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Birthright Citizenship Is A Pernicious Lie That’s Destroying America
The Federalist ^ | January 24, 2025 | John Daniel Davidson

Posted on 01/24/2025 2:42:49 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

Beyond the legal arguments about the 14th Amendment is the moral argument: who is America for, and what makes someone an American?

On his first day in office, President Trump did the country a great service by issuing an executive order rejecting birthright citizenship as a requirement of the 14th Amendment.

Whether Trump’s order will withstand the legal challenges remains to be seen (a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the order on Thursday). But the challenges themselves will force a reckoning on this issue, perhaps even at the Supreme Court.

Such a reckoning is overdue. For far too long we have accepted without question the outlandish idea that every single person born on U.S. soil automatically becomes an American citizen, and that the 14th Amendment somehow mandates this suicidal policy.

I’m not going to do a deep dive into the legal arguments for why the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause doesn’t grant automatic citizenship to everyone born on U.S. soil (for that, see hereherehereherehere, and here). Suffice to say, it wasn’t until about the middle of the 20th century, amid massive upheavals in American life, that the notion of “birthright citizenship” was adopted — over and against how we had understood the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause since it was adopted in 1868. 

Briefly, the legal argument is this: to acquire citizenship, the 14th Amendment requires a person to be born in the United States and be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which means you owe your total allegiance to the United States alone and not some foreign power. In other words, the children of...

(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: aliens; anchorbabies; birthright; citizenship
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1 posted on 01/24/2025 2:42:49 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Pernicious lie is right. Here is the opening line from today's Time magazine article.

Who gets to be an American? Since the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1868, the answer to that question has been cemented in the American psyche: anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen.
2 posted on 01/24/2025 2:48:34 PM PST by slumber1 (Darby delenda est)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The way birthright citizenship is practiced at present...

-A baby born aboard an airliner merely passing over US territory might be considered a citizen.

-A baby born in a clinic built up against the Mexican side of the yet-to-be-completed border wall might be considered a citizen since the wall is, in most areas, a few feet inside US territory...

The insanity of our situation is clear.... these absurd possibilities and many others will be detailed before the supreme court.

This was meant for the protection of black slaves after the CW. Democrats held that these newly minted citizens would vote republican since Lincoln was a republican thus democrats were afraid of the amendment.

In the writings made at the time of passage of the fourteenth amendment can be found the true intent of the writers and those who voted for the amendment. They held that it was not meant for those illegally in the country and said such in plain language.


3 posted on 01/24/2025 2:48:52 PM PST by Bobalu (I can’t even feign surprise anymore...)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The first hour of Mark Levin’s Jan 22 radio show tackles this well.


4 posted on 01/24/2025 2:50:16 PM PST by Fledermaus (SANITY RETURNS!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Neither Mommy Anchor nor Daddy Anchor have to be allowed to drive.


5 posted on 01/24/2025 3:07:27 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Suffice to say, it wasn’t until about the middle of the 20th century, amid massive upheavals in American life, that the notion of “birthright citizenship” was adopted — over and against how we had understood the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause since it was adopted in 1868.”

Very revealing. Scalia said what counts is the meaning of the words at the time legislation took place. What did the words mean in 1868? The fact that no one seems to have noticed current “birthright citizenship” until the mid 20th century, suggests that the words have been given new meaning. The new meaning should be rejected.


6 posted on 01/24/2025 3:08:31 PM PST by ChessExpert (The Democratic party must be destroyed.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Pappa Anchor might be extradited.

Daddy Freeman couldn’t be.


7 posted on 01/24/2025 3:09:41 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wong majority:

“The children of enemies, born in a place within the dominions of another sovereign, then occupied by them by conquest, are still aliens.” 3 Pet. 156.

“Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government, and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth.” 3 Pet. 164.


8 posted on 01/24/2025 3:13:44 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin

Dueling precedent citations.

Lawfare SOP.


9 posted on 01/24/2025 3:15:18 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

from Wong:

The Civil Rights Act, passed at the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, began by enacting 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; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Act of April 9, 1866, c. 31, § 1; 14 Stat. 27.


10 posted on 01/24/2025 3:15:39 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wong, page 45:

The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep169/usrep169649/usrep169649.pdf

Expect that standard to be held.


11 posted on 01/24/2025 3:20:34 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Dueling precedent citations.”

The Wong decision threw in everything the justices could find to toss in.


12 posted on 01/24/2025 3:21:43 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

hostile (adj.)
late 15c., from French hostile “of or belonging to an enemy” (15c.) or directly from Latin hostilis “of an enemy, belonging to or characteristic of the enemy; inimical,” from hostis, in earlier use “a stranger, foreigner,” in classical use “an enemy,” from PIE root *ghos-ti- “stranger, guest, host.” The noun meaning “hostile person” is recorded from 1838, American English, a word from the Indian wars.

Latin hostis, in earlier use “a stranger,” in classical use “an enemy,”

Old Church Slavonic gosti “guest, friend,” gospodi “lord, master;”

https://www.etymonline.com/word/hostile

Note the last two.

We are undergoing the largest invasion in human history.


13 posted on 01/24/2025 3:23:17 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

from Wong:

Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in the same year, reviewing the whole matter, said: “By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were. settled, or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject; save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality,” Cockburn on Nationality, 7.

My Note: It says subject, which is short of being a citizen with entitlements to SNAP, Section 8, Medicaid, free school lunches, etc.


14 posted on 01/24/2025 3:30:12 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

And we expect a justice that doesn’t know what a woman is to understand what “subject to the jurisdiction “ means.


15 posted on 01/24/2025 3:30:58 PM PST by GrannyAnn ( )
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To: Brian Griffin

The FJB “justice” department has set the precedent that established law is irrelevant, so who can say what will happen next?


16 posted on 01/24/2025 3:33:26 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This moment from a PTA meeting is one of the funniest things I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/8N6ISNZbjy— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 24, 2025


17 posted on 01/24/2025 3:50:54 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: slumber1

TIME MAGAZINE IS PUSHING A LIE.


18 posted on 01/24/2025 4:18:25 PM PST by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Both Pedo Joe and the Jamaican Queen threatened to repeal the Second Amendment overnight but the same morons say it will take us 687 years to repeal or modify the 14th Screwup Amendment.


19 posted on 01/24/2025 4:28:25 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (For a good time, call Lisa M. 123-4567)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

host

noun
1. a multitude or great number of persons or things:
a host of details.

Synonyms: myriad, horde, throng, drove, crowd, swarm

2. an army.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/host

“Migrant caravans in Mexico: mass nonviolent mobilisations”

“we should see them not only as a population that has been terrorised and made desperate by poverty and violence, but also as fighters, strugglers in the true sense of the word. Instead of taking up arms, and thus intensifying the spiral of violence in their territories, they choose a form of nonviolent struggle: the “displacement” of their own body beyond the territory involved in the war for power and natural and bodily resources.”

“there will be an increase in racist actions “in the name of the law” and the “hunt” for migrants by right-wing groups and militias. Although this is especially palpable in the United States, xenophobia is also on the rise in Mexican cities.”

https://www.icip.cat/perlapau/en/article/migrant-caravans-in-mexico-mass-nonviolent-mobilisations/

“mobilisations....fighters...they choose a form of nonviolent struggle”

I’d say they’re hostile.


20 posted on 01/24/2025 4:28:35 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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