One of the more blood-boiling policies of the Leftists who have seized control of our country is to rake in all the illegal aliens they can with both hands for as long as they have the opportunity. The Biden maladministration has already overseen the importation of 6.3 million foreign nationals, as of last month.
Compounding the issue is the current policy of “birthright citizenship,” a facile interpretation of the 14th Amendment to confer U.S. citizenship onto anyone who is born within the physical, geographical borders of the United States. Thus, the offspring of foreign nationals who are in the country temporarily (for work, study, or a vacation — as well as those who are here illegally) automatically becomes a U.S. citizen.
Those of us who cherish our country and the great gift of our citizenship have long bridled at the practice of rewarding breaking U.S. immigration law with citizenship for children born to illegal aliens. Leftists, of course, love it, because they see an army of future Democrat voters, and they’re keen to breed up a permanent majority for themselves.
On Monday, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis issued his plan for getting on top of the illegal alien crisis. Titled “No Excuses,” the policy is aggressive and clear-eyed. “As president I will put an end to this moral and humanitarian catastrophe by shutting down illegal entries and building the wall, once and for all,” DeSantis promises. “There are more than 600 miles of the US-Mexico border without an effective barrier to illegal crossings: I will use every ounce of my executive power and political capital to get the wall built.”
The plan is full of additional thrilling assurances of enforcement, and among them is this:
We will take action to end the idea that the children of illegal aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship if they are born in the United States. Dangling the prize of citizenship to the future offspring of illegal immigrants is a major driver of illegal migration. It is also inconsistent with the original understanding of 14th Amendment, and we will force the courts and Congress to finally address this failed policy.
Nearly a month earlier, Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump also promised to end birthright citizenship, saying he would nuke it with an executive order on day one.
Proponents of handing out U.S. citizenship to everyone born on American soil, no matter the circumstances, point to the first sentence of the 14th Amendment as their justification. It reads, “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.” They gloss over the phrase, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
“Oh,” they say, “because the baby is in the U.S., he is subject to U.S. jurisdiction — the baby needs to follow the law like anyone else, foreign or citizen.” Thus, by virtue of existing on U.S. soil, the baby automatically fulfills the requirements for citizenship.
Except, then, why did the framers insert the phrase in the first place? Why not just say, “You’re born here, you’re a citizen”?
The answer is that the phrase refers to the child’s political allegiance, which flows from her parents. In other words, simply being physically within a country’s borders and thus subject to its laws does not confer citizenship onto a baby any more than it does her parents.
Hans A. von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, explains:
Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike.
But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.
The fact that a tourist or illegal alien is subject to our laws and our courts if they violate our laws does not place them within the political “jurisdiction” of the United States as that phrase was defined by the framers of the 14th Amendment.
Von Spakovsky notes that the 14th Amendment “was derived from the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that ‘[a]ll persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power’ would be considered citizens.” It was intended to clarify that freed slaves were full citizens while excluding the children of foreign nationals (hence that extra phrase — not subject to any foreign power). He writes that Sen. Lyman Trumbull, who was a key figure in the adoption of the amendment, specified that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” precluded owing allegiance to any other country.
Von Spakovsky then enumerates past SCOTUS decisions that affirmed the meaning of the phrase:
In the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872, the Supreme Court stated that this qualifying phrase was intended to exclude “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” This was confirmed in 1884 in another case, Elk vs. Wilkins, when citizenship was denied to an American Indian because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United States.
American Indians and their children did not become citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. There would have been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, and no matter who their parents are.
In the 1898 decision U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the son of Chinese citizens who was born in San Francisco was declared to have birthright citizenship. This is the case that supporters say granted jus soli to any baby born on U.S. soil, but not so fast: Wong’s parents were legal residents of the U.S. The agreed-upon fact of the case was that “They were at the time of his birth domiciled residents of the United States, having previously established and are still enjoying a permanent domicile and residence therein at San Francisco.” Notes von Spakovsky:
Even in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case most often cited by “birthright” supporters due to its overbroad language, the court only held that a child born of lawful, permanent residents was a U.S. citizen. That is a far cry from saying that a child born of individuals who are here illegally must be considered a U.S. citizen.
Related: ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: The Border Crisis Is Still With Us Despite the Media Blackout
In light of the new normal of full-on mass invasion by people almost none of whom have legitimate claims of asylum but have instead been coached on how to game the system, the time is ripe for the issue to make another appearance before the court. This alone is an excellent reason to support the candidacy of Trump or DeSantis. Let’s take a good, hard look at why that little phrase was included in the 14th Amendment.
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