There was a generally unchallenged opinion at the time to base “birthright” citizenship on a determination of the rights of the children of Chinese laborers brought in to build the western end of the Union Pacific railroad, who then later returned to China with their children who had been born within the United States.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that practically everyone born in the United States, except American Indians, were U.S. citizens. The difference is, that the Chinese parents had been within the United States territory for purposes of permitted labor, then had returned to China when the work ended, taking with them the children born here.
There was, for many years, a policy of exclusion of Chinese from the United States, and a number of them were expelled and forcibly sent back to China. The earthquake that destroyed much of San Francisco (1906), also destroyed the official archives of records, and many Chinese slipped in relatives because these were “paper sons” that had been born back in China, but claimed for US birth.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Faced with such vague rationalizations, the US Federal government took a much more lenient view of “Birthright Citizenship” than would have otherwise been applied. The concept has NEVER been fully tested in court.
it was Bill Buckley himself who pointed out that liberals usually fail to make critical distinctions. Well, this is an example from his own magazine.
The critical distinction here is between the child of legal immigrants (who went home after their visa expired) and the children of illegal immigrants, those whose very presence here is illegal. It's one thing to argue that the birth of a child to a to an alien LEGALLY present in our country confers citizenship; it's entirely another to argue that this same principle applies to one who is here ILLEGALLY!
I was just waiting for somebody to respond:
Two Wongs don’t make a right.......