“We dont control other countries’ citizenship policies..”
True enough.
But the combo Jus Soli/Jus Sanguinis NBC definition the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Minor v. Happersett would allow the U.S. to prevail in every single case of a foreign country claiming jurisdiction of a U.S. citizen who meets the Minor definition.
Birth in a U.S. state (not territory) limits the amount of lies and other funny business potentially associated with the particular circumstances of one’s birth. Certifying U.S. citizenship status of one’s parents at birth places at least a one generation buffer between you and anyone with potentially unalloyed loyalties to “the old country”.
We need both strains of protection to assure complete fidelity in our presidents.
If Cuba categorically deems such a person a citizen, what can we do? That’s their choice. But Cuba could never successfully demonstrate any kind of jurisdiction over such a person, sufficient to, say, force him to serve in the Cuban Army, even if the Havana police got their filthy hands on him after he ended up swimming to shore there after a shipwreck. The United States would be able to retrieve our NBC from Cuban custody in a nonce based on overwhelming evidence that he’s an American (i.e., a U.S. North American), through and through. The same goes for Israeli citizenship at birth based on some kind of Israeli citizenship or residence status that one grandparents either have, or at least had in the past. The U.S. wold win the jurisdictional dispute in international court every time, provided the person in question is an NBC under the Minor v. Happersett definition.
But the combo Jus Soli/Jus Sanguinis NBC definition the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Minor v. Happersett would allow the U.S. to prevail in every single case of a foreign country claiming jurisdiction of a U.S. citizen who meets the Minor definition.
Nobody's citizenship was before the court in Minor v. Happersett. The Record of Transcript in Minor shows that the Agreed statement of the parties established, at 8, that "It is admitted by the pleadings that the plaintiff is a native-born, free white citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri...."
In Minor, the U.S. Supreme Court stated:
The question is presented in this case, whether, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone.. . .
It is contended that the provisions of the constitution and laws of the State of Missouri which confine the right of suffrage and registration therefor to men, are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore void. The argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or constitution abridge.
. . .
There is no doubt that women may be citizens. They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are expressly declared to be "citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position. Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision.
It was stipulated fact that Virginia Minor was a person born in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The Supreme Court found in Minor that, pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, were citizens of the United States.
The Court then proceeded to reflect on the status of persons before the Fourteenth Amendment, which had precisely nothing to do with deciding any issue before the Court in Minor.
To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership.. . .
Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen—a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens. As to this there has never been a doubt. Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.
. . .
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. 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. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
That pile of slop is all dicta, opining about citizenship before the Fourteenth Amendment, something not remotely before the Court.
While there were doubts by "some authorities" about some persons before the 14th Amendment, for the purposes of Minor it was not necessary to resolve those doubts. And so, the Minor court proceeded to NOT resolve those doubts. However, any lingering doubts were resolved by Wong Kim Ark.
Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 705 (1898)
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 parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile 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.Order affirmed.