14 States may Target Birthright Citizenship

I have a solution to the anchor baby problem, really more a "work around": We can designate all maternity wards as UN embassies. That way all new born children will be citizens of the countries of origin of the parents.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

LadyJazzer wrote: It never ceases to amuse me that those on here who revere the Constitution as if it had come down from the mountain on stone-tablets, like it a lot...except all the parts they want to change...The 1st Amendment, the 4th, 5th, 10th, 14th, 17th, ad nauseum... You really worship it--except the parts that you don't like...

Why am I not surprised....

What can I say LJ. The 17th, like the 18th, was a mistake and needs to be repealed, just as the 18th was repealed by the 21st. I revere the Constitution enough to see that it is changed solely in the manner contained within the Constitution. This business of changing it, reinterpreting it, evolving it, outside of that manner is indeed offensive to me. We all know that the 14th was never intended to confer citizenship upon the children of illegal aliens. That was never its purpose, never entered into the discussion regarding its crafting or its ratification and is therefore not a covered aspect of it. To pretend otherwise is simply disingenuous and disrespectful of it.

As soon you as you start a sentence with: "We all know..." all I know is that you're pretty much in your own little world. What you THINK you know, and "what we all know" are not necessarily the same thing.

"We all know" that the original framers thought slavery was acceptable and that it was okay to limit voting to white property-owners, and to count slaves as 3/5 of a person. "We all know" that the Constitution was amended to get rid of that. After the Federalists LOST the election of 1800, Marbury vs. Madison was basically decided AGAINST the Federalists (1803), and established the Courts right of judicial review and to decide what is--and is not--Constitutional. Whether you like it or not, and whether you think subsequent courts interpreted it in a way you don't like is basically irrelevant.

PrintSmith wrote:

archer wrote: I do believe the Supreme Courts opinion trumps you, PS, and the states.......again, if you want to change how things are done then use the proper federal channels. States don't confer citizenship.

And in which Supreme Court case has it been decided that the child of an illegal alien born within our borders is a citizen under the 14th Amendment archer? It hasn't yet been placed before the Supreme Court, which is the purpose of the legislation under consideration. The legislature, along with most everyone else, realizes that the 14th Amendment was intended to confer citizenship to the descendants of the men and women who were kidnapped from their former nation and involuntarily forced to serve as slaves to others. It was drafted in the wake of the Dred Scott decision which said that the newly freed slaves were not citizens of the nation and was crafted specifically to address that ruling and confer citizenship to those to whom the Supreme Court's ruling had denied it to. That's it archer; that was the purpose of the amendment.

And you are wrong about states conferring citizenship. Thirteen sovereign states, each with their own citizens, decided to band together to form a union. Citizenship in the several states came before citizenship in the union of those states. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson both considered themselves citizens of Virgina first and of the Union second. In fact, that was the commonly held opinion well into the 19th century. You remember General Lee, don't you? The man who resigned his commission from the army after being offered to command it by President Lincoln? He resigned that commission because, in part, he couldn't take up arms against his fellow citizens of Virginia. He was a Virginian first. That tradition continues to this day. I am a citizen of Colorado, and also by virtue of that citizenship, a citizen of the United States of America since the sovereign state of Colorado is a member of the union of states. Should I desire to relocate in another state within the union, my citizenship in the union establishes me as a citizen within my new state. That is the way that it worked at the outset and the way it continues to work today.

You really ought to work on getting true facts instead of making up your own. The Supreme Court in 1898 in the US v. Wong Kim Ark case found that unless a child is born in the US to foreign rulers or diplomats, born on foreign public ships or born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory, the child is a citizen of the US. There is no exception to native born children of illegal immigrants.

"The Supreme Court considered the key question in Wong Kim Ark's case to be "whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States" via the Fourteenth Amendment."

The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, according to the court's majority, had to be interpreted in light of English common law, which had included all native-born children except for those who were: (1) born to foreign rulers or diplomats, (2) born on foreign public ships, or (3) born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory. Congress had created a statute, similar to the one being currently considered by the wingnuts of the 14 states in issue that excluded citizenship to children born of Chinese immigrants. Since Wong was a U.S. citizen from birth, the restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act did not apply to him. An act of Congress, the majority held, does not trump the Constitution; such a law "cannot control [the Constitution's] meaning, or impair its effect, but must be construed and executed in subordination to its provisions.

Another case on point is the Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe in 1982, that defined "within the jurisdiction" as covering illegal immigrants on US territory and that there was no plausible distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants for the purpose of considering whether they were within the jurisdiction.

Thanks Something.....I was in no mood to dig through the internet to find the citations, though I knew this had been before the Supreme Court in the past. I found it interesting listening to the reasoning here in AZ for the state law they intend to pass. No one thinks it will change anything, they just want it to go before the Supreme Court. And who will pay for the legal fees to do that.....why the citizens of AZ of course. This state is broke and up to it's ears in debt, but this is how our Republican state government plans to spend the money they don't have.

Well, it's better than paying $5million for the people in the state who need transplants and can't afford them. What's the life of a father/husband/child worth when you have important legal matters like "birthright citizenship" to decide? (I guess I was wrong...There ARE "death panels"...They just don't happen to have anything to do with the "Affordable Health Care" law...)

