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.
your implying rules of law for legal aliens are somehow different than illegal aliens because of their status.
If you come into this country illegally, you should be tossed out- the fact that you drop a kid here should not give you immunity OR allow you to claim legal status for the child
How clueless are you?
LEGAL aliens have permission to be here and agree to come by the rules.
ILLEGAL aliens do not have permission to be here.
That BOTH have to obey the same laws while they are here is an idiotic argument - one of them ALREADY has not obeyed the laws
And if the state or federal government were later to claim a child born within such an area was not a citizen and could establish that lack of jurisdictional control, then the claim might have merit. Though it would make for an odd role-reversal, with the U.S. side asserting it lacked control over a portion of its territory and the other side asserting "clearly it's U.S. land."
I suspect that the number of children born out in the desert wilderness is but a minuscule fraction compared to those born in urban areas and hospitals. The effort to prove the rare exception wouldn't be cost-effective.
And another post by you completely devoid of substance.
As far as jurisdiction goes, there isn't a meaningful, workable distinction to be drawn between legal and illegal immigrants. Both at present fall within the ambit of the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.
Actually, I'm saying that the rule of law applies to both groups, and that such differences in which laws apply to which group are so minor that there's no way to claim that one group is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. within the meaning of the 14th Amendment, but the other group is not.
If you come into this country illegally, you should be tossed out-
And illegals are deported by the thousands.
the fact that you drop a kid here should not give you immunity
It doesn't.
OR allow you to claim legal status for the child
As it stands, that citizenship status is granted by the plain language of the Constitution. Perhaps that can be changed by Congressional action. Perhaps a change requires an amendment to the Constitution.
But to take the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and accept that it applies to legal aliens (which is understood and established by the Supreme Court), but then try to claim the same phrase means something else as to illegals, is a very weak approach.
Not when one understands that the issue under discussion is whether they are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. Once you acknowledge that illegals are subject to our laws (can be arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated) then my point is not only NOT illogical, it compels the answer. They are thereby "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
Compare foreign diplomats. They are one of the two common law exceptions to the birth-citizenship rule. Why are they excepted? Because the host country does not exercise complete jurisdiction over them. They have "diplomatic immunity." If they transgress our U.S. laws, the only sanction (absent a treaty modifying the historic rule) is expulsion. They cannot be tried and incarcerated.
To point out that illegals have already broken the law doesn't negate the fact that they are subject to our laws.
Here is the point, Mr. K. When foreign invaders, engaged in a hostile action they call the Reconquista, breach our borders in droves, we owe them citizenship. That is how we keep the Reconquista alive, well and ever expanding: we reward it.
What’s so unusual about that? Don’t all countries reward foreign invaders? The more of the US the Reconquista ‘reclaims,’ the more we should reward them.
Or maybe we should just give them back the land. They claim a huge chunk of the US already belongs to them. Rather than make them work so hard to re-can onquor it, let’s just gift it to them. Granted, they would just redouble their illegal invasion into the rest of the US—but at least they’d have a more convenient platform from which to do it.
[The key to all this is that if you’re ever able to capture and hold a foreign invader, he/she automatically becomes an ‘immigrant.’ You know, like magic.]
Re-can onquor = reconquor
(File under, adventures with touch screens.)
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