to a foreign power, and is not subject the the
> *full and complete* jurisdiction of the US. The child is not a citizen.

If the test was the allegiance of the parents, then why does
it not say that? Why do you have to change the common
meaning of words to get the meaning you want?

[Aunt Six of Nine or Half-dozen of the Other of the Borg]

In article <CtWdneVfpqvFb__N...@bright.net>,

jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@m...@mwt.net> wrote:

> Where is the evidence for that? The simple fact
> is only diplomats and there families are subject indeed
> subject to a foreign power. The rest of the lot are
> subject to the laws of the US when on US soil.

The 14th Amendment did not originally apply to many Indians. So people claiming
Indiean ancestors are citizens thanks the 14th.

--
Aren't you special. Tell me your problems.

[jim]

somebody else made that happen wrote:

> >>
> >> Why are you defending anchor-babys?
> >
> > Why do you defend lies?
>
> Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.

That would be you doing that.

Foreigners on US soil are subject to US jurisdiction.
The only exception to that are foreigners who are the family
members of foreign diplomats.

>
> > The meaning of the 14th amendment is clear.
> > You can't just change the meaning of words to make
> > them whatever you want them to be.
>
> Not to worry, it was a moot question, you and your lib ilk want to see
> this nation birth-bombed into the third world.

Changing the meaning of words is not how the Constitution
was intended to be modified.

[jim]

Indians on reservations were once considered to
fit the description of persons not subject to
US jurisdiction. However, they weren't foreigners.

[George Plimpton]

It's already implied.

>
>> He said preceding that, that he regarded the
>> amendment as "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
>> already", which was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law had a
>> slightly differently worded citizenship clause:
>>
>> That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
>> foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
>> be citizens of the United States
>>
>> "Not subject to any foreign power" - what does that mean? It means not
>> owing any allegiance to any foreign power.
>
> No. those two do not mean the same.

They do.

>
>> *All* aliens here, not just
>> diplomats, owe allegiance to their country of citizenship.
>
> Where is the evidence for that?

In the Senate debate. In Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins.

>
>> The
>> allegiance of the child follows that of the parents. A child born here
>> to aliens is subject to a foreign power, and is not subject the the
>> *full and complete* jurisdiction of the US. The child is not a citizen.
>
> If the test was the allegiance of the parents, then why does
> it not say that?

It was, and is, understood.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 6:00 AM, Aunt Six of Nine or Half-dozen of the Other of the

The 14th Amendment, in terms of citizenship, did not and still does not
apply to red Indians. American citizenship for red Indians is from an
act of Congress.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 6:06 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> somebody else made that happen wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> Why are you defending anchor-babys?
>>>
>>> Why do you defend lies?
>>
>> Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.
>
> That would be you doing that.

No, it's you and the left.

> Foreigners on US soil are subject to US jurisdiction.

No, they are not - they are not subject to the full and complete
political jurisdiction envisaged by the authors of the citizenship
clause. Once again, I must remind you of Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk
v. Wilkins:

"[t]he 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/."

Slaughterhouse Cases



The main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth
Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a
difference of opinion throughout the country and in this Court, as
to the citizenship of free negroes, and to put it beyond doubt
that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or
not, born or naturalized in the United States, and /owing no/
/allegiance to any alien power/, should be citizens of the United
States and of the state in which they reside.

This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two
sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be
citizens are "all persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The /evident/
/meaning/ of these last words is not merely subject in some
respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but
/completely subject to their political jurisdiction/ and /owing/
them /direct and immediate allegiance/.

Elk v. Wilkins


You are wrong. "Subject to the jurisdiction" does *NOT* mean merely
subject to the laws; it is *MORE* than that, including full and
exclusive allegiance to the country. A tourist visiting here, or an
illegal alien, is subject to the jurisdiction of our laws, but does
*not* owe allegiance of any kind to the country. As the alien is not
subject to the full and complete political jurisdiction of the country,
nor is the US-born offspring of an alien.

