Posted on 12/08/2024 8:56:05 PM PST by 11th_VA
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., took NBC News to task for "selectively omitting" a key part of the 14th Amendment in a question about birthright citizenship during an interview with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday…
"All persons born … in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,* shall be citizens of the United States," Lee wrote on X, highlighting the missing words in asterisks.
"Those words matter," he added.
The senator continued to break down the issue in a lengthy 12-part thread.
"Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'" he wrote.
" While current law contains no such restriction, Congress could pass a law defining what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ excluding prospectively from birthright citizenship individuals born in the U.S. to illegal aliens.
"Those who suggest Congress is somehow powerless to limit birthright citizenship ignore important constitutional text giving Congress power define who among those ‘born in the United States’ is born subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'…
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I was surprised Trump didn’t call her on that specifically.
As stands, the US oath of naturalization is ceremonial only and holds no weight in law.
BTTT
He may not have known the exact text. Few do
He was generally very sharp and on top the interview.
The talking head could only read from her script in the massive notebook on her lap. Only responded to Trump’s cogent points by rushing on to read the next thing in her script.
All it takes is for the USSC to correctly interpret the meaning.
She is a low IQ DEI hire.
Bkmrk
Or NBC News, by their reckoning.
THIS >>>
<><><> subject to the jurisdiction thereof <><><>
I read of President Trump wanting to make an Executive Order on this, but he should run it through Congress while he has both branches to make it a full law.
I’d do that for everything possible while the chance is available, considering how the Usurping Regime reversed nearly everything he ordered last time and would gleefully do so again - no matter how senseless.
An interviewer of a national news organization should have used the exact text in his question/comment.
“All it takes is for the USSC to correctly interpret the meaning.”
___________________________________________________________
The US Supreme Court did just that a hundred and twenty-seven years ago in the case of the United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1897).
Here’s the legal history of the subject in the US, beginning during the time our nation was merely a collection of British colonies ruled under British law.
The Senator is either mistaken or intentionally misleading others on the established law.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649
First, the fact that the authors of the 14th Amendment added the qualifier, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” proves beyond any question that simply being born here is not enough. So we don’t need to dwell on that democrat talking point; they’re simply wrong, period.
Second, a baby who is simply born here cannot automatically be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” or there would be no purpose for including that qualifier. One baby born here is no different than another baby born here, at least not by virtue of any characteristics inherent in the baby. So the determination of whether the baby is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” MUST depend upon the status of the parents. Well clearly, the intent could not have been for any baby born to parents of any citizenship status to automatically pass the “subject to…” test, because if that were the case ALL babies would pass (the idiocy we have now), again negating the need for the qualifier. If citizenship status doesn’t matter, then babies born to illegals would qualify (as wrongly occurs now), but also babies born to foreign tourists who only plan to visit the U.S. temporarily would have to qualify.
So it obviously takes more than just being born here, and it also must require the parents to be citizens, either born here themselves to citizen parents or naturalized as adults. Only U.S. citizens are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” of the United States. That only leaves the question of whether one citizen parent is sufficient or if it requires both to be citizens, and I would contend that both must be citizens, or else there is no clarity on which parent’s status confers citizenship to the baby, and for which country.
Therefore, the obvious and clear conclusion is that only a baby born to two U.S. citizen parents receives automatic U.S. citizenship. There’s no other logical possibility.
Senator Lee is close. The Congress does indeed have lots of power when it comes to the meaning of birthright citizen. But, in our country, the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the matter.
President Trump could, “on Day 1,” issue an executive order that birthright citizenship only attaches to persons born in the United States to at least one parent who is a citizen or a permanent resident of the United States.
The Supreme Court would then consider whether the Congress has, by law, granted citizenship to a broader class of persons born here (such as everybody born here except children of foreign embassies). I don’t think the Congress has done this, at least not explicitly. But, the Supreme Court might say that the Congress has worked the presumption of citizenship into so many things, that it has effectively done this.
This is where Congress comes in. If the Congress through law defines “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” as children born to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident, this would obviate any concern for what the Congress has previously done.
But, even in this case, the Supreme Court still has a role to play. This role is the meaning “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” Years of practice indicates that this phrase excludes children of foreign citizens who are here by reason of being in the diplomatic service of their country.
But, what about foreign citizens who are here legally under temporary visas (e.g., tourists, students and refugees)? Are those people “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States”? And, what about foreign citizens who are here illegally?
I would hope that the Supreme Court accepts that the Constitution as currently written allows us to revisit what
“subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” means, without the need of a further amendment to the Constitution.
Please drop the “permanent resident” in your second sentence. This birthright should be only for offspring of US citizens.
Precisely. They are the ones who are always “fact checking” others, after all.
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