Posted on 04/06/2026 9:37:59 PM PDT by CDR Kerchner
The case against birthright citizenship seems straightforward and persuasive. Is it really right for an eight-month pregnant Mexican woman to illegally cross the Rio Grande, give birth, and be allowed to stay in America because her newborn child is now a natural born citizen? By the same token, is it just for a Chinese millionaire to have 100 children by surrogacy, arrange for them to be born in the US, and then move them back to China, where they are now US citizens and can later vote in US elections?
That’s crazy, right? And these are not hypothetical or imaginary horrors. They are going on, and they have been going on for some time. … continue reading at: https://dineshdsouza.substack.com/p/born-in-the-usa-the-case-against
(Excerpt) Read more at dineshdsouza.substack.com ...
Most likely PenceofSchiffahole JohnRoberts will fk it up ..
I thought a natural born citizen was a child born on the soil of a country from parents who were citizens of the country.
Yes, that’s what I have read, too, and that the status of both parents as US citizens makes the difference between a „natural-born“ and a „native-born“ US citizen.
Of course, I might be wrong, but that is what I have been reading in several scholarly works…
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...
This is what "subject to the jurisdiction thererof" means to the naturalized citizen.
An Oath of Allegience has been required since the Naturalization Act of 1790, predating the 14th amendment by 78 years. See History of the Oath of Allegiance for the evolution of the Oath of Allegiance at the bottom of this post.
§1448. Oath of renunciation and allegiance
(a) Public ceremony
A person who has applied for naturalization shall, in order to be and before being admitted to citizenship, take in a public ceremony before the Attorney General or a court with jurisdiction under section 1421(b) of this title an oath
(1) to support the Constitution of the United States;
(2) to renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;
(3) to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
(4) to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
(5)(A) to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law, or
(B) to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law, or
(C) to perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.
Any such person shall be required to take an oath containing the substance of clauses (1) to (5) of the preceding sentence, except that a person who shows by clear and convincing evidence to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that he is opposed to the bearing of arms in the Armed Forces of the United States by reason of religious training and belief shall be required to take an oath containing the substance of clauses (1) to (4) and clauses (5)(B) and (5)(C) of this subsection, and a person who shows by clear and convincing evidence to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that he is opposed to any type of service in the Armed Forces of the United States by reason of religious training and belief shall be required to take an oath containing the substance of said clauses (1) to (4) and clause (5)(C).
The term "religious training and belief" as used in this section shall mean an individual's belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code. In the case of the naturalization of a child under the provisions of section 1433 of this title the Attorney General may waive the taking of the oath if in the opinion of the Attorney General the child is unable to understand its meaning.
The Attorney General may waive the taking of the oath by a person if in the opinion of the Attorney General the person is unable to understand, or to communicate an understanding of, its meaning because of a physical or developmental disability or mental impairment.
If the Attorney General waives the taking of the oath by a person under the preceding sentence, the person shall be considered to have met the requirements of section 1427(a)(3) of this title with respect to attachment to the principles of the Constitution and well disposition to the good order and happiness of the United States.
(b) Hereditary titles or orders of nobility
In case the person applying for naturalization has borne any hereditary title, or has been of any of the orders of nobility in any foreign state, the applicant shall in addition to complying with the requirements of subsection (a) of this section, make under oath in the same public ceremony in which the oath of allegiance is administered, an express renunciation of such title or order of nobility, and such renunciation shall be recorded as a part of such proceedings.
For newborns of natural born citizen parents, there is no doubt that they are born Americans. The clause "and under the jurisdiction thereof" adds no additional clarification.
For newborns of naturalized citizen parents who foreswore all prior allegiences in the oath of allegience to become naturalized, there is no doubt that they are born Americans.
For newborns of permanent resident aliens who attested to permanently vacating all permanent domiciles in their home country but have not naturalized in this country, the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark ruled that their newborn are citizens of the United States because the domicile of origin of the parents is now the United States.
