I’m afraid that, as a textualist, I believe a Constitutional amendment is needed to fix this problem.
For two reasons:
1) “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” (the jurisdiction of the United States) has a perfectly clear English meaning. If you can be arrested by our police, be brought before a judge, deprived of your property and removed to a foreign country against your will, then if you are NOT being subjected to the jurisdiction of the United States, I don’t know what to call what just happened to you.
2) My grandparents (all four of them) were born in the United States to six parents who owed allegiance to the Emperor of Germany and two who owed allegiance to Her Britannic Majesty Victoria Alexandrina. And yet, they did not have to naturalize, they were American citizens at birth
I understand the intent argument. I have read Bingham’s quotes.
I just cannot imagine any American court would agree with the proposition that illegal aliens and their spawn were NOT “subject to the jurisdiction” of the courts, and therefore to the jurisdiction of the United States.
The phrase “jurisdiction thereof” means that you are a ward of the state. It has nothing to do with whether you can be arrested or not. The phrase was put it there to accomidate the slaves who were brought here against their will and were considered property.
Obeying the laws of a foreign land and “being subject to the jurisdiction” are two compleeeeeeeeetely different matters.