Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: CarolinaGuitarman

I don't normally like to weigh in on such matters without thinking them through first, but let's not write this one off too quickly. The key language, it seems to me, is the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." As the materials in the original post indicate, everyone in the United States, whether here legally or illegally, is in some sense "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." That is, there is a purely territorial element to governmental jurisdiction. If that is the sense in which the Fourteenth Amendment uses the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," the phrase is utterly pointless. If it means anything else, the most plausible meaning may well be something like "subject to full jurisdiction." On the other hand, it also seems unlikely that only children of citizens are automatically citizens, because it would have been very easy to use the word "citizens" in that context.

The Fourteenth Amendment was a botch-job of major proportions, and this may be one more example of that principle. Bottom line: don't make hasty assumptions in either direction on this point.


19 posted on 04/24/2005 9:36:33 AM PDT by tenuredprof
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]


To: tenuredprof
"The Fourteenth Amendment was a botch-job of major proportions, and this may be one more example of that principle. Bottom line: don't make hasty assumptions in either direction on this point."


I agree. I have no doubt that from what the writers of this amendment have said in various places that they did NOT want the children of non-citizens to become automatic citizens if they were born here. And I agree; I don't think it should be that easy either. I wish they had used clearer language and just said *the complete jurisdiction*. As it is stated now, it's too ambiguous; it could mean what they said, or it could mean what it has been accepted as too. I would prefer a more direct statement.
23 posted on 04/24/2005 9:45:18 AM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman (Theft is taking something you don't own and you didn't pay for without permission.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson