The most obvious read of the constitution in the world still being a 6-3 verdict shows the state of the Supreme Court today.
Why the scaremongering? What are "they" waiting for?
Eliminating birthright citizenship is a key component dating back decades.
https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/feudalism-c...
I would love to actually debate this issue with someone who does believe birthright citizenship is not a thing.
It’s not a new thing or something discussed in underground circles. They have been very vocal and open about their goals, and you can find a lot of investigative work in that whole movement.
Their most obvious victory so far has been the complete take over of the Supreme Court, allowing the realization of the idiotic, fascist “Unitary executive theory” concept.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_nationalism
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
If that sounds scaremongering you might want to reevaluate your sources of information for at least the past decade
Seems like the definition of hand wringing and over drama.
I mean remember how folks thought Kavanaugh was the end of the world and it meant the end of democracy? Well he’s continually ruling against trump.
Which is is fine, you can change the constitution, but thats for parliament to do.
To which Constitution are you referring? And which "parliament"?
The US Constitution can only be changed by votes by both supermajorities in both houses (House of Representatives and Senate) of Congress and the legislatures of 3/4 of the several states. We don't have a "parliament."
Are you referring to Canada's Constitution? Australia's? AFAIK, the UK has no Constitution and changes to Ireland's Constitution requires a national referendum.
Please do elucidate. Thanks!
AIUI, IANAL, US courts and law do not have jurisdiction over diplomats. When a diplomat the 'hosting' government agrees to immunity, so cannot be prosecuted. E.g.:
> The collision caused diplomatic tension between British and US officials. [Anne] Sacoolas fled Britain soon after the incident, and claimed diplomatic immunity with US support.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn
The 'source' country has to agree to remove the diplomatic coverage.
U.S. courts do have jurisdiction over diplomats for certain things, such as suits related to commercial activities.
You could potentially apply this to temporary tourists as well, but the linkage between them and the government of the country they are coming from is much weaker since their presence typically doesn't have them acting on behalf of the foreign government or with any special legal distinction.
I'd also pose the same question back to you, what's a reasonable definition of "subject to the jurisdiction" that excludes everyone except US citizens, as many conservatives want, or at least only extends to legal permanent residents?
As far as I know the only exceptions at the time the 14th was drafted and ratified would have been people with diplomatic immunity or similar due to treaties and international agreements.
Immediate families of diplomats living with the diplomat are included in diplomatic immunity, hence their children born here would not become citizens.
Those situations you mention where US court do have jurisdiction over diplomats are: private real estate disputes; wills and inheritance; business activity of diplomats that are running a side business or practicing a profession in the US that is not part of their official duties; lawsuits initiated by the diplomat.
Even if becoming subject to such limited jurisdiction counted as being "subject to the jurisdiction" for purposes of the 14th Amendment it would not matter because newborns are not involved in those things, and so newborn children of diplomats have their full diplomatic immunity.
You've stated it, but not evidenced it. This is certainly the right-wing talking point, but never strongly sourced. The meaning of this phrase was viciously debated. Would it surprise you to know that many in Congress hated it for similar reasons as nationalists today?
Let me say this again: the meaning of this phrase was openly and viciously debated in the public record! Senator Cowan thought the phrasing created a loophole for birthright citizenship, and the amendment creators explicitly, overtly, repeatedly agreed with his interpretation of the phrasing and defended it as deliberate policy.
Feel free to read some of this: https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/libertyandjusti... (CTRL+F "If my friend from Pennsylvania" for a quite pertinent line).
It must be that the Gypsy element is to be added to our political
agitation, so that hereafter the Negro alone shall not claim our entire
attention.
So then it just depends how you want to interpret the meaning of this law under the present. The UK, with common law tradition, abolished birthright citizenship decades ago to combat exactly the problems we are having with it now. So what was intended by jus soli birthright citizenship in 1866 could be viewed differently now.
Every single court on the way to SCOTUS correctly said "the fuck?!"
> Federal judges in each of the district courts issued preliminary injunctions to block the order from taking effect anywhere in the country. Judge John C. Coughenour, presiding over Washington v. Trump, called the order "blatantly unconstitutional". Government appeals challenging the injunctions were rejected by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Including Clarence, whose "hilarious" dissent says that undocumented persons are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, which might be of note to ICE.
> 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Please point to the section where it says "this only applies if the parents are citizens".
The reading which the court affirmed is incredibly obvious. Republicans and xenophobes like to pretend it isn't, but the text is very simple.
To wit, if we read it as "subject to the laws of the land", then the invading army exception does not make sense, invading soldiers are subject to the laws of the United States and have been tried and convinced of violating them. Note, diplomat exception still makes sense, they _are not_ subject to the laws of the land.
So, how do you define jurisdiction in this amendment in a way that covers both invading soldiers and diplomats? I don't think it is super straightforward.
To put good faith on the table, I ultimately agree with your opinion here that birthright citizenship is settled and the vast majority of folks arguing against it are doing so in bad faith. But I also recognize the text of the amendment has holes to my eyes and could be updated for clarity.
> vast majority of folks arguing against it are doing so in bad faith
What’s “bad faith” about it?
As I posted elsewhere, you can read some of this for yourself: https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/libertyandjusti... (CTRL+F "If my friend from Pennsylvania" for a quite pertinent line).
I don't agree with your assertion here. Do you have more details on the claim that "invading soldiers [...] have been tried and convinced of violating them [US Laws]"?
As I understand it, invading soldiers are not subject to the laws of the United States nor are they protected by the bill of rights - instead they are enemy combatants and subject to military force. You don't arrest and charge active combatants, you fight them. If they surrender they become prisