Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Owen

Everything but tech support.
}

0811, 23 Jan 25

Ending Birthright Citizenship

Interesting.

Democratic states this week made clear that Donald Trump faces a bitter legal fight if he pushes ahead with plans to end birthright citizenship, but an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com shows that the president has America’s backing.

 

After his inauguration on Monday, Trump ordered officials not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. if neither their mother or father is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

 

J.L. Partners polled 1,009 registered voters ahead of Trump’s inauguration asked them: ‘Currently, when someone is born in the United States they immediately become a citizen, regardless of their country of origin or their parents’ citizenship status. This is called ‘birthright citizenship’.

 

‘Do you support or oppose the removal of birthright citizenship?’

 

Some 48 percent of respondents said they supported removal and 26 percent said they supported it strongly.

 

In contrast, 32 percent said they opposed it, 23 percent strongly.

There are two questions here. What is the law? Is it good policy? Let’s start with the first.

This is the relevant part of the Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

For my entire lifetime, at least, this has been interpreted to mean that if you are born on the soil of the U.S. or born of citizen parents, then you are also a citizen. That is how I have always assumed it was correctly interpreted. The phrase in dispute in the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” part. What does that mean?

To be subject to a government’s jurisdiction, it logically means that you are part of the community and subject to the normal laws as everyone else. If you are born in this nation to illegal aliens, are you really under our jurisdiction? You aren’t filing taxes, getting insurance, adhering to labor laws, etc. You are living in the shadows.

Remember that this sentence was written after the Civil War to naturalize former slaves and ensure that they have full citizenship. In that case, the former slaves were born in the nation and they were undeniably subject to its jurisdiction – by force. In the case of people born of illegal aliens, they are neither forced nor allowed to live under the same jurisdiction as citizens.

I expect that despite the logical argument, this is a reach for the law because of the century of accepted interpretation of this clause. I don’t think it’s been fully litigated, but that’s because the interpretation of birthright citizenship was so accepted that nobody thought to challenge it. Trump is challenging it.

Is this good policy? Here’s an enlightening visual:

CDN media

It is, by no means, a God-given right nor universally accepted good policy to grant citizenship by virtue of where you are born. While not universal, the trend is that younger countries have the Rule of Land and older countries have the Rule of Blood. Why? Partially because during the age of exploration, new countries needed to attract people to settle there. Partially because that’s what was in vogue at the time the laws were made.

As a populous and settled country that readily attracts immigrants, the U.S. does not need the Rule of Land to grow our population. We should maintain a healthy flow of immigrants, but we can do so with thoughtfulness of our nation’s needs and compassionate about refugees. We do not need to grant citizenship to a person just because their mom found her way onto American soil to give birth. This is especially true when we see so many people exploiting this rule.

So, yes, it would be good policy to move the U.S. to the Rule of Blood, but I expect that we will find that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to get there.

}

0811, 23 January 2025

4 Comments

  1. Merlin

    There’s nothing wrong with the 14th Amendment. It doesn’t need to be amended or abolished. It needs to be understood and followed. Just because the public doesn’t understand the law doesn’t make the law flawed. All Trump has to do is follow the law, not amend it. That’s his fucking job.

    Like much of the Constitution, and federal law in general, Democrats and Republicans alike simply ignore what they find inconvenient. The US Supreme Court has already ruled on what birthright citizenship is and isn’t. So have the federal courts. There are a few nuances to birthright citizenship, but no mystery. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just enforce the law.

  2. dad29

    Merlin’s right. The 14th has ALWAYS been interpreted as ‘blood,’ until Democrats decided to ignore that. Matter of interest, this specific question has never been addressed by SCOTUS; should they do so, the history, other cases, and common sense should prevail.

    But we have CJ Julia Roberts, Extreme Libertarian Gorsuch, and the Notre Dame Twit to worry about…..

  3. Merlin

    Roberts would rather be castrated than take birthright citizenship head on. The misapplication of original intent is generations old and the lack of adequate enforcement a matter of politics rather than law. Even if they did rule to confirm original intent enforcement falls on the executive branch… which is what Trump’s EO attempts to do.

    Congress can always provide legislative solutions, but that would require them to actually do their job and that’s unlikely to happen. Legislative solutions are really political solutions and they’re currently not unhappy with the status quo. Keeping any real action between the executive and judicial branches suits those cowards just fine.

  4. Jason

    Time to stop letting the left have it s cake and eat it too.

    If the intent is blood, that’s a win. If the intent is Land… Then it’s time to subject them to the jurisdiction and be done with it. The left has for too long enjoyed threading between the two.

Submit a Comment

Pin It on Pinterest