>>
>>> The meaning of the 14th amendment is clear.
>>> You can't just change the meaning of words to make
>>> them whatever you want them to be.
>>
>> Not to worry, it was a moot question, you and your lib ilk want to see
>> this nation birth-bombed into the third world.
>
> Changing the meaning of words

We won't let you change the meaning of words. The meaning is clear:
US-born children of aliens are not citizens, if one faithfully follows
the meaning of the clause.

[George Plimpton]

They were considered aliens. They *are* subject to US laws. How can it
be that they are without question born in the United States, subject to
the jurisdiction of our *laws*, yet were never considered citizens?

Your ideologically driven interpretation of the citizenship clause is
wrong, little leftist.

[jim]

So you claim, but in order to make that work
you also have to remove a comma and change the
meaning of the word "jurisdiction".

You admit that aliens, foreigners, are generally
subject to US jurisdiction, but
claim that in the 14th amendment that word
has a different meaning than it does
wherever else it is used.

>
> >
> >> He said preceding that, that he regarded the
> >> amendment as "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
> >> already", which was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law had a
> >> slightly differently worded citizenship clause:
> >>
> >> That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
> >> foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
> >> be citizens of the United States
> >>
> >> "Not subject to any foreign power" - what does that mean? It means not
> >> owing any allegiance to any foreign power.
> >
> > No. those two do not mean the same.
>
> They do.
>
> >
> >> *All* aliens here, not just
> >> diplomats, owe allegiance to their country of citizenship.
> >
> > Where is the evidence for that?
>
> In the Senate debate. In Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins.

Actually that is evidence you are wrong. At that time the
children born in the US to all aliens were not denied
citizenship.

>
> >
> >> The
> >> allegiance of the child follows that of the parents. A child born here
> >> to aliens is subject to a foreign power, and is not subject the the
> >> *full and complete* jurisdiction of the US. The child is not a citizen.
> >
> > If the test was the allegiance of the parents, then why does
> > it not say that?
>
> It was, and is, understood.

Only by those who are willing to
twist the words beyond all recognition.

[George Plimpton]

Correctly. He was speaking, not writing.

>
>>
>>>
>>>> He said preceding that, that he regarded the
>>>> amendment as "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
>>>> already", which was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law had a
>>>> slightly differently worded citizenship clause:
>>>>
>>>> That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
>>>> foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
>>>> be citizens of the United States
>>>>
>>>> "Not subject to any foreign power" - what does that mean? It means not
>>>> owing any allegiance to any foreign power.
>>>
>>> No. those two do not mean the same.
>>
>> They do.
>>
>>>
>>>> *All* aliens here, not just
>>>> diplomats, owe allegiance to their country of citizenship.
>>>
>>> Where is the evidence for that?
>>
>> In the Senate debate. In Slaughterhouse Cases and Elk v. Wilkins.
>
> Actually that is evidence you are wrong.

It's not. It fully supports what I said. You are incompetent to read them.

>>>> The
>>>> allegiance of the child follows that of the parents. A child born here
>>>> to aliens is subject to a foreign power, and is not subject the the
>>>> *full and complete* jurisdiction of the US. The child is not a citizen.
>>>
>>> If the test was the allegiance of the parents, then why does
>>> it not say that?
>>
>> It was, and is, understood.
>
> Only by those who are willing to
> twist the words beyond all recognition.

No, all the twisting is by your side. Proved.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 7:18 AM, Baxter wrote:
> -
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Free Software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "George Plimpton" <geo...@si.not> wrote in message
> news:lfCdnaGOl-Vdkf7N...@giganews.com...

>>
>> You are wrong. "Subject to the jurisdiction" does *NOT* mean merely
>> subject to the laws; it is *MORE* than that, including full and exclusive
>> allegiance to the country. A tourist visiting here, or an illegal alien,
>> is subject to the jurisdiction of our laws, but does *not* owe allegiance
>> of any kind to the country. As the alien is not subject to the full and
>> complete political jurisdiction of the country, nor is the US-born
>> offspring of an alien.
>>

> Hmmm... I wonder whose word we should take on this? The "expertise" of an
> amUsenet sockpuppet?

You should take the word of constitutional experts like John Eastland.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm18.cfm

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 7:06 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> somebody else made that happen wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> Why are you defending anchor-babys?
>>>
>>> Why do you defend lies?
>>
>> Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.
>
> That would be you doing that.

Nope.

> Foreigners on US soil are subject to US jurisdiction.
> The only exception to that are foreigners who are the family
> members of foreign diplomats.

Stop conflating jurisdiction with birth rights.

>>
>>> The meaning of the 14th amendment is clear.
>>> You can't just change the meaning of words to make
>>> them whatever you want them to be.
>>
>> Not to worry, it was a moot question, you and your lib ilk want to see
>> this nation birth-bombed into the third world.
>
> Changing the meaning of words is not how the Constitution
> was intended to be modified.

You've never heard of SCOTUS review?

Interpretations and revisions are issued all the time.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 8:49 AM, somebody else made that happen wrote:
> On 9/26/2012 7:06 AM, jim wrote:
>>
>>
>> somebody else made that happen wrote:
>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Why are you defending anchor-babys?
>>>>
>>>> Why do you defend lies?
>>>
>>> Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.
>>
>> That would be you doing that.
>
> Nope.
>
>> Foreigners on US soil are subject to US jurisdiction.

Merely the jurisdiction of the laws - that is, territorial jurisdiction.
They are not subject to the political jurisdiction of the US - they do
not owe allegiance to the US.

>> The only exception to that are foreigners who are the family
>> members of foreign diplomats.
>
> Stop conflating jurisdiction with birth rights.

He is deliberately conflating mere territorial jurisdiction - the reach
of our laws - with the deeper, more complete political jurisdiction
incorporating allegiance that was understood by the authors of the
citizenship clause, and was also understood by the Supreme Court in the
years immediately following the ratification of the amendment. It's
deliberate sophistry on the part of the left. They are the ones
twisting meaning.

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:

> >
> > Only by those who are willing to
> > twist the words beyond all recognition.
>
> No, all the twisting is by your side. Proved.

Only a pervert would regard established law as a "side"

[jim]

Some indians received citizenship.
It depended on whether they were considered to
be subject to US jurisdiction. On the reservations
they are subject to tribal law and exempt from most
US and state laws.
Those indians who were not affiliated with a tribe and
lived off the reservations did have citizenship.

Giving indians universal citizenship was partly motivated
by the intent to expand US sovereignty. Many indians did
not want it.

[George Plimpton]

It isn't, of course, the <scoff> "established law". It's an opinion
that is under serious and critical attack by constitutional scholars.

The perversion, of course, is on the left - as usual.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 9:21 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>> On 9/26/2012 6:29 AM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Aunt Six of Nine or Half-dozen of the Other of the Borg wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In article <CtWdneVfpqvFb__N...@bright.net>,
>>>> jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@m...@mwt.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Where is the evidence for that? The simple fact
>>>>> is only diplomats and there families are subject indeed
>>>>> subject to a foreign power. The rest of the lot are
>>>>> subject to the laws of the US when on US soil.
>>>>
>>>> The 14th Amendment did not originally apply to many Indians. So people claiming
>>>> Indiean ancestors are citizens thanks the 14th.
>>>
>>> Indians on reservations were once considered to
>>> fit the description of persons not subject to
>>> US jurisdiction. However, they weren't foreigners.
>>
>> They were considered aliens. They *are* subject to US laws. How can it
>> be that they are without question born in the United States, subject to
>> the jurisdiction of our *laws*, yet were never considered citizens?
>
> Some indians received citizenship.
> It depended on whether they were considered to
> be subject to US jurisdiction.

