Posted on 08/27/2015 7:23:36 AM PDT by dangus
The chattering class insists that the 14th amendment automatically grants citizenship to children of illegal aliens. They do this by relying on the public's ignorance of the 14th amendment and the obscurity of the meaning of "under the jurisdiction thereof. The author of the 14th amendment was very clear when he proposed it, however:
"This amendment, which I have offered is simply declaratory ... that every person born within the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not of course include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, ..."
The problem is that the mainstream media either omit the pasage "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" or lead their audience to falsely presume what it means to be subject to a jurisdiction.
Foreigners are subject to U.S. law while residing in the United States because the land they are on are the jurisdiction of the United States. But citizens are also the jurisdiction of the United States, not just land. Foreigners, even those in the United States, are only the jurisdiction of the United States where that jurisdiction has been granted by their home country under the terms of their entry.
If that sounds too abstract, let's look at simple examples:
EXAMPLE 1: Joe is sent to war in Vietnam, and doesn't return. Vietnam claims he is dead. Is he legally dead? Not until the United States declares him legally dead. He was in Vietnam, but he was under US jurisdiction, not Vietnamese.
EXAMPLE TWO: Bill sleeps with a sixteen-year-old while visiting Elbonia. Under Elbonian law, this is statutory rape. He is tried in Elbonia, not because HE is under Elbonian jurisdiction, but because he is on land within Elbonian jurisdiction.
EXAMPLE THREE: Elbonia passes a law granting divorce without spousal consent. Bob wants to divorce Maria. So he goes to Elbonia. But Elbonia will not grant him the divorce, because they respect that Bob is under American jurisdiction.
EXAMPLE FOUR: This gets tricky: Fatima is granted a divorce from Ali, and moves to America. She and her daughter become citizens, and convert to Christianity. Then Elbonistan rules that because she has become Christian, she loses custody rights. Both the U.S. and Elbonistan claim jurisdiction over Fatima's daughter.
On the other side of the issue is: Plyler v. Doe
457 U.S. 202
Argued: December 1, 1981
Decided: June 15, 1982
Opinion, Brennan
Concurrence, Marshall
Concurrence, Blackmun
Concurrence, Powell
Dissent, Burger
You've just proved yourself wrong. Anything which has a majority of Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun and Powell, is automatically wrong. There has never been a collection of Supreme court justices more wrong on every single issue, than that bunch.
That is the crew that taught conservatives to hate the supreme court, the Oligarchy that taught us the rule of law doesn't matter.
You might look at another one of their famous decisions. All the usual suspects are just where you would expect them to be.
Held: A Texas statute which withholds from local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not legally admitted into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/457/202
And of course, once more the 14th amendment is being made into a vile atrocity that is deliberately depriving Americans of their freedom and their rights.
It is that G**D**n "equal protection" clause that has given us Abortion, Gay Marriage, the banning of Prayer in Public schools, and virtually the entire litany of Judicial overreach under which we currently suffer today.
All you've done here is remind us that we should not obey decisions by Liberal courts. We should tell them to go F*** themselves, and disobey their edicts in any way we can. We should teach our children to disobey, and we should be contemplating ways of destroying them and their supporters.
‘According to the Dred Scott decision, blacks, whether free or enslaved, could not be citizens and had never been citizens. Were blacks under the jurisdiction of the United States prior to 1868?
We are talking at cross purposes. You are discussing citizenship and I am discussing non-citizens being under the jurisdiction of the United States, meaning subject to our laws.’
Can you think of any possible difference between a slave owned by a US citizen and a foreign invader?
Any difference at all?
Yes.
O.K., don’t obey any Supreme Court decisions handed down by liberal majorities.
Got it.
Do you believe that foreign invaders are entitled to special rights, privileges and benefits?
No.
That’s good, then. For a minute I thought your were in favor of rewarding foreign invaders with b ennies and perks, so as to encourage an ever greater flood of invaders seeking similar rights and privileges.
Though for a program titled to be about the 14th Amendment, they barely discussed it. Over an hour was devoted to immigration policy and enforcement, and by the time they turned to birth citizenship, there was only about 10 minutes left.
And I don't think the journalists role-playing the parts limited the discussion. The meat of it was with the panelists and the moderator.
That video, “Uploaded on Apr 1, 2011”, is over 4 years old.
Well stated.
The founders language is from another time but if you read their writings their meaning is clear.
If they meant anyone born here is a citizen, then that’s what they would have written, and left it at the.
But they added a specific clause “AND SUBJECT TO THE JURIDICTIONS...”
Someone who breaks our laws to get here is subject to another country
Look at it this way:
1) All persons born in the US are citizens.
2) All persons born in the US, AND subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.
The first statement is how they libtards want to understand it. The second statement has clearly different meaning.
If the first was their intent, then that’s how they would have left it.
They didn't mean anyone born here is a citizen, but the addition of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was to exclude only a narrow set of exceptions -- the two exception known under the common law, plus the additional special case of Indians. The U.S. Supreme Court has explained this:
"The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States" by the addition "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law,), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 1, 18b; Cockburn on Nationality, 7; Dicey Conflict of Laws, 177; Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155; 2 Kent Com. 39, 42." U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
Someone who breaks our laws to get here is subject to another country.
Someone who breaks our laws can still be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. That's true for both legal and illegal immigrants. Deportation isn't the only option. Legal aliens still have an allegiance to the country of their nationality and in most cases likely are subject to the laws of that other nation. Yet we recognize that they are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. while they are here and that children born to them in the U.S. are U.S. citizens.
It is most difficult articulate a meaning and theory of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" that applies to legal aliens while excluding illegals. Conversely, it is difficult to articulate a meaning and theory of that phrase that excludes illegals that doesn't then exclude legal aliens by the same principle.
That’s called TORTURED LOGIC, and you’re wrong
I might also add that you could argue that “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation” could apply to any illegal entry into our country.
Assertion without argument is meaningless. Where exactly are you contending the logic fails? So far, I've not seen anyone anywhere give a definition and rationale for "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" that includes legal aliens while excluding illegal aliens.
Perhaps you can try.
One can argue it (and I've seen some try), but the argument misses the mark.
The birth-subject (citizen) rule of the common law was predicated on jurisdiction and allegiance. The reason children born in an area then controlled by an occupying force fell outside the normal rule is that "to be a subject born" the child had to be born owing allegiance to the sovereign. The sovereign doesn't exercise jurisdiction over an area when that area has been conquered by an invading force. So the child born there is deemed to owe no allegiance to that sovereign.
Unless a horde of illegals seize control of an entire U.S. city or in some way divest the U.S. of jurisdiction over an area, the "hostile invader" comparison misses fails.
Babeu was on a helicopter tour of Mexican drug cartel scout locations in caves in the side of mountains throughout the desert about 70 miles inside the U.S. border. Essentially, that means U.S. sovereignty is gone for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of square miles throughout the American southwest.
more tortured logic... and pretty silly, at that
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