I just finished reading the floor debate of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And many of these arguments came up during that debate. Senator Doolittle of Pennsylvania was concerned that the Amendment as written would include the children of that pernicious race, Gypsies. And children of Chinese immigrants in California, even though their parents were at the time prohibited by law from becoming citizens, and indeed were still citizens of the Celestial Empire. And California Senator Conness basically said, -- Yeah, what of it? What do you know about the Chinese in California, anyway? I don't have a problem with that -- And he went on to say that he had voted for a California "proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States."
And no amendment to the Amendment to ensure that children of non-citizens (never mind even children of persons who were EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN by law from becoming naturalized citizens) came out of this discussion.
And then there was a long debate about whether it includes Indians who live on reservations, who were subject to the laws of reservations, and were not ordinarily within the jurisdiction of the United States for purposes of being prosecuted for crimes on the reservation. And so there was a proposal to clarify the Amendment by substituting the words from the recently passed Civil Rights Act, to exclude "Indians not taxed", in order to distinguish them from rich Indians who lived under the jurisdiction of the United States, and not on reservations, who would get citizenship. And other Senators argued that the United States did indeed have jurisdiction over the reservations just by virtue of being able to exercise it if it chose to.
And Senator Saulsbury argued that he was going to vote against the amendment to the Amendment, because while "I do not presume that anyone will pretend to disguise the fact that the object of this first section is simply to declare that negroes shall be citizens of the United States" he could not in good conscience vote on the proposed amendment to the Amendment because "if these negroes are to be made citizens of the United States, I can see no reason in justice or in right why the Indians shold not be made citizens." And that Amendment to the Fourteenth Amendment WAS DEFEATED, 30-10 (9 absent).
So the senators who voted NOT to change the Fourteenth Amendment, understood it to include: Negroes, Chinese, Gypsies, and Indians. Or at least, they understood it to be broad enough to be interpreted that way. [Note that it never even appeared to cross anyone's mind that white European people should be ineligible under this Amendment, even though there were surely plenty of "undocumented" Europeans at the time.]
The unfortunate fact about the 14th amendment is that a lot of Congressmen were themselves unsure of what they were voting on. But one would think that the ones who introduced the language would have a slightly better idea of what they were saying, then the ones to whom it was being presented, and who wanted to use the opportunity to soapbox about whatever it was they wanted to talk about.