*ALL* of them were subject to *exactly* the same territorial
jurisdiction - jurisdiction of the laws - that you claim makes US-born
children of aliens citizens at birth.

As usual, the lying perverted left has to try to twist clear meaning.

You don't know economics, you don't know anything about money creation,
and you sure as hell don't know citizenship law. What you know is your
virulent hatred of America.

[jim]

The author of the language claimed it was merely
an expression of the way things had always been.
As a general rule anyone born in the US to parents
that had come from some other country were automatically
citizens - both before and after the 14th amendment.

Your claim of how the meaning is interpreted just
doesn't square with the facts.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 9:27 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>> On 9/26/2012 6:29 AM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Aunt Six of Nine or Half-dozen of the Other of the Borg wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In article <CtWdneVfpqvFb__N...@bright.net>,
>>>> jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@m...@mwt.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Where is the evidence for that? The simple fact
>>>>> is only diplomats and there families are subject indeed
>>>>> subject to a foreign power. The rest of the lot are
>>>>> subject to the laws of the US when on US soil.
>>>>
>>>> The 14th Amendment did not originally apply to many Indians. So people claiming
>>>> Indiean ancestors are citizens thanks the 14th.
>>>
>>> Indians on reservations were once considered to
>>> fit the description of persons not subject to
>>> US jurisdiction. However, they weren't foreigners.
>>
>> They were considered aliens. They *are* subject to US laws. How can it
>> be that they are without question born in the United States, subject to
>> the jurisdiction of our *laws*, yet were never considered citizens?
>>
>> Your ideologically driven interpretation of the citizenship clause is
>> wrong,
>
> The author of the language claimed it was merely
> an expression of the way things had always been.

Not "merely", and not "always" - why do you irrational leftists *always*
have to lie? The author of the clause said he considered it to mean
what was the law at that time - that is, the law of the 1866 civil
rights law. Howard said,

I concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois
[Trumbull], in holding that the word "jurisdiction," as here
employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a *full* and
*complete* jurisdiction on the part of the United States, whether
exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial
department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and
quality as applies to every *citizen* of the United States now.

But the jurisdiction of the United States over its *citizens* is very
much more extensive than its jurisdiction over aliens, jimmie. It
*includes*, jimmie, a requirement of allegiance. A *citizen*, jimmie,
can be tried for treason against the country, *precisely* because of
that requirement of allegiance that is an essential element of the
jurisdiction a country has over its citizens. An alien, jimmie, cannot
be tried for treason. That's something you ought to have known, jimmie,
but you don't know it.

You're far out of your depth, jimmie. If you had a shred of integrity,
jimmie, you would concede defeat right now. But left-wing extremists
like you have no integrity at all.

[jim]

I haven't claimed anything other than the ability
to read English.

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 9:27 AM, jim wrote:

> As a general rule anyone born in the US to parents
> that had come from some other country were automatically
> citizens - both before and after the 14th amendment.

*FALSE*, jimmie - before the 14th amendment, US citizenship depended on
state citizenship, and not all states followed that.

You don't know what you're talking about, jimmie. You are far out of
your depth.

>
> Your claim of how the meaning is interpreted just
> doesn't square with the facts.

It most certainly does. Your twisted claim is what is at odds with the
facts, jimmie.

Why do all left-wing extremists like you lie all the time?

[George Plimpton]

You're lying about that claim as well, jimmie. As a left-wing
extremist, you lie about everything.

