Babies and Immigration Reform (Not one word in the 844-page law mentions Birthright Citizenship)

American Thinker ^ | 04/24/2013 | Cindy Simpson

[SeekAndFind]

Not a single word in the 844-page "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act" introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and the "Gang of Eight" addresses the controversial practice of "birthright citizenship."

Birthright citizenship is the common description given to the automatic grant of U.S. citizenship to babies born in the U.S. regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. Many experts agree with the verdict of law professor Lino Graglia -- that the practice generates "perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."

The failure of Congress to confront the subject is nothing new. The "four pillars" of the reform framework floated by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham back in 2010 also avoided mention of the gaping "hole in the fence" created by the "magnet" of the birthright practice.

While Rubio touted the newest bipartisan proposal and appeared to "backtrack" on the border fence as illegals continue to climb over it, our government creates even more incentives for illegals to have children here. Besides potential ObamaCare benefits, many provisions in the Gang's new package increase the allure and impact of the birthright magnet.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter penned a scathing analysis titled "If Rubio's Amnesty is So Great, Why is He Lying?" Near the end of her litany of damning facts and figures, Coulter wrote: "The children of illegal aliens become automatic citizens under our current insane interpretation of the 14th Amendment."

The insanity, however, goes beyond the "illegal" argument. Coulter noted statistics and dollars relating to the children of illegals; however, she didn't mention that the practice also awards citizenship to the babies of virtually anyone legally but temporarily present, including "birth tourists."

[Jeff Winston]

Actually, that's not true. Birthright citizenship wasn't extended to the children of some aliens until the U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision. And even then it was only extended to those whose parents had an established permanent domicile in the U.S. at the time of the child's birth

Produce one example of someone born on US soil to white non-citizen immigrant parents, who was declared not to be a United States citizen prior to 1880.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Those who are born to an alien parent whose country has a nationality law that automatically makes them a citizen/subject of the alien parent’s country are not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the U.S. and are therefore NOT born U.S. citizens.

OK here’s a question for you -— I don’t believe that either Bobby Jindal OR Marco Rubio, when they were born had parents who were citizens of the United States. In Jindal’s case, his father was a foreign student. In Rubio’s case, his parents were refugees from Cuba.

And I don’t think they went through the process of naturalization either ( where permanent residents SPECIFICALLY apply for US citizenship ).

Since their parents were NOT citizens at the time of their birth, were they US citizens when they were born?

If not, what makes them citizens of the US now?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Wong Kim Ark’s alien parents were permanently domiciled in the U.S. at the time of his birth

Permanently domiciled, yes. Green Card holders are permanent residents too ( AKA permanently domiciled ). But were Wong’s parents CITIZENS?

If not, then in what sense were they ( based on your understanding of “subject to jurisdiction” ), subject to American jurisdiction?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Wong Kim Ark

Citizenship under the 14th Amendment includes those born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens BASED ON THE ABOVE PRECEDENT.

The Court then, held that a person born in San Francisco to Chinese parents – who, at the time, were not permitted to naturalize as U.S. citizens – nonetheless became a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth by virtue of the 14th Amendment.

As the Court then explained, “[t]o hold that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution ex­cludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of per­sons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.”

[Rides3]

Produce one example of someone born on US soil to white non-citizen immigrant parents, who was declared not to be a United States citizen prior to 1880.

I'll defer to Supreme Court Justice Miller:

"The phrase, 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."

83 U.S. 36 (1872)

[Rides3]

OK here’s a question for you -— I don’t believe that either Bobby Jindal OR Marco Rubio, when they were born had parents who were citizens of the United States. In Jindal’s case, his father was a foreign student. In Rubio’s case, his parents were refugees from Cuba.

Both had immigrant parents who had an established permanent domicile in the U.S. at the time of their births. They are U.S. citizens. That does not necessarily mean they are natural born citizens for Constitutional eligibility purposes.

[Rides3]

RE: Wong Kim Ark’s alien parents were permanently domiciled in the U.S. at the time of his birth

Permanently domiciled, yes. Green Card holders are permanent residents too ( AKA permanently domiciled ). But were Wong’s parents CITIZENS?

If not, then in what sense were they ( based on your understanding of “subject to jurisdiction” ), subject to American jurisdiction?

No, they were not citizens.

As I've previously explained, birthright citizenship wasn't extended to the children of some aliens until the U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision. And even then it was only extended to those whose parents had an established permanent domicile in the U.S. at the time of the child's birth. As such, WKA did not have to meet the 14th Amendment's "subject to the jurisdiction" requirement as it was specifically his case that extended birthright citizenship to U.S. born children of parents permanently domiciled in the U.S. Wong Kim Ark's parents were permanently domiciled in the U.S. at the time of his birth. That fact was agreed upon by all parties in the case.

[Jeff Winston]

I'll defer to Supreme Court Justice Miller:

"The phrase, 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."

