Perhaps I should have worded my comment differently. I should have said "With the 14th Amendment, Congress never intended..." I understand what the current immigration laws say. My point is that the laws violate the 14th Amendment. The wording "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside." is vague enough to be misinterpreted, but the authors were pretty clear that they didn't intend for it to cover foreigners. It wasn't until much later that this became the meaning du jour.
Certainly not. The most you can say is that they are not required by the 14th Amendment, but no one has ever claimed that Congress cannot grant citizenship to people other than those made citizens by the Constitution itself. See, for example, the statutes granting citizenship to Puerto Ricans.
The wording "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside." is vague enough to be misinterpreted,
Most find it pretty clear.
but the authors were pretty clear that they didn't intend for it to cover foreigners.
The subject barely came up in the ratification debates-- the focus was obviously on former slaves-- but the few mentions of children born to foreigners are ambiguous at best. I don't think the authors' intentions were clear either way.
It wasn't until much later that this became the meaning du jour.
The definitive Supreme Court ruling was Wong Kim Ark, in 1886. Not quite contemporary with the 14th amendment, but not all that much later.