[NoKoolAidforMe]

The 14th Amendment contains the words “subject to the jurisdiction therein” specifically to exclude those who not subject to US laws, i.e., illegal aliens. If you are an illegal alien or a diplomat, you are not subject to the rights bestowed citizens under the Constitution. There is nothing confusing about it.

If the founders meant that everyone born in the US is automatically a citizen, they would not have added those very specific words to the amendment.

[mnehring]

The point isn't what it *should* mean, it is if they have been already recognized legally, such as through the issuance of a social security card, voter registration, etc. If the US Gov made a mistake in that recognition, and the parents were criminals, that doesn't change that the child was recognized by law as a citizen. If we give the power, especially with the plethora of contradicting laws on the books to strip already recognized citizenship based on actions of the parents, etc, that could really be a dangerous precedent of power for the government.

Imagine the case in the future of: "...your parents were radical, anti government activists in a tea-party movement, this is sedition, therefore they gave up their citizenship and we have decided your parents, when you were born, weren't 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' so we strip you of your citizenship...