Posted on 12/01/2007 11:32:43 AM PST by Jim Robinson
BLUFFTON, S.C. (AP) -- Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday he wouldn't try to change laws that make citizens of children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, noting that it's a matter determined by the Constitution.
"That's a very delicate balance that's been arrived at, and I wouldn't change that," Giuliani said in response to a question while campaigning at Sun City Hilton Head, a sprawling retirement community down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingnews.nypost.com:80 ...
Giuliani is a man with certain talents that would make him very suitable to a number of jobs. President of the United States, however, is not one of them.
No need to `change the Consitution’ Varda. The 109 year old decision you cite (by the legal predecessors of the present 9th Circuit) mentions the Civil Rights Act, and specifically requires that the parents of the child claiming citizen status must not be subject to the jurisdiction of their native country.
Mexico may not want them back (although it appreciates the tax-free income they send back: their second greatest source of revenue) but that doesn’t mean that they don’t remain subject to Mexican law and jurisdiction. They remain Mexican nationals. This is an important point since a salient concern of Americans is that they tend to remain so, even after having been given citizenship; that is, many insist they have “dual citizenship” (these foreign visitors who consider the 4th grade their senior year) forgetting their scripture, I suppose, about `loving one and hating the other’.
The fact is that since 1986 all of our uninvited “guests” from south of our border—every single one of them—do not feel they must adhere to or believe that they are not constrained by our laws . . . that fact may be confusing you.
“Words are not crystals, immutable and unchanging but, rather, are the skins of living thought and their meaning changes depending upon the context in which they are used.”
Oliver W. Holmes
“subject to the jurisdiction thereof”
In that Mexico is not acting, I submit that we must act `in loco parentis’ and re-visit the wording of the 14th Amendment in order to try and reunite these children of Mexico with their negligent parent.
It’s the least that one good neighbor can do for another.
Minorty opinion: It has been suggested by some critics of U.S. citizenship policy relating to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants that Wong Kim Ark does not hold such children to be U.S. citizens, because Wong's parents were legal non-citizen residents of the United States at the time of his birth.[7] Those advocating this view assert that a subsequent case before the courts, dealing with "anchor babies", would easily be distinguished from Wong Kim Ark by virtue of this difference in the parents' legal status. Proponents of the conventional view argue that the Wong Kim Ark majority defined the "jurisdiction" exception to the jus soli rule very narrowly; that references in the majority opinion to the legal resident status of Wong's parents were obiter dicta and not an essential part of the holdings of the case; that the court majority's reason for mentioning the legal resident status of Wong's parents was simply to illustrate that they were in the United States as ordinary people and not as representatives of a foreign government; and that the 1982 Plyler case affirmed the conventional, mainstream interpretation of Wong Kim Ark with regard to the question of what being "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States means. In the end, no one can really know how the Supreme Court might rule in a new case challenging the citizenship of U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants until and unless such a case were actually heard, and ruled upon, by the court.
And from the heritage foundation,Site: http://www.heritage.org/research/legalissues/lm18.cfm
"The widely held, though erroneous, view today is that any person entering the territory of the United States—even for a short visit; even illegally—is considered to have subjected himself to the jurisdiction of the United States, which is to say, subjected himself to the laws of the United States. Surely one who is actually born in the United States is therefore “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and entitled to full citizenship as a result, or so the common reasoning goes.
Textually, such an interpretation is manifestly erroneous, for it renders the entire “subject to the jurisdiction” clause redundant. Anyone who is “born” in the United States is, under this interpretation, necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Yet it is a well-established doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts, including the Constitution, are not to be interpreted to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to absurd results.[2]
The “subject to the jurisdiction” provision must therefore require something in addition to mere birth on U.S. soil. The language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, from which the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was derived, provides the key to its meaning. The 1866 Act provides: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”[3] As this formulation makes clear, any child born on U.S. soil to parents who were temporary visitors to this country and who, as a result of the foreign citizenship of the child’s parents, remained a citizen or subject of the parents’ home country was not entitled to claim the birthright citizenship provided by the 1866 Act.
If the party had any sense, they’d revoke his membership. There’s no room in the Republican party for liberals. Especially gun-grabbing, abortion-favoring, pro-amnesty liberals.
Before I book, by way of clarification by “context” I mean that the 14th was one of the “Reconstruction Amendments”: the 13th, 14th and 15th.
They were intended to serve as enabling law for the Civil Rights act, to prevent newly freed slaves from being disenfranchised.
Most former slaves barely remembered their former homes in Africa. They were not subject to any foreign government, and neither were Chinese immigrants.
An irony is that liberals like Rudy may see this as freeing their own slaves’—so they can import a fresh bunch to make their beds, mow their lawns, take their pay under the table, etc.
Times have changed, what I’m sayin’
Independant will be a throw away vote.
So who what do ya do?
A vote for Mrs. Clinton is a vote for evil +.
While a vote for Rudy is a vote for stupidity and a RINO in the true sense of the word.
For GODS sake, is this group of PATHETICS the best we can do?
Its the GOP’s to lose......
“The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history...”
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Jurisdiction is by definition: the power, right, or authority to interpret and apply the law. Mexican citizens in American are under our jurisdiction. That is why we can try them for crimes. Likewise American citizens can go to other countries and commit acts which are against the law here and not be prosecuted here because our law lacks jurisdiction in those cases.
“all of our uninvited “guests” from south of our border—every single one of them—do not feel they must adhere to or believe that they are not constrained by our laws . . . that fact may be confusing you.”
Here is what’s confusing you; this isn’t about feelings. It doesn’t matter how they or you feel about the law. It only matters that the law is enforced which is a product of political will.
It’s time for the backyard brawl. Thanks for that link I’ll look at the article later.
I agree with you, but where is the court case to get this ball rolling?
My idea would be to have someone poor, maybe in Africa, sue the United States of America for full American medical care and education for his children, for several years (and hopefully several kids). This person would be suing because he has lost these “benefits” only because he cannot crawl across the seas to cross the borders; other noncitizens who HAPPEN to have been born in Mexico get these benefits; if the U.S. Constitution covers the Mexican kids, why not his?
They won't be of any benefit, only a liability. You seem to like the idea of them coming here to squirt out their babies.
I'm sure it has been researched thoroughly and nothing was found, right? I agree. Shoulda been.
Thank you for the information. I am an American Citizen, just was not so sure about the finer aspects of the law./Just Asking - seoul62..........
They can stay citizens, but can enjoy that status in their illegal parents’ countries.
Where are we going? Isn’t there a single candidate out there in the Republican Spectrum aside from Hunter, Thompson and Tancredo who “gets it”???
This is THE defining issue of this campaign.
The war on terror is meaningless if we loose an America worth defending.
Although the language of the majority opinion in Wong Kim Ark is certainly broad enough to include the children born in the United States of illegal as well as legal immigrants, there is no case in which the Supreme Court has explicitly held that this is the unambiguous command of the Fourteenth Amendment.
If Bush wasn’t MIA on 9/11—flying around far longer than he wanted to, but was stupidly advised to do—Rudy Giuliani would still be living with his gay roomates, and nowhere near the 2008 Campaign. Fate sure is a bitch sometimes.
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