Deception is rampant, liberty requires responsibility, control is futile, resistance too.
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
There is currently a debate in Washington on whether or not we should amend the Constitution to prevent what are called “anchor babies” from receiving citizenship upon their birth. The U.S. Constitution does not bestow citizenship upon these ‘anchor babies’ and only the laws of the states could possibly bestow citizenship upon them. The Constitution provides that the United States has the power to make an uniformed law of naturalization. (Though it seems the laws are hardly uniform, as exceptions are made for certain classes of people.)
That being said, nobody has yet to provide me with any Supreme Court ruling that recognizes an automatic grant of citizenship to a child born of alien parents visiting the United States. I have found, however, the opposite to be true, and supporting my understanding of the phrase “Subject to the Jurisdiction thereof.”
One claim is that in Pyler v. Doe:
Apparently from Wikipedia:
Any remaining doubts about the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment were resolved by the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, which held that “the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory. That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter.”
However, this is not true.
Texas officials had argued that illegal immigrants were not “within the jurisdiction” of the state and could thus not claim protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court majority rejected this claim, finding instead that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”
The Key word being “resident” – As the end of the first section of the 14th Amendment implies that “Subject to the Jurisdiction thereof..” assumes they reside in the state.
From a book written in 1868 from the congressional debates regarding the 14th Amendment:
A tourist doesn’t give their allegiance to the country they are visiting, nor do they denounce their citizenship of their homeland. The words “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” did mean: not owing allegiance to anybody else. In this case, they were discussing Native Americas, and since they weren’t granted citizenship upon birth, even though they were born within the boundaries of the United States, they were not subject to the Jurisdiction thereof.
This question was answered in an American & English Law Encyclopedia in 1888.
<—–HERE
The American and English encyclopedia of law, Volume 6
I don’t believe that at any point during its construction, that the lawmakers believed this amendment would encompass children born of foreign visitors to this country. I think that is obvious from the above posts. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Wong Kim Ark.
In that case, Wong Kim Ark, the person was born to parents who were legally residing in California at the time of his birth, therefore, they were subject to the political jurisdiction as well as criminal jurisdiction of California. A person merely visiting, or passing through is not subject to the jurisdiction as far as the 14th Amendment is concerned. As has been laid out by the Supreme Court, and mentioned during the debates of congress during the construction of the 14th amendment, Subject to the Jurisdiction implies the full jurisdiction, both criminal and political. A person passing through this country is not subject to the political jurisdiction.
The United States is sovereign within its territories, therefore everyone with the exception of a diplomat is within its jurisdiction when in its territory; Mr Justice Gray, writing in WKA, specified that jurisdiction essentially means within the geographical sovereignty of a country, and see also Plyler v. Doe. in short, the weight of case law stands against your interpretation.
Plyler v. Doe does not stand against my interpretation.
In Plyler v. Doe, the court majority found that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”
Again, while “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof” is later qualified to include those who “reside” in the state, to help give us a better understanding of the intent of the authors (not to mention the congressional records), nowhere do any of these ruling imply that a person born but not residing here are citizens of the United States. Only a person who is unfamiliar with law would make such a claim.