The law is actually fairly clear on the subject (as was the Congressional debate at its passing) yet lawyers have argued it into a legal pretzel. And even FReepers fall for hollow reasoning...
“Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
Senator Jacob Howard,
co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.
Title 8 and the 14th Amendment both state; 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.
So explain how “not merely subjct in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiange.”
Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy fourth edition
Under Jus Soli, the following is written “The Supreme Court’s first holding on the sublect suggested that the court would give a restrictive reading to the phrase, potentially disqualifing significant number of persons born within the physical boundries of the nation. In Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94, 5 S.CT. 41, 28 L.ED. 643 (1884), the court ruled that native Indians were not U.S. citizens, even if they later severed their ties with their tribes. The words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the court held, mean “not merely subjct in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiange.” Most Indians could not meet the test. “Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of, and owing immediate allegiance to, one of the Indian Tribes, (an alien through dependent power,) although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more ‘born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’*** then the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government ***. Id. at 102.
It continues that Congress eventually passed legislation with the ‘Allotment Act of 1887, that conferred citizenship on many Indians.
You obviously did not read what I said very well. I said that should a child be born here he is a citizen, not his parents and they could not stay because of the child. If a child is born on American soil to parents who are legally residing here, yes, I believe the child is a citizen. A child born to foreigners here on holiday legally, yes, but that does not influence the status of their parents. The parents should not use the fact that their child is born here to further their own cause.