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 10:15 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
> On 9/26/2012 8:49 AM, somebody else made that happen wrote:
>> On 9/26/2012 7:06 AM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> somebody else made that happen wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why are you defending anchor-babys?
>>>>>
>>>>> Why do you defend lies?
>>>>
>>>> Why do you defend an abusive read of a misapplied amendment.
>>>
>>> That would be you doing that.
>>
>> Nope.
>>
>>> Foreigners on US soil are subject to US jurisdiction.
>
> Merely the jurisdiction of the laws - that is, territorial jurisdiction.
> They are not subject to the political jurisdiction of the US - they do
> not owe allegiance to the US.
>
>
>>> The only exception to that are foreigners who are the family
>>> members of foreign diplomats.
>>
>> Stop conflating jurisdiction with birth rights.
>
> He is deliberately conflating mere territorial jurisdiction - the reach
> of our laws - with the deeper, more complete political jurisdiction
> incorporating allegiance that was understood by the authors of the
> citizenship clause, and was also understood by the Supreme Court in the
> years immediately following the ratification of the amendment. It's
> deliberate sophistry on the part of the left. They are the ones twisting
> meaning.

Exactly correct.

[jim]

Why do you always claim things are lies simply
because you don't like the wording?

The author of the words said:
"simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
already"

OK so its not "merely" it is "simply". And it is not always
it is just since the republic was founded.


The point is that both before and after the
14th amendment citizenship was being conferred
on children born on US soil to parents who came
from foreign countries. That makes your claim that
the wording is supposed to mean that citizenship
be denied to those people a bit suspicious.

[somebody else made that happen]

You have a "side", you trade in "established law" as an excuse.

You are descpicable vermin.

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:

> >
> > I haven't claimed anything other than the ability
> > to read English.
>
> You're lying about that claim as well, jimmie.

Well yes now that you back me into a corner.
I did also claim that you can't read English.

[George Plimpton]

I never do that. Why are you lying and saying I do?

You *do* lie in every post.

> The author of the words said:
> "simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land
> already"

That is, the civil rights act of 1866, which says:

That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared
to be citizens of the United States

Of course, aliens living in the United States, whether here legally or
not, whether ambassadors or not, *ARE* subject to a foreign power,
jimmie. Aliens living in the US *are* subject to a foreign power,
jimmie, and *necessarily* so are any children they bear here.

Why do you have to lie about that, jimmie?

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 10:08 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I haven't claimed anything other than the ability
>>> to read English.
>>
>> You're lying about that claim as well, jimmie.
>
> Well yes now that you back me into a corner.

It wasn't hard to do, jimmie - you've been back-pedaling the whole time.
You don't know what you're talking about, jimmie - that's obvious.

[jim]

George Plimpton wrote:
>
> On 9/26/2012 9:27 AM, jim wrote:
>
> > As a general rule anyone born in the US to parents
> > that had come from some other country were automatically
> > citizens - both before and after the 14th amendment.
>
> *FALSE*, jimmie - before the 14th amendment, US citizenship depended on
> state citizenship, and not all states followed that.

As a general rule they did.

Which states did not?

[George Plimpton]

You don't have a clue.

[jim]

More like you snipped my question because
you don't have a clue.

Which of states did not grant citizenship to
children born on their soil of parents that
came from foreign countries?

[Bill Shatzer]

George Plimpton wrote:

> On 9/26/2012 6:00 AM, Aunt Six of Nine or Half-dozen of the Other of the

> Borg wrote:
>
>> In article <CtWdneVfpqvFb__N...@bright.net>,
>> jim <"sjedgingN0Sp"@m...@mwt.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Where is the evidence for that? The simple fact
>>> is only diplomats and there families are subject indeed
>>> subject to a foreign power. The rest of the lot are
>>> subject to the laws of the US when on US soil.
>>
>>
>> The 14th Amendment did not originally apply to many Indians. So people
>> claiming
>> Indiean ancestors are citizens thanks the 14th.

> The 14th Amendment, in terms of citizenship, did not and still does not
> apply to red Indians. American citizenship for red Indians is from an
> act of Congress.

"Red Indians"?

peace and justice,

[Bill Shatzer]

By whose pronouncement did Eastman (not 'Eastland', doofus!) become a
"constitutional expert"?