Why don't you defer to the later Supreme Court who said that tiny bit of dicta you just quoted was ill-considered, inaccurate dicta?

[The United States Supreme Court, referring to the EXACT quote you just gave:]

This was wholly aside from the question in judgment and from the course of reasoning bearing upon that question. [Do you know what "wholly aside from the question in judgment and from the course of reasoning bearing upon that question" means? It means the comment was pure dicta.]

It was unsupported by any argument, or by any reference to authorities, and that it was not formulated with the same care and exactness as if the case before the court had called for an exact definition of the phrase is apparent from its classing foreign ministers and consuls together -- whereas it was then well settled law, as has since been recognized in a judgment of this court in which Mr. Justice Miller concurred, that consuls, as such, and unless expressly invested with a diplomatic character in addition to their ordinary powers, are not considered as entrusted with authority to represent their sovereign in his intercourse with foreign States or to vindicate his prerogatives, or entitled by the law of nations to the privileges and immunities of ambassadors or public ministers, but are subject to the jurisdiction, civil and criminal, of the courts of the country in which they reside. 1 Kent Com. 44; Story Conflict of Laws § 48; Wheaton International Law (8th ed.) § 249; The Anne (1818), 3 Wheat. 435, 445, 446; Gittings v. Crawford (1838), Taney 1, 10; In re Baiz (1890), 135 U.S. 403, 424.

[So it was DICTA, and ILL-CONSIDERED dicta at that.]

In weighing a remark uttered under such circumstances, it is well to bear in mind the often quoted words of Chief Justice Marshall:

It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.

Cohens v. Virginia (1821), 6 Wheat. 264, 399.

That neither Mr. Justice Miller nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said: "Allegiance and protection are, in this connection" (that is, in relation to citizenship), reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance. . . . At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further, and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class, there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.

And beyond that, the same Court DIDN'T ACTUALLY MEAN IT.

So it was dicta, it was ill-considered dicta, and the Court that said it didn't really mean it.

How many different possible ways could the United States Supreme Court tell you that the sentence you just quoted was totally and completely wrong?

You claimed, "Birthright citizenship wasn't extended to the children of some aliens until the U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision."

Sorry, but that tiny bit of totally wrongheaded dicta, clearly identified by the US Supreme Court as a tiny bit of totally wrongheaded dicta, doesn't cut it.

As I said before:

Produce one example of someone born on US soil to white non-citizen immigrant parents, who was declared not to be a United States citizen prior to 1880.

[Rides3]

Citizenship under the 14th Amendment includes those born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens BASED ON THE ABOVE PRECEDENT.

Only if the parents have an established permanent domicile in the U.S. at the time of their child's birth in the U.S.

Gray was very specific in the ruling:

"The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative"

"The single question" asked and answered:
Whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.

Obama's father wasn't permanently domiciled in the U.S. at the time of Obama's birth. According to the DoJ, his authorized "Temporary Stay" was set to expire on August 9, 1961, just 5 days after Obama's birth. Note the title of the form:

[Rides3]

Why don't you defer to the later Supreme Court who said that tiny bit of dicta you just quoted was ill-considered, inaccurate dicta?

I don't need to. I'll refer you to U.S. Secretaries of State, executing the law exactly as Justice Miller described:

Secretary of State Frederick Frelinghuysen determined Ludwig Hausding, though born in the U.S., was not born a U.S. citizen because he was subject to a foreign power at birth having been born to a Saxon subject alien father.

Similarly, Secretary of State Thomas Bayard determined Richard Greisser, though born in Ohio, was not born a U.S. citizen because Greisser's father, too, was an alien, a German subject at the time of Greisser's birth. Bayard specifically stated that Greisser was at birth 'subject to a foreign power,' therefore not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=wdgxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Justice Miller was indeed accurate.

[Mr Rogers]

“Because you are? The 14th explicitly rejects this interpretation.”

Please point to a single post anywhere on this thread or any other, where I claim someone needs to have citizen parents to be born a citizen.

[Jeff Winston]

So in other words, YOU CAN'T.

I have stated that persons born on US soil, from the founding of our country, to non-citizen immigrant parents, were natural born citizens.

I have acknowledged the denial of this by a few Secretaries of State. This was against the law as it had been from the founding of our country, and it was against PREVIOUS Secretary of State policy, and it was against the previous policy of the United States Attorney General.

In reply to the inquiry which is made by you…whether “the children of foreign parents born in the United States, but brought to the country of which the father is a subject, and continuing to reside within the jurisdiction of their father’s country, are entitled to protection as citizens of the United States,” I have to observe that it is presumed that, according to the common law, any person born in the United States, unless he be born in one of the foreign legations therein, may be considered a citizen thereof until he formally renounces his citizenship. There is not, however any United States statute containing a provision upon this subject, nor, so far as I am aware, has there been any judicial decision in regard to it.

