Hacker News Reader

Comment by swrobel | Hacker News Reader

6-3 with Thomas, Alito & Gorsuch dissenting

This is kind of crazy. The text of the amendment is as literal as it gets. If this had failed it would have basically meant emptying Congress of all of its powers, because now the executive can just pick whatever interpretation they deem fit to their goals and run with it.

The rule of courts of law is to interpret the law, not to pick new creative meanings out of them. That's the role of the legislative power - otherwise what's stopping a court to reinterpret the meaning of any word in any legal text and allow the executive to rule by decree

"subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is not a clear statement.

It has been clear to every single human being reading it for hundreds of years. It was never up to debate until some person of this administration decided to go and question the meaning of "jurisdiction thereof". Also saying that a foreign-born person isn't subject to the jurisdiction of the country they find themselves in opens a massive can of worms - like, if the State doesn't have jurisdiction over foreign nationals, does it imply it's not legally allowed to arrest them for instance? Two can play the same game and find infinite loopholes even in the clearest of texts.

This goes beyond the value of citizenship by birth, which I'm neither in favour nor against (personally I think that just sanguinis is nonsensical, but so is to automatically give citizenship even to accidental passer-bys), it's all about whether the law still carries any "evident" meaning or whether it can be spun around depending on political necessity, which is bad

You didn't read the decision, it was up for debate in 1898 Wong Kim Ark. Every justice cites it. Wong Kim Ark gives 4 exceptions, and it isn't clear if those exceptions are comprehensive or not.

And you didn't read the majority's breakdown of `subject to the jurisdiction`'s historical meaning, otherwise you would know that the power to arrest is not the same concept.

You have made false claims and appears you are commenting on something you haven't read.

It’s as clear as it gets. If a random tourist commits a felony in Nevada you wouldn’t be questioning if he should be subject to Nevada’s jurisdiction.

5-4 on the Constitution. Kavanaugh's concurrence is that birthright citizenship is controlled by a law that Congress could change.

Kavanaugh ruled that Trump's EO wasn't unconstitutional, just contrary to federal law, and Congress could change the law there if they wanted. So, this makes it only 5-4 upholding the 14th amendment.

Which is gods-damned crazy. We are that close to overturning major civil rights.

This would also overturn our ability to arrest or deport non-citizen, no? If the argument is that they are not under the jurisdiction of the US government, we cannot legally arrest or prosecute them?

This would create chaos. Not to mention the tens of millions of citizens retroactively turned into stateless people!

These Calvinball judges would never let logic or consistency control their decisions to that extent.

Kavanaugh agrees with their reading of the 14th Amendment, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com