I too believe in returning to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. But I am fearful of any retroactive application. As a descendant of slaves, I don’t have to worry about anyone in my family. But I’m sure there are many who cannot say that.
I wonder how they would handle retroactive enforcement. Would people be required to research their roots to find out who was legal and who was not or would people just have to prove their parents are citizens. It could really be a nightmare for some.
I can see how you would feel that way.
I think it would be enough if we just returned to the original intent of the 14th Amendment. I don’t think anyone would attempt to apply it retroactively if we did so. Clearly the authors of the amendment were not in their wildest imagination intending to give citizenship to babies born to women who are here illegally. What has happened is that the amendment is vague in some ways, and phrases which meant “x” in the 1860s have been interpreted to mean “y” today.
A good example would be the “equal protection clause”. It didn’t give blacks or women the vote. It took a separate amendment (15th) to give the vote to blacks and another one (19th) fifty years later for women. But courts today claim that that clause requires the Citadel to admit women. That’s an interpretation based on an ideological reading of that clause, not on the actual meaning of it. The actual purpose of that clause was to give the freed slaves equal access to the courts, not to require that any and all government policies must treat everyone “equally”.