- Secretary of State William Marcy, 1854

And our constitution, in speaking of natural born citizens, uses no affirmative language to make them such, but only recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle, common to all nations, and as old as political society, that the people born in a country do constitute the nation, and, as individuals, are natural members of the body politic.

If this be a true principle, and I do not doubt it, it follows that every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen; and he who would deny it must take upon himself the burden of proving some great disfranchisement strong enough to override the ” natural born’‘ right as recognized by the Constitution in terms the most simple and comprehensive, and without any reference to race or color, or any other accidental circumstance.

- Attorney General Edward Bates, 1862

I am quite clear in the opinion that children born in the United States of alien parents, who have never been naturalized, are native-born citizens of the United States, and, of course, do not require the formality of naturalization to entitle them to the rights and privileges of such citizenship. I might sustain this opinion by a reference to the well-settled principle of the common law of England on this subject; to the writings of many of the earlier and later commentators on our Constitution and laws; to the familiar practice and usage of the country in the exercise of the ordinary rights and duties of citizenship; to the liberal policy of our government in extending and recognizing these rights, and enforcing these duties; and lastly to the dicta and decisions of many of our national and state tribunals. But all this has been well done by Assistant Vice Chancellor Sandford, in the case of Lynch vs. Clarke, and I forbear. I refer to his opinion for a full and clear statement of the principle, and of the reasons and authorities for its support.

- Attorney General Edward Bates, 1862

And here's what the former US District Attorney for Pennsylvania had to say, back in 1825:

Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.

So it is clear that the policies of Secretaries of State in the 1880s and 1890s were new, and in contradiction to how things had always been.

Meanwhile, you claim, "Birthright citizenship wasn't extended to the children of some aliens until the U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision."

When challenged, you produce a bit of ill-considered pure dicta that the Court who said it didn't actually mean, which was actually RULED by the US Supreme Court to be a bit of ill-considered pure dicta that the Court who said it didn't actually mean, and the policies of Secretaries of State of the 1880s and 1890s which are clearly in conflict with our country's previous policy.

And you find yourself completely and absolutely unable to produce one single example of any person who was born in the United States to non-citizen immigrant parents, and ruled not to be a citizen at any time prior to 1880.

So congratulations. You've made it clear that you really don't know what you're talking about here, and your claim doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[JCBreckenridge]

Gosh. How was I certain that this topic revolved around Obama. Quel surprise.

[JCBreckenridge]

Yes, everyone does. That’s the point you are trying to make and why you are attacking birthright citizenship by stripping it from certain people that don’t meet your standards. That’s not birthright citizenship anymore.

[JCBreckenridge]

Thank you. That should hammer it down.

[Rides3]

I have stated that persons born on US soil, from the founding of our country, to non-citizen immigrant parents, were natural born citizens.

Sorry, no.

I have acknowledged the denial of this by a few Secretaries of State.

Exactly. They were executing the 14th Amendment as written and intended. Trumbull and Howard were quite clear about the "subject to the jurisdiction" requirement's meaning in the Congressional Record.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, on which the 14th Amendment is based, is also quite clear:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That 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..."

[Rides3]

you are attacking birthright citizenship by stripping it from certain people that don’t meet your standards.

They're not my standards. I'm going on the words of Trumbull, Howard, U.S. Secretaries of State, and the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. Their words are quite clear and a matter of historical record.

The mistake you and others like you are making is reading what you think into what was actually said. You're projecting, so what you're getting out of the historical documents is distorted.

[Cyropaedia]

"The second author of the Citizenship Clause, Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, added that 'subject to the jurisdiction of the United States' meant 'not owing allegiance to anybody else.

[T]he provision is, that 'all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.' That means 'subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.' What do we mean by 'complete jurisdiction thereof?' Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means."

[Rides3]

"The children of aliens, born within the U. S. are aliens; they do not acquire citizenship by birth"
http://ia700404.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/18/items/digestofselectbr00robe/digestofselectbr00robe_jp2.zip&file=digestofselectbr00robe_jp2/digestofselectbr00robe_0050.jp2&scale=3&rotate=0

"The umpire is of the opinion that it is not proved that the claimant was a citizen of the United States. The ground that he is so, is his own statement that he was born at New York, together with a certificate of baptism of a child who was born at New York, Beniguo being one of the names which were given to him; but it is not proved that the child then born and baptised was one and the same person with the claimant. Nor would the mere fact of his having been born at New York be sufficient evidence of citizenship. It is clear that his parents were both aliens at the time of his birth, and it is not shown that they were naturalized or that they or the child remained in the United States. The inference is to the contrary, and the umpire believes that the child in question, even if that child was really the claimant, though born in the United States, was subject to a foreign power and cannot without further proof be considered to be a citizen of the United States"
http://books.google.com/books?id=PM4GAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA2449#v=onepage&q&f=false

[JCBreckenridge]

“I’m going on the words of Trumbull, Howard, U.S. Secretaries of State, and the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark”

And I’m going by the words of the US Constitution. Game. Over.