Are children of illegal aliens born on American soil U.S. citizens? The Constitution says no.
Here is the actual language of the 14th Amendment:
“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.”
Birthright citizenship only belongs to
those who were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States the
moment they were born. But children of illegal aliens are not.
Their parents are not subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States but rather of their home country,
which is why they can be immediately deported if identified and
apprehended. You can’t do that to an American citizen.
Since the parents are not subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States, neither are their children. They are,
in plain fact, not citizens of the U.S. by birth.
This is why the children of diplomats who
are born on U.S. soil are not U.S. citizens. Since their parents are not
“subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, neither are the
children.
We are all familiar with the concept of
“diplomatic immunity,” which diplomats often use to get themselves and
their children out of trouble on American soil by claiming that the
children are not under the authority of American law. All the American
government can do in such circumstances is send them back to their home
country. That is, all they can do is deport them.
If an illegal alien has a child on
American soil, the Constitution does not require the child be granted
American citizenship.
Congress can give citizenship to anyone it wants,
but the Fourteenth Amendment only commands citizenship to persons born
on U.S. soil to parents who are not citizens of a foreign country...
While many erroneously claim that
the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born on
American soil, the reality is that is not the law and has never been the
law. Current immigration law–found at 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a)–specifies that
a baby born on American soil to (1) a foreign ambassador, (2) head of
state, or (3) foreign military prisoner is not an American citizen.
But if the view promoted by the Left
that citizenship is automatic (and parroted by many in the middle and
even on the Right who have not seriously studied the issue) is correct,
then those three exceptions would be unconstitutional. The debate over
birthright citizenship turns on what the Citizenship Clause means by the
words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Every provision of the Constitution
has a fixed meaning. Because only “We the People” can adopt a
constitutional provision–all 27 amendments in the Constitution were
proposed by two-thirds of the House and Senate, then ratified by
three-fourths of the states–the only legitimate way to interpret the
Constitution is in accordance with the original meaning of those terms.
So the question becomes: What was the
meaning of the Jurisdiction Clause in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment
was ratified? One of the best tools for determining that is looking at
the Civil Rights Act of 1866, enacted the same year that the Fourteenth
Amendment was written by Congress...
The Civil Rights Act included a
provision to define American citizenship to secure it for former slaves.
It read, “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...”
[T]he Civil Rights Act’s
parallel language, “and not subject to any foreign power,” instead shows
the Jurisdiction Clause excludes all citizens of any foreign country.
The Citizenship Clause was intended to overrule the most infamous
Supreme Court case in American history–the 1857 Dred Scott case–and
ensure free blacks born in America could not be denied citizenship. It
was never designed to make a citizen of every child born to a foreigner.
The way forward is simple. Section 5 of
the 14th Amendment gives power to Congress to “enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Donald Trump in
2016 will work with a conservative Congress, which has the sole
authority under the Constitution to determine immigration policy, to
enact a law specifying in no uncertain terms that children of illegal
aliens born on American soil are not American citizens.
Some well-meaning Republican candidates
are calling for an amendment to the Constitution to ban birthright
citizenship. But in truth the Constitution does NOT need to be amended.
It only needs to be applied.
Bottom line: Are children of illegal aliens American citizens? No. Why? Because the Constitution says they aren’t.
ANY QUESTIONS?
ANY QUESTIONS?
