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To: Defiant
Congress did pass a law that gave citizenship to anyone born in the US, and I believe it was in the 20s.

Congress doesn't have the Constitutional authority to do that. Read the whole post.

The simple fact is that illegal aliens are not subject to US jurisdiction; they are within US jurisdiction. There is a huge difference.

125 posted on 06/22/2007 10:52:03 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (Duncan Hunter for President)
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To: Carry_Okie
I understand the point you were making, but the way you wrote it made it seem as though you were claiming that the law I referenced never existed. What you are saying is that a law passed by Congress in the 20s was unauthorized because of the 14th amendment. I cite the law because it provides an indication that the congress believed that such a law was necessary to clarify the point. And if they thought that, it is debatable whether the 15th amendment provides automatic citizenship, and if that is so, then a law denying such citizenship could well be Constitutional.

Now, you are introducing the 14th amendment to make a different argument. That is fine, I am in agreement with you on the immigration issue in general. I have not examined your 14th amendment argument, but I do believe that the Congress has the power to deny citizenship to anchor babies under the 15th.

There are a lot of constitutional arguments to be re-examined if conservatives ever get a majority on the court. Original intent is an important concept, and if it gets enshrined as the proper way to look at cases, which is Scalia's view, then all cases that were decided using other methods become open to re-examination. I don't know that Roberts and Alito, conservative as they are, are open to re-examining a vast body of case law. This issue is obscure enough that they may be willing to take a fresh look at birthright citizenship. However, we'd still need one more vote. I can just see Justice Kennedy's words, how he, as the son of Irish immigrants, can't possibly fathom a court that would take away the right of citizenship from everyone who makes it over the river and onto our soil.

143 posted on 06/22/2007 11:23:39 AM PDT by Defiant (W '04...........Cheney '07, Thompson/Hunter '08.)
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