# Trump trying to end birthright citizenship **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 30, 2018, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712 "2018-10-30T11:47:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/101 "2018-10-31T05:16:22Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > What are those issues? > > Oh, a couple wealthy Chinese people come over to give birth in the US so their child will be a US citizen? How is that a problem? > > And how is it a problem when a kid born in the United States becomes a US citizen? What problems are created when this happens? The parents aren’t citizens, and are here illegally. OK, we can’t deport that kid to Mexico, because he’s a US citizen who has never set foot in Mexico. And this is a problem for what reason? It’s not a problem. Mainly because the wealthy Chinese parents are going to go back to where their wealth is: China. And they’re going to take their child back with them. And the child won’t be able to sponsor them into the country until the child is an adult living in the US. > [@MandaJo](#): > > Because it means you are “rewarding” law breakers. It’s one of the core conservative ideas–that family units are UNITS. Rewarding parents by making their kids citizens encourages them to come here. It’s the same thinking that argues that say, if you were the innocent party in a divorce then you shouldn’t have to pay child support because it’s not fair that “she” cheated and now “she” gets the money–there’s no gap between parents and kids in some people’s minds. That’s not rewarding the parent. It’s rewarding the child by making the child a citizen the exact same way the government rewards every other child born the exact same way–in the United States–a citizen. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > What do you think most Americans know about whether they are citizens? You know, by birth? Are there American citizens who assume they aren’t citizens yet because they never went through naturalization? 😕 There are Americans who think that those born on American bases overseas are born on US soil, although that’s not the case. I seriously doubt though that there are those who were born on US soil and still think they are not US citizens. > [@bump](#): > > I was just trying to point out that birthright citizenship can basically be an accident of birth. > > I’m kind of uncomfortable with the idea that citizenship is something you can luck into like that- most European countries, for example, require that you be the child of a citizen to be a citizen. > > Citizenship is something valuable- it’s not something we give away to anyone who shows up, except in this one case. That’s why I said “tighten up” the idea of birthright citizenship, not abolish it. Like for example, maybe restrict it to citizens and green card holders or applicants (petitioners?). Citizenship by birth on US soil is how everyone who got it that way got it: “they just showed up”. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m agains the idea of [_jus sanguines_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis) for the US, but that argument isn’t a very good one. How do all the countries in Europe (see the list in that link) handle that situation? We would do the same. Having been born to American citizens in Germany, I think I’ll have to go with I’m in support of _jus sanguines_ being one method of having US citizenship, especially when the country where I was born did not at the time (and AFAIK still does not) grant citizenship via _jus soli_. > [@adaher](#): > > I happen to be textualist, but “subject to the jurisdiction of” is an area where there is some vagueness. I do actually think that a limited bill ending birth tourism would pass constitutional muster. “Birth tourism” is not what has the bigots up in arms. It’s the bigots’ fear of some poor sod dropping their kid on US soil and “milking the welfare system”. Of course that’s utter nonsense. > [@Chronos](#): > > Of course citizenship is a valuable thing that should be safeguarded. For instance, it should be safeguarded against attacks like the one Trump is making. Darn straight! > [@Chronos](#): > > Having a baby is an illegal act? It is (in the mind of a bigot) if you are “not the right kind”. > [@Drum\_God](#): > > What illegal act did the child commit? Deigned to be born to “the wrong kind of parent”. > [@Arcite](#): > > Actually, the Supreme Court has [stated](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/83/36/#tab-opinion-1967657): > > > [@](#): > > > > That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, “subject to its jurisdiction” was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States. Thanks for posting that. While I think an argument could be made for the “and subject to the jurisdiction of” being a modifier for “naturalized” to make that mean the naturalized citizen is subject to the same legal obligations as a citizen born on US soil, what you quoted is quite clear. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/102 "2018-10-31T13:04:52Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Thanks for posting that. While I think an argument could be made for the “and subject to the jurisdiction of” being a modifier for “naturalized” to make that mean the naturalized citizen is subject to the same legal obligations as a citizen born on US soil, what you quoted is quite clear. Actually, I’m guessing from your repeated denunciation of “bigots,” of which you would no doubt think me one, that you’re interpreting it to mean the exact opposite of what I think it means. The court said the phrase was “intended to exclude… citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” If the intent was to give automatic citizenship to anyone born on US soil, how could there be any such person as a citizen or subject of a foreign state born within the United States? Who would meet that criterion? Clearly the framers of that Amendment, and the court in that case, thought it was possible to be born within the United States yet be a citizen or subject of a foreign state rather than the United States. So it would be reasonable to interpret this as applying to a child born to parents who are citizens of some other nation. