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A pocket guide to why Trump is correct on birthright citizenship By Andrea Widburg I was having lunch with some conservative gal pals yesterday, and the subject got around to birthright citizenship. I was quickly able to sum up the arguments in favor of Donald Trump’s position (many of which have been made on this site), so I thought I’d give you a handy-dandy guide to these arguments. The predicate for this discussion, of course, is this clause from the 14th Amendment: 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 . (Emphasis mine.) One. English common law, which underpins American law, held that an invader’s children are not citizens. To the extent that the illegal aliens in America have not entered through invitation or by any legal process, they are foreign invaders. Therefore, as a matter of ancient legal principles, they do not get to complete the process of conquest by having their children automatically become citizens with the right to affect elections or claim benefits. Two. Illegal aliens are not people who “reside” in the United States of America. Residence doesn’t simply mean that you are currently in a place. For example, when I’m sitting in an airport waiting to board a plane, I do not “reside” in the airport. “Residence” has a legal meaning that, again, is based upon whether you are a legally recognized occupant of American soil (e.g., a green card holder, an acknowledged refugee or asylee, someone with temporary protected status, etc.) or an invader. Three. The 14th Amendment does not simply say that to be “born” in America is sufficient. Instead, the person must also be subject to American jurisdiction, which is something different from being obligated to obey American laws while on American soil. If I visit Germany and decide to beat up someone, I’ll be arrested and subject to Germany’s limited jurisdiction for my having violated that law, but I will not be a German citizen, entitled to the benefits and burdens of German citizenship, and no one would say I was. That is, “jurisdiction” is not the same as “being on a nation’s soil and obligated to obey the laws.” Instead, it’s about a person’s birth fealty to another nation, a fealty unchanged by a legal process, including a formal declaration of allegiance. (Note: The illegal immigrants have made their allegiance clear with their decades of waving their birth nation’s flags at pro-illegal immigration rallies, most recently in Dallas.) Four. The word “alien” has a specific legal meaning: “The term ‘alien’ means any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” For decades, though, leftists have successfully pushed to refer to those here illegally as “undocumented migrants.” Leftists focus on the adjective “undocumented,” saying that no person is “illegal,” so their term gives people dignity. That’s sleight of hand. The real purpose is to substitute “migrants” for “aliens.” Why does this matter? Because one of the 14th Amendment’s drafters, Sen. Jacob Howard, whose intended purpose was to give citizenship to blacks whose parents had been forcibly imported to the United States and who had no other national fealty, stated explicitly that the amendment would not apply to “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens...” What the drafters intended matters. Ancient rules of statutory construction (going back, again, to English common law) mandate that, if a statute’s words are ambiguous, you must look to the drafters’ intention. The people who voluntarily enter here illegally are “aliens,” not “migrants.” Our government never intended to hand out citizenship to those who voluntarily came here illegally, whether on their own two feet or nicely packed in their mother’s womb. I hope this helps whether you’re talking to friends who truly want to know or need the facts at your fingertips when dealing with a pro-illegal immigration advocate. (BTW, you’ll never change the latter’s mind. Your hope in these debates is that your reasoned, informed, and civilized arguments change the minds of less doctrinaire people auditing the conversation.) https://www.americanthinker.co...ght_citizenship.html "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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Good. I hope Trump gets this done then he can move onto deleting the H1B visa program and send all their asses home as well. The corporate bureaucracy will have to just deal with it and start hiring Americans as well. It’s gone on far too long and been abused like a dead hooker. What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone | |||
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| Savor the limelight |
Not all aliens are illegal. In addition to illegal aliens, there’s resident and non-resident aliens and none of them are citizens. Since the article focuses on the illegal aliens, I 100% agree with the rest of the argument. It’s a pet peeve, but article also fails to distinguish the difference between reside and residency, but again it doesn’t change that validity of the argument. Reside, residency, and resident are related, but have different meanings that count legally. I wish reside and residency were the same so we could pay instate tuition at the public university my daughter would prefer. Illegals probably go for free.  | |||
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| Imagination and focus become reality |
I agree that people should not be allowed to game the system. However, using word salad like "non-illegal" and what is the definition of "reside", etc., is not convincing. The simple fact remains that Ark's parents were not citizens and Ark was born in the US and the Supreme Court ruled that Ark, due to being born in the US, was therefore a US citizen by birth. Using the argument that today things are different is like arguing that there were no AR-15s back when the Second Amendment was written. | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money |
Yes. This case can be distinguished from the present cases, as others here have attempted, OR the case can be overturned completely. The Court will take the 1898 case into account, and those same arguments will be made, but the Court will not be bound by stare decisis. "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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Ark’s parents did not break any laws to come here. They could also not legally be citizens at the time, due to legislation, neither could some Native Americans. That was fixed by legislation later. | |||
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safe & sound |
It's not a word salad, it's reality. When one is a criminal, and the other isn't, there's a difference between the two. | |||
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| No More Mr. Nice Guy |
Can a person be legally a resident of a place they cannot legally be? | |||
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