Chapman University? Piffle! It's a third tier law school.

peace and justice,

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 10:59 AM, jim wrote:
>
>
> George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>> On 9/26/2012 10:20 AM, jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> George Plimpton wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 9/26/2012 9:27 AM, jim wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As a general rule anyone born in the US to parents
>>>>> that had come from some other country were automatically
>>>>> citizens - both before and after the 14th amendment.
>>>>
>>>> *FALSE*, jimmie - before the 14th amendment, US citizenship depended on
>>>> state citizenship, and not all states followed that.
>>>
>>> As a general rule they did.
>>
>> You don't have a clue.
>
> More like you snipped my question because

You don't have a clue. You don't know anything about this, just as you
don't know a thing about money creation.

You have no expertise in anything.

[George Plimpton]

Yes.

liberty and property,

[George Plimpton]

On 9/26/2012 11:27 AM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> George Plimpton wrote:
>
>> On 9/26/2012 7:18 AM, Baxter wrote:
>
>
>>> "George Plimpton" <geo...@si.not> wrote in message
>>> news:lfCdnaGOl-Vdkf7N...@giganews.com...
>
>>>> You are wrong. "Subject to the jurisdiction" does *NOT* mean merely
>>>> subject to the laws; it is *MORE* than that, including full and
>>>> exclusive
>>>> allegiance to the country. A tourist visiting here, or an illegal
>>>> alien,
>>>> is subject to the jurisdiction of our laws, but does *not* owe
>>>> allegiance
>>>> of any kind to the country. As the alien is not subject to the full
>>>> and
>>>> complete political jurisdiction of the country, nor is the US-born
>>>> offspring of an alien.
>
>>> Hmmm... I wonder whose word we should take on this? The "expertise"
>>> of an
>>> amUsenet sockpuppet?
>

>> You should take the word of constitutional experts like John Eastman.
>
>> http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm18.cfm
>
> By whose pronouncement did Eastman become a
> "constitutional expert"?

You leftists shrilly brayed about Obama being a "Constitutional [sic]
law professor", and claimed he was an expert. Eastman clearly surpasses
Obama in knowledge of the Constitution.

> Chapman University? Piffle! It's a third tier law school.

His JD is from University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. is from Claremont
Graduate School, both extremely prestigious.

liberty and property,

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 12:27 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> Chapman University? Piffle! It's a third tier law school.
>
> peace and justice,

So let's see now, you pissed away a perfectly good law degree from
Cornell University to be a City of Portland code officer, pshaw...

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 12:10 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> "Red Indians"?

The other choice being latte colored Indians from India, duh.

[George Plimpton]

Yeah, no kidding!

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 12:27 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:

> By whose pronouncement did Eastman (not 'Eastland', doofus!) become a
> "constitutional expert"?

I'm always reminded of YOUR very *special personal sentiments* regarding
the attacks of 911, Bill:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bill Shatzer wrote:

And over 4,000 Americans have paid with their lives for that little
adventure. Plus a half a trillion dollars in national treasure
You might compare that with the number of lives lost on 9-11. Or the
economic injury incurred from that event.
It would have been cheaper in both lives and money to just suffer
another 9-11 every six or seven years.
Peace and justice,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


I think we can ALL do well to reflect on what kind of sick sociopath
would come up with those words in honor of 911...

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 12:10 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:

> "Red Indians"?
>
> peace and justice,

[Bill Shatzer]

However can you have a "uniform rule of naturalization" as mandated by
Article I, section 8.4 unless all the states follow the same uniform rules?

See The Federalist Papers No. 42, January 22, 1788

peace and justice,

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/24/2012 11:20 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> Actually, they couldn't quite bring themselves

[somebody else made that happen]

On 9/26/2012 12:59 PM, Bill Shatzer wrote:
> See The Federalist Papers