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To: Congressman Billybob
I like the 14th Amendment and think it is written quite well.

Let’s read the document, and see where that leads. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States….” Who gets to say who are “subject to the jurisdiction”?

Skip to the last sentence of the Amendment. It is a clause that appears in many of the Amendments. “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

There you have it, in the plain language of the Constitution itself. Congress can define by statute who is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States….” Who gets to say who are “subject to the jurisdiction”?

I think that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" speaks for it's self.

If someone has a baby who is not a citizen, they are subject to the jurisdiction of their country of citizenship, not the USA.

Therefore, the baby would not have the anchor of citizenship just because he/she is born in the United States if the parents are not citizens.

“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

There you have it, in the plain language of the Constitution itself. Congress can define by statute who is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

Perhaps you are right that Congress can define by statute who is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States

But the wording says that Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

There is no reason to define what the amendment already defines IMO.

It seems that only the Supreme Court can decide on the defining issue. We know what they would do, but the wording is clear enough as written.

We know what Justice Brennan stated (unconstitutionally I might add):

"no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."
That statement is contrary to what the 14th actually says. The Supreme Court should NOT use their opinions to interpret the Constitution, but the should be constitutionally aware enough to see what the wording means. He didn't obviously.
53 posted on 08/07/2010 12:30:23 PM PDT by Syncro (November is hunting season. No bag limit-Ted Nugent)
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To: Syncro
No, when the power to define is given to Congress, it is not the business of the Supreme Court to take that power into it's hands. Justice Brennan has already tried that gambit. Congress can, should, must, take that power back.

John / Billybob

57 posted on 08/07/2010 12:46:48 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (www.TheseAretheTimes.us)
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To: Syncro
If someone has a baby who is not a citizen, they are subject to the jurisdiction of their country of citizenship, not the USA.

I knew vaguely that dual citizenship for a US citizen is allowed now, but was told in childhood (1950s) that it was not allowed. I googled to see if I could find anything about the change; this site gave the most succinct answer I found:

But I thought US law didn't permit one to be a dual citizen -- that if you were (by birth or otherwise), you either had to give up the other citizenship when you came of age, or else you'd lose your US status. And that if you became a citizen of another country, you'd automatically lose your US citizenship. So what's all this talk about dual citizenship?

It indeed used to be the case in the US that you couldn't hold dual citizenship (except in certain cases if you had dual citizenship from birth or childhood, in which case some Supreme Court rulings -- Perkins v. Elg (1939), Mandoli v. Acheson (1952), and Kawakita v. U.S. (1952) -- permitted you to keep both). However, most of the laws forbidding dual citizenship were struck down by the US Supreme Court in two cases: a 1967 decision, Afroyim v. Rusk, as well as a second ruling in 1980, Vance v. Terrazas.

Rules against dual citizenship still apply to some extent -- at least in theory -- to people who wish to become US citizens via naturalization. The Supreme Court chose to leave in place the requirement that new citizens must renounce their old citizenship during US naturalization. However, in practice, the State Department is no longer doing anything in the vast majority of situations where a new citizen's "old country" refuses to recognize the US renunciation and continues to consider the person's original citizenship to be in effect.

The official US State Department policy on dual citizenship today is that the United States does not favor it as a matter of policy because of various problems they feel it may cause, but the existence of dual citizenship is recognized (i.e., accepted) as a fact of life. That is, if you ask them if you ought to become a dual citizen, they will recommend against doing it; but if you tell them you are a dual citizen, they'll almost always say it's OK.

I can't help wondering if the change in the law on dual citizenship played some part in the current mess.

60 posted on 08/07/2010 1:00:22 PM PDT by maryz
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