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/103 "2018-10-31T13:16:58Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > What illegal act did the child commit? None, and the child would continue to have all the rights of a US citizen. Just like a child whose parents commit any other crime. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/104 "2018-10-31T13:18:57Z")
As for what harm wealthy Chinese families having kids here does, ask President Obama. His administration tried to crack down on birth tourism despite the fact it was 100% legal. > **[Federal agents crackdown on 'birth tourism' in California](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31717213)** > > US agents raid more than a dozen hotels that cater to pregnant foreigners who want their children to be born US citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/105 "2018-10-31T13:27:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As for what harm wealthy Chinese families having kids here does, ask President Obama. His administration tried to crack down on birth tourism despite the fact it was 100% legal. > > [Federal agents crackdown on 'birth tourism' in California - BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31717213) 100% legal? "The raids focused on hotels suspected of engaging in visa fraud. " ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/106 "2018-10-31T13:51:57Z")
That’s the legal pretext, but the media rightly pointed out that it was about stopping birth tourism. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/107 "2018-10-31T14:21:53Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That’s the legal pretext, but the media rightly pointed out that it was about stopping birth tourism. It’s not clear to me that the media’s interpretation is accurate in this case. It could be, but it seems just as likely that the Justice Department wanted to crack down on visa and medical fraud. I don’t see anything factual in the article to support an assertion that the raids were actually about one issue as opposed to another; I think it is entirely plausible that you and the reporter are projecting your opinions onto the facts. In fact, if you look at the way the DoJ phrased these operations, it does seem focused more on fraud: > **[Ten Chinese Nationals Charged With Violating Court Orders To Remain In U.S....](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/ten-chinese-nationals-charged-violating-court-orders-remain-us-witnesses-maternity)** ETA: the Obama DOJ also took steps to prosecute visa fraud originating in China that involved sham student visas. I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Obama was trying to exclude Chinese students from US universities just because they indicted the perpetrators of that fraud. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/108 "2018-10-31T14:34:26Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > The court said the phrase was “intended to exclude… citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”… So it would be reasonable to interpret this as applying to a child born to parents who are citizens of some other nation. That was in 1872. In 1898 SCOTUS decided the Wong Kim Ark case, establishing that under the ‘broad and clear words of the Constitution’, people born in the United States are citizens. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/109 "2018-10-31T14:51:05Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > Actually, the Supreme Court has [stated](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/83/36/#tab-opinion-1967657): The Supreme Court has also stated: > [@](#): > > The real object of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in qualifying the words ‘all persons born in the United States’ by the addition ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the national government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases,- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state,-both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law, from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. [https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/169/649.html](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/169/649.html) There are only three specific exceptions here, and “children of undocumented migrants” doesn’t appear to fit in any of those three. ---
**Author:** ![catflea12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f6c823/32.png) [@catflea12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catflea12)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/110 "2018-10-31T14:59:35Z")
So, is Trump going to revoke his youngest son’s citizenship? One of his parents was born outside the US. Or maybe he will revoke Melania and her parents citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/111 "2018-10-31T15:47:44Z")
> [@Defensive\_Indifference](#): > > I know this isn’t the forum for this, but, fuck you, Trump voters. Fuck all of you. You are right when you say this is not the forum for this, but you are even more right in what you state afterwards. I thank you. They are begging for it. Now let them whine. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/112 "2018-10-31T15:50:57Z")