The difference between Won Kim Ark and the child of an illegal alien is that Won Kim Ark's parents were here with the permission of the nation and the state of California. They were legal resident aliens, not illegal ones. They were here with the knowledge and consent of the government to conduct business and reside within the Union. They were under the jurisdiction of the nation, not living outside of it, as is the case with the illegal alien population. Clearly and distinctly two different situations. No one is arguing whether a child born to a legal alien resident is a citizen Dog, that was clearly decided by the case you reference, but the facts surrounding the children born to illegal aliens are not the same and hence the decision does not speak to them.

Pyler v Doe, on the other hand, spoke to a Texas law that disadvantaged the non-citizen children of non-citizen illegal aliens without a compelling state interest to do so. The non-citizen child being denied an education by the Texas law would be forever harmed; "the deprivation of education takes an inestimable toll on the social, economic, intellectual, and psychological wellbeing of the individual, and poses an obstacle to individual achievement." Which, clearly, denying of U.S. citizenship to the child of illegal aliens cannot be said to take a similar inestimable toll on the child. I think that there exists a compelling interest in the deciding of whether or not a child born to two illegal aliens is rightly a citizen of the nation.

No case has yet been brought before SCOTUS that directly questions this issue Dog, we both know that. The legislation under consideration by numerous states will be the first time this issue, whether the children born to illegal aliens within the borders of the nation are entitled to be citizens of the nation. There exists no consensus on the issue and there is no law passed by a state or national legislature that says that they are. Colorado could pass a law that said the child of two illegal aliens born within the state is a citizen of the state if they wished to, and thereby establish that child as a citizen of not only this state but of the union of states. That ability extends to the opposite as well. We can pass a law that says such a child is not a citizen of the state, for this state is as sovereign unto itself as any other state that exists anywhere in the world is outside of the sovereignty that has been surrendered to the general government of the union of states to which we belong. That is about to happen in 14 states and we shall then see whether or not the states are sovereign in this matter or whether that has been surrendered to the general government. I, for one, am looking forward to following this as it makes its way through our legal system.

The ruling in the Won Yim Ark case clearly stated that unless the native born child falls within one of the four categories of exceptions, the child is a citizen. A native born child of illegal immigrants does not fall within one of the four categories of exceptions, thus by law, under the 14th Amendment a native born child of illegal immigrants who is not a member of an Indian tribe, who is not a child of foreign diplomats, who was not born on foreign owned ship, or who is not born of enemy combatants, is a citizen of the United States. There is no exception under the 14th Amendment for a native born child of illegal immigrants not being a citizen. That is the law.

Under the scrutiny tests for judging constitutionality of laws, compelling interest is an extremely high standard, which is almost never met.
"The compelling state interest test is a test used by the US Federal Courts in due process and equal protection claims (all claims with Constitutional bases, actually) under the Fourteenth Amendment for state action and under the Fifth Amendment for federal action. It is part of the strict scrutiny analysis that a federal court will employ when either a suspect class or a fundamental right is involved. A government action or statute subject to strict scrutiny must be done in furtherance of a compelling state interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. The court will apply the strictest scrutiny to the state or federal action when it impacts or targets a specially protected class (e.g., a racial or ethnic group) or when a fundamental and Constitutionally protected right is involved (e.g. freedom of speech or the right to vote). The compelling state interest test is distinguishable from the rational basis test, which involves claims that do not involve a suspect class and involve a liberty interest rather than a fundamental right."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

Further, the decision to grant US citizenship is certainly a federal issue and clearly preempted from consideration by the state legislatures. Under Article 1, Section 8, the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to:
"To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, "

This is just more showboating and a waste of time and money by state politicians.

Please Dog. US v Ark had some special parameters, specifically Title 8 Chapter 7 of the US Code: Exclusion of Chinese, that made that case different from what we are talking about here. His parents were allowed to be here for as long as they wished to remain here under the law, that is not the case with the illegal alien parents of children born here.

No matter how you attempt to imply otherwise, that is a very real distinction which could alter the ability of the child born to illegal alien parents to have the same claim to citizenship that the Chinese children born to Chinese subjects legally residing in the nation had in the late 1800's and early 1900's. If you were claiming that the children of legal aliens of Mexican citizenship were entitled to the same claim to citizenship as the children of legal alien Chinese subjects, I would concur with you on that point. Both sets of parents would then be legal alien residents within the union and the children of each are entitled to the equal application of the law. But there is a notable difference between the parents of Ark and the illegal alien parents of a child born on US soil that prevents the automatic application, via stare decisis, of the Ark decision. You may attempt to gloss over that distinction in the rush to judgment consistent with your partisan outlook, but that doesn't mean the distinction isn't a notable one that could result in a different decision being reached regarding the citizenship of the children of illegal aliens.

As I have previously stated, the decision held that unless the native born child falls within one of the four exceptions, the child is a US citizen. Not a single one of those exceptions pertains to illegal immigrants. Thus, under the Supreme Court holding, a child born in the US is a US citizen unless the parents were Indians, unless the parents were foreign diplomats, unless the child is born of foreign parents on a foreign owned ship, or unless the parents were enemy combatents. None of those exceptions relate to illegal immigrants. You can dance around it all that you desire. There is no distinction at all in the Supreme Court decision and the instant case as it pertains to the holding of the case. Please identify the exception in the 14th Amendment that would obviate citizenship for a native born child having illegal immigrants for parents. There simply is not one.

If you desire such an exception, then it will be necessary to amend the Constitution. There is absolutely no other way around it.