You were using an extreme example to dismiss the whole idea. If there is a minimum time in-country that you would find satisfactory, just state it. On the other hand, if you want to entirely eliminate that avenue of citizenship, quit with the extreme examples and just say so.
Trump has no actual intention of ending birthright citizenship by executive order. He’s trying to change the narrative from right wing violence to immigration.
There’s an election in a week and he’s trying to fire up people who think immigration is a serious problem.
To fire up people who believe immigrants come here to pop out some anchor babies.
To fire up people who believe those babies are part of a great replacement or white genocide.
To fire up people like Robert Bowers.
This is Trump specifically trying to appeal to voters like Robert Bowers. It’s pretty disgusting.
I’m going to guess that you yourself are a citizen of the USA, and that you gained that status as an accident of birth?
Just checking.
Friend bump, think about what you are saying.
Any status by birth is “an accident of birth;” that’s how the phrase is used. If citizenship is something “valuable,” that means it can be monetized. Why not end the whole practice of being born a citizen, and make it something to be bought? What would we call such a policy? Why, we’d call it “ending birthright citizenship,” which is the exact phrase used by rich guy Mitt Romney and rich guy Donald Trump in the party that caters to super-rich guys.
What makes you think you’d still be a citizen under their law? Words mean things, and they’ve had several years to pick better words.
What do we do with people who are the children of children of undocumented immigrants? They won’t be citizens of anywhere else (just as children of children of American citizens are not American citizens if their parents never lived in the US).
Where would you deport a person, an adult, who was born here, grew up here, had never left this country, and is suddenly revealed to be a non-citizen? To his parents’ country of origin?
I’m agains the idea of jus sanguines 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.
I’ll admit I haven’t thought this through entirely, but it does seem to me that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause wasn’t written with immigrants in mind; it was a post Civil War amendment written with the purpose of settling the citizenship status of former slaves. I don’t really think there was a lot of thought put toward the future ramifications of that clause with respect to illegal immigration- at the time there wasn’t really such a concept.
Now that there is such a concept, it’s worth considering revising that clause. I’m perfectly fine with granting jus soli citizenship to children born to people on the naturalization track (legal immigrants?).
I guess it comes back to whether or not American citizenship is something that confers valuable benefits and should be safeguarded, or if it’s not something worth worrying about. Or even whether it’s advantageous to grant it without many restrictions.
But just taking a sentence from an amendment written around 150 years ago concerning former slaves and extrapolating it to modern day immigration isn’t necessarily the most awesome thing either.
Here are news articles discussing some unusual situations in the current system:
What’s the opinion on these practices?
Whoever replaces him will be much worse than him. Ryan ended up being a disappointment as speaker. He has no spine. But he’s still smarter and more moral than any likely replacement.
I doubt most Americans know that a pregnant tourist can come here and have an American citizen.
Republican opinion would (should) be textualist. If they wrote the text poorly and it pulls in everyone and their mother to citizenship, even when you didn’t intend it, then tough titties.
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.
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.
I thought everyone knew this. If they didn’t know it by '09, then the endless birther bullshit should have reached them.
So are illegal immigrants, and legal immigrants who haven’t become naturalized yet, and legal naturalized immigrants whose original country doesn’t require them to renounce citizenship nor withdraws citizenship from people who don’t perform necessary upkeep…
Children of immigrant aliens can be citizens of their parents’ country of origin, depending on this one’s laws, but that’s never been an issue with any country’s concepts of who is a citizen from birth: it either leads to provisions on what to do in cases of double citizenship or gets ignored.
“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.”
If we’re meant to read the “and” as an “or”, then I would say that the text is quite clear:
If you were born in the US or anywhere that the US has legal control, then you’re a citizen.
If it is in fact meant to be read as an “and”, then the whole subclause makes no sense since it’s redundant with the “in the United States”. Everywhere inside the United States is, by definition, under the jurisdiction of the United States. While a technically accurate reading of the text, it’s clearly not what the text is meant to say, since that’s just stupid. It would be like me saying that “any hair on Sage Rat or on the person thereof”…what possible reason would there be to include the extra, 100% redundant flourish?
I believe that the text is just abbreviated and it’s meant to be read as:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and [those territories] subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
It is, after all, the case that at the time the US did have outlying territories under its jurisdiction, and (as noted) it would make no sense for the subclause to exist if not to deal with them:
Can you think of any explanation for the existence of the subclause that wouldn’t necessitate the existence of areas under US jurisdiction that are not part of the US?
Any citizenship acquired at birth is, yes. So are rights to acquire citizenship by descent, such as the “return laws” of many countries. So?
Each of them in a different way, so “doing the same” would be… the usual “varies by state”, I guess.
I always thought the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was meant to exclude children of diplomats, who have some immunity from local laws (for example, they get to ignore parking tickets).
Everyone with multiple brain cells (obviously excluding Donald) knows that the intent was to grant citizenship by birth. Donald says we’re the only country in the world that does this, he’s obviously lying.
It looks like maybe it’s more places like this (than the Guano Islands) that necessitated the subclause.
I would expect that someone born inside a US consulate would be citizens, based on the “under the jurisdiction of” clause.
Okay nevermind that last, a consulate is not under the jurisdiction of the US, it’s just granted limited immunity by the host country, but still under their jurisdiction.