> [@catflea12](#): > > So, is Trump going to revoke his youngest son’s citizenship? One of his parents was born outside the US. Or maybe he will revoke Melania and her parents citizenship. Did Melania or her parents immigrate here illegally? Did Baron not have at least one parent who is a legal citizen, regardless of Melania’s status? Trump’s ideas are stupid. There is no need to make stupid arguments to counter them. I don’t think Trump will issue his EO, but even if he does, it is likely to apply only to folks here illegally, and it certainly can’t apply retroactively. If you want to win in the immigration debate, best to not conflate legal and illegal immigration. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/113 "2018-10-31T15:55:35Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > You are right when you say this is not the forum for this, but you are even more right in what you state afterwards. I thank you. They are begging for it. Now let them whine. You haven’t posted much so I’m going to give this a pass. The comment you quoted is not appropriate for this thread and I noted as such here: > [@Bone](#): > > You’re right. This isn’t the forum for this. Dial it way back. > > [/moderating] Replying and reiterating the comment can easily be construed as failure to follow moderator’s instructions. Don’t do this again. [/moderating ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/114 "2018-10-31T15:55:36Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I was just trying to point out that birthright citizenship can basically be an accident of birth. Birthright citizenship _is_ an accident of birth, what else? Consider yourself lucky not to have been born in Somaliland. Might well have happened. Citizenship is a human artifact and as such completely arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/115 "2018-10-31T16:02:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Did Melania or her parents immigrate here illegally? [She probably broke an immigration law or two.](https://apnews.com/37dc7aef0ce44077930b7436be7bfd0d) That’s the kind of thing the Trump admin is going after other people for. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/116 "2018-10-31T16:42:18Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I was just trying to point out that birthright citizenship can basically be an accident of birth. > > Citizenship is something valuable- it’s not something we give away to anyone who shows up, except in this one case. That’s why I said “tighten up” the idea of birthright citizenship, not abolish it. Like for example, maybe restrict it to citizens and green card holders or applicants (petitioners?). Army brat, I came within a week of being born in Germany … and knowing my Mom, it would have been a civvy hospital, not one of the base facilities [we both have a dislike for being ‘treated’ by military doctors.] What I take from the whole thing is that for birthright citizenship, they seem to want it restricted to people who have both parents as US citizens. How fr back do they want to take it? They can realistically only go back so far before _everybody_ not amerind is an immigrant [hells bells, I have mentioned before that both sides of my family tree got here in the early to mid 1600s … and I consider my family to still be immigrant.] Might i point out that Nazi Germany dispossessed Jewish ‘immigrants’ that had been living there for several hundred years - a single drop of blood argument, just like our Jim Crow laws, so if you have any ‘brown’, ‘black’ or ‘yellow’ in ya, forget being a citizen … though I get great glee in pointing out that the whole one drop is crap, Roman Auxilliaries were shifted province to province … and intermarriages were not particularly uncommon - any freedman could marry any other freedman, a freedman or a citizen could marry anybody of the right social class, and if a senatorial position wasn’t part of the deal, you could marry the richest blackest Ethiopian you could find if your little Gallic Roman heart desired. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/117 "2018-10-31T19:20:58Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > That’s not rewarding the parent. It’s rewarding the child by making the child a citizen the exact same way the government rewards every other child born the exact same way–in the United States–a citizen. And given that, the parents that were here illegally would appear to have two options: (a) Leave the country, and take their child with them; or, (b) Leave the country, but leave the child here. Or, putting it another way: (a) Forcing a citizen of the USA to leave; or, (b) Separating a child from their parents - and you see how popular (b) is, given the reaction to what is being done with families trying to claim asylum. I can see how any other option - for example, letting the parents “jump the green card line” - could be considered “rewarding the parents.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/118 "2018-10-31T19:35:35Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > …[we both have a dislike for being ‘treated’ by military doctors.] … If the Army thought you needed a family, they would have issued you one. (Funny thing about “brat”. You seldom find out about others, but when you do you find out you have something very much in common, but unknown to anyone else. Its like a minority without any defining characteristics and no agenda. You’re just different…) ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/119 "2018-10-31T19:47:51Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > That was in 1872. In 1898 SCOTUS decided the Wong Kim Ark case, establishing that under the ‘broad and clear words of the Constitution’, people born in the United States are citizens. That’s fake news. Wong Kim Ark’s parents were both legal, permanent residents of the USA at the time of his birth. The case didn’t address the concept of children of illegal aliens. All we need is to declare that illegal aliens aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Sure, maybe a Presidential executive order is insufficient to do that, but Senator Lindsey Graham’s upcoming bill could. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712/120 "2018-10-31T19:57:13Z")
Do you guys somehow have the idea that if you’re the parent of a US Citizen, you can’t be deported? Because that idea is 100% false. Yes, illegal immigrants come here, have a kid who is a US citizen. But that does not give them any right to stay in the United States. The kid can stay, we can’t deport the kids, because the kid is a US citizen. The parents are deported. The kid can either go with the parents back to Mexico, or stay here in the United States under someone else’s care. But it is 100% false that the parents get to stay here to take care of the US citizen child. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-trying-to-end-birthright-citizenship/823712.md?page=7)