For newborns of all other people in the United States (nonimmigrant visa holders and illegal entries) who attest to only being here temporarily and have a permanent domicile in their home country where they intend to return, they fail to meet the standard in the oath of allegience that defines "under the jurisdiction thereof" and are not citizens of the United States. These newborn inherit the domicile of origin in the home country of their parents.
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
-PJ
Articles whining and bitching about the law do not change the law.
U.S. Constitution, 14A:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...."
FEDERAL STATUTE LAW:
https://law.justia.com/codes/us/title-8/chapter-12/subchapter-iii/part-i/sec-1401/
8 United States Code 1401
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;
(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person (A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or (B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and
(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States.
U.S. SUPREME COURT
United States v. Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 649, 662-63 (1898)
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said: "All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution."
She is still illegally here and should return with or without her child.
The paragraph you cite in Wong is 23, which is non-binding dicta:
23
In U. S. v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the circuit court, said: 'All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.' 'We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.' 1 Abb. (U. S.) 28, 40, 41, Fed. Cas. No. 16,151.
The Supreme Court is bound by the rules of appellate courts, which is to hear the case or controversy before them. In Wong, the Supreme Court clearly laid out the question before them in paragraph 3.
3
The question presented by the record is 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, by virtue of the first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution: '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.'
The only binding ruling from Wong issued by the Supreme Court is in paragraph 118-119:
118
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.119
Order affirmed.
The appellate case befor the Supreme Court was whether a child of permanent resident aliens permanently domiciled in the United States is a citizen via section one of Amendment 14. The ruling by the Supreme Court in its appellate capacity is limited to the situation of children of resident alien parents.
The expansive dicta that you keep citing is non-binding, but has been misapplied for over 125 years. It became a de facto amendment to the Constitution by ignoring the limited ruling in Wong. The Roberts Court has a chance to correct this by properly asserting that only paragraph 118 in Wong is legally binding.
-PJ
Above is a link FYI for a recent article on the Chinese tourism babies in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands - a U.S. territory which provides the Chinese babies U.S. citizenship. A comment said it was a special sort of citizenship - I don't know.
Excerpt: “China-watchers estimate about 1,000 companies offer birth tourism to the Northern Mariana Islands, other US overseas territories and even the US mainland. They claim a gob-smacking 1.5 million American babies are being raised in China by Chinese parents who've participated in birth tourism.”
So the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is 78 years older than the 14th amendment.
See: History of the Oath of Allegiance from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department.
Excerpt:
Since the first naturalization law in 1790, applicants for naturalization have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. Five years later the Naturalization Act of 1795 required an applicant to declare an intention (commitment) to become a U.S. citizen before filing a Petition for Naturalization. In the declaration of intention the applicant would indicate his understanding that upon naturalization he would take an oath of allegiance to the United States and renounce (give up) any allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty. Applicants born with a hereditary title also had to renounce their title or order of nobility.
That is what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" has meant for 78 years before the 14th amendment, and it doesn't cover the children of nonimmigrants or illegal entrants.
-PJ
Check out the Court in Janus v. AFSCME (2018) when they overruled Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) despite 41 years of reliance, holding that "we cannot allow the Constitution to be interpreted by accretion".
If the Court gets a constitutional question wrong and then defers to that error indefinitely because of reliance, it has effectively transferred the Article V amendment power to the judiciary without going through the state ratification process.
In the Declaration of Independence, the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, was a statement to set us apart from the subjects of a Monarch who claimed divine right to rule.
While the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happines were the primary unalienable rights of man, citizenship in the United States was not one of them. Citizenship assumes government, and the unalienable rights of people exist prior to the establishment of government.
The Declaration also states that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The birthright citizenship issue is exposing that the current interpretation of birthright citizenship does not have the clear consent of the governed; it was imposed on us from high above, via expansive court rulings that drove even more expansive interpretations by the factions in power.
