The idea is, there are only two forms of citizenship, natural born and naturalized. There are no other categories or exceptions. Current US law and standing court decisions do not allow for this. By current and standing I mean no going back to superseded laws and court decisions and pretending they are still the law. No cherry picking bits and pieces out of Minor v. Happersett or Dred Scott v. Sandford as if they still apply today. Second, aside from left/right politics, the relationship between Federal law and the courts on citizenship is not perfect. There are conditions the law has not covered that are filled in by the courts.
For Ramaswamy and Harris, their parents were not here illegally, on short term visas, or long term resident aliens maintaining legal citizenship of their home countries. They were on the legal pathway to become naturalized US citizens when their children were born. That changes how they and their children are treated under the law and in the courts. What the USSC has stated. even if indirectly or inferred, is that children born under this circumstance are NBCs.
The idea is, there are only two forms of citizenship, natural born and naturalized.
That is directly supported by the U.S. Supreme Court Opinion in the leading precedential case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702 (28 March 1898)
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration that"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,"
contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) has no precedential value whatever regarding citizenship. Citizenship was not an issue before the Court and the Court issued no holding regarding citizenship. The natural born citizenship of Virginia Minor was stipulated in an agreed State of facts. The Chief Justice noted that doubts had been expressed about the status of some people, but that it was not necessary for the Court to resolve those doubts. The only issue before the Court was whether a woman had a right to vote for President. She did not. The subsequent 19th Amendment did not give women the right to vote either. As observed in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104 (2000) nobody has the right to vote for President. No state has an obligation to engage in a popular vote for President, and early election had none, with Legislatures choosing the delegates to the Electoral College. The 19th established that women must be given the same right to vote as men. If men are afforded the right to vote, so too must women be afforded the right to vote.
In Dred Scott, the actual decision was find that the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. A Mandate was sent to the lower court directing that court to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction in that court. The Opinion of CJ Taney, while captioned as the Opinion of the Court, is filled with dicta, statements made in passing, responding to statements made by Justice Curtis in his dissenting opinion. Only statements of law supported by a majority of the justices are holdings. There is very little in Scott that was a holding. Every justice wrote an opinion, and all nine must be read to determine what majority agreed upon any specific legal point.
In any case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark is the leading precedent. When two Supreme Court opinions disagree upon a point of law, the most recent statement of the Court shall prevail. Wong Kim Ark has stood as precedent for well over a century.
For Ramaswamy and Harris, their parents were not here illegally, on short term visas, or long term resident aliens maintaining legal citizenship of their home countries. They were on the legal pathway to become naturalized US citizens when their children were born. That changes how they and their children are treated under the law and in the courts.
This is plainly incorrect on the point about children being treated differently depending upon the status of their parents. A child who is born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is born a citizen of the United States.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 662-63:
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said: "All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution."
https://fam.state.gov/FAM/08FAM/08FAM030101.html#M301_1_1
[State Department, Foreign Affairs Manual]
8 FAM 301.1-1 INTRODUCTION
c. Naturalization – Acquisition of U.S. Citizenship Subsequent to Birth: Naturalization is “the conferring of nationality of a State upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever” (INA 101(a)(23) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(23)) or conferring of citizenship upon a person (see INA 310, 8 U.S.C. 1421 and INA 311, 8 U.S.C. 1422). Naturalization can be granted automatically or pursuant to an application. (See 7 FAM 1140.)d. “Subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States”: All children born in and subject, at the time of birth, to the jurisdiction of the United States acquire U.S. citizenship at birth even if their parents were in the United States illegally at the time of birth:
(1) The U.S. Supreme Court examined at length the theories and legal precedents on which the U.S. citizenship laws are based in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). In particular, the Court discussed the types of persons who are subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The Court affirmed that a child born in the United States to Chinese parents acquired U.S. citizenship even though the parents were, at the time, racially ineligible for naturalization;
(2) The Court also concluded that: “The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.” Pursuant to this ruling:
(a) Acquisition of U.S. citizenship generally is not affected by the fact that the parents may be in the United States temporarily or illegally; and that; and
(b) A child born in an immigration detention center physically located in the United States is considered to have been born in the United States and be subject to its jurisdiction. This is so even if the child’s parents have not been legally admitted to the United States and, for immigration purposes, may be viewed as not being in the United States.
Both Harris and Ramaswamy were born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. Both were born citizens of the United States.