XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.liberalism, alt.atheism
XPost: alt.fun, alt.politics.democrats.d
Trump is right in what he wants to do: overturn Wong Kim Ark. Horace Gray, the justice who wrote the opinion in Ark, got the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment *completely* wrong.
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.
Specifically, what Gray got completely wrong is "...and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." It does not mean subject to the mere legal jurisdiction. It means subject to the *complete* political jurisdiction. The citizenship clause of the amendment was a rewording of the citizenship clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which reads:
That all persons born in the United States and *not subject to any foreign*
*power*, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of
the United States
https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1866FirstCivilRightsAct.pdf
The debate over the 14th amendment in the Senate in 1866 made clear that the author of the new citizenship clause intended the *same* meaning in the amendment as we in the civil rights act enacted earlier in the same year. A visiting tourist — or an unlawfully present migrant, aka "illegal alien" — is
subject to the jurisdiction of our laws, but is *not* subject to the complete political jurisdiction of the U.S. That is, the alien does *not* owe allegiance to the U.S. This is what the debaters in 1866 made clear: subject to the jurisdiction was about allegiance. A pregnant Mexican woman who sneaks across the border still owes her *exclusive* allegiance to Mexico, and therefore so does her U.S.-born baby.
What's really bizarre about Wong Kim Ark is that Justice Gray got it *right* just 14 years earlier, in Elk v. Wilkins. Here's what Gray wrote in Elk:
The main object of the opening sentence of the fourteenth amendment was to
settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion
throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free
negroes, (Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393;) and to put it beyond doubt that
all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or
naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power,
should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.
This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only:
birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are 'all
persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof.' The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely
subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States,
but completely subject to their *political* jurisdiction, and owing them
*direct and immediate allegiance*. [emphasis added]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/112/94
If you want to know just how egregiously wrong Gray got it in Wong Kim Ark, you have to read this:
Wong Kim Ark’s Ship Comes to Port: Justice Horace Gray’s miscarriage of justice
https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_22_2/tsc_22_2_buchanan.shtml
It's really long, but it's essential to read it in order to understand just how badly Gray fucked up the entire history of U.S. citizenship law. Basically, Gray's decision in Wong Kim Ark reverted us to English common law, in which people are born as *subjects*, not citizens, despite the fact that the Constitution *expressly* broke with English common law on that issue. Holman, Rosenbluth and Lee, all with short attention spans, refuse to read Buchanan's lengthy article...because they don't want to know.
So I believe, as do the governments and legislatures of all of Europe and most of the rest of the world, excepting Canada and some shithole Latin American countries, that /jus soli/ citizenship is an atrocious policy. It allows aliens to create American citizens without our consent, and that is simply bad and wrong.
I don't like that Trump is trying to do this by executive order. All of his other executive orders, 100% of them, are horrible. On the other hand, maybe this is the surest way to get a case before the Supreme Court, to give them a chance to reverse the atrociously wrong Wong Kim Ark decision.
It's worth noting that essentially the same court that got Wong Kim Ark wrong in
1898 also got Plessy v. Ferguson wrong two years earlier, and Plessy was overturned in Brown in 1954. It's also worth noting that the incompetent Justice
Gray also was in the majority in Plessy (although he didn't write the opinion).
It is time to reverse Wong Kim Ark and get us to the citizenship policy that the
14th amendment intended to give us: a person born in the U.S. is a citizen *only* if born subject to the *complete* jurisdiction of the U.S.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)