The "Holy Grail" of court rulings, Wong Kim Ark, was a case about the citizenship of the child of permanent alien residents who had permanent domicile in the United States with no intention to ever return to their home country. The Supreme Court, in their appellate capacity, afirmed that the children of permanent resident aliens are citizens at birth, as that was the appellate case that was before them.
Then the expansions of interpetations began.
Soon, the politicians began declaring that Wong applied to ALL children born in the United States, which was not the scope of the case that the Supreme Court ruled on.
Then, birthright citizenship was further expanded to give natural born citizen designation to anyone born in the United States, too.
The governed never consented to this, as there are no statutes via legislation or Supreme Court rulings that have stated this, or constitutional amendments that proposed this. Those are the normal means of consent of the governed. The tools of government that the people consented to via ratification of the Constitution was not the means where birthright citizenship for all and natural born citizen for all was determined.
Those interpretations evolved extraconstitutionally through the accretion process described in Janus: each successive actor pointing to the prior actor's behavior as authority, until the chain of reliance became long enough to be called "settled law" whether by the Court treating its own dicta as law, or by political actors treating those rulings as broader than they were.
The governed did not ratify universal birthright citizenship. They did not ratify natural born citizenship for the children of temporary visa holders or illegal entrants. Those outcomes were imposed on them, not chosen by them.
-PJ
The "special citizenship" conferred to people in "possessions" like Puerto Rico Northern Marianas Islands gives them citizenship in the United States without voting rights when they are living in their territory. If such a citizen were to leave the Northern Marianas Islands and relocate to the United States, they will have voting rights there.
Furthermore, citizens of the Northern Marianas Islands and other US territories do not have full representation in Congress: they have only delegates in the House that have voting rights within committees but no voting rights for final passage of bills; in the Senate they have no representation, as that is reserved for states alone; and they have no participation in the Electoral College, as that, too, is reserved for states alone.
-PJ
The Roberts Court has a chance to correct this
While I am hoping they do, I am betting they won’t.
Looks to me like its Kagan, the wizened Latina and Juju Brown vs Thomas Alito and Gorsuch.
That leaves Kavanaugh, Roberts and Barrett. I am thinking Barrett is with the lefties along with Roberts [cuz he always fails to vote conservative when it really counts]. If that happens, it doesn’t matter what Kavanaugh does.
Mexican woman to illegally cross the Rio Grande, give birth, and be allowed to stay in America ON WELFARE because her newborn child is now a natural born citizen?
Too bad P.J. wasn’t at the SCOTUS hearing to assist. The limiting and essential factor is “a permanent domicile and residence in the United States”
Each word has meaning. Baby drop transients in hotels, motel apartments, shelters, communal rooms, a relative’s home, along the road, etc. are not in permanent domicile.
In the past, US was quite isolated by geography.
Getting here was arduous trip, not suitable for pregnant women.
So, in the past, this scenario would be exceptional.
Now, it is very common!
The border hospitals overflow with free care for Mexican pregnant women.
This calls for amending the Constitution, if necessary!
Wouldn’t it be easier to just steal a wallet to become a citizen?
EC
Two citizenship bits in the constitution - the 14th and where it says congress defines it w/statute.
Like with a “balance of rights”, e.g. I can’t shoot someone to express my displeasure and claim free speech, how do you “balance” these two constitutional provisions?
Well, if the 14th prevails, then due to supremacy, any child born to US citizens overseas would NOT be a citizen and any statute that congress tries to pass to rectify that would be unconstitutional.
“We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.”
It’s time for SCOTUS to get it right. This should be a 9-0 decision in support of President Trump’s Birthright EO. We are Citizens by consent, not subjects by birth. It’s been that way since Independence.
The 14th amendment does *NOT* naturalize the children of transient foreigners.
You know where the debates on the 14th are, and you can read them for yourselves.
I expect the Supreme Court to flub this up as they have done so many other things in the past. All this will mean is that they are wrong, and the entire system of letting courts decide things contrary to the intended meaning is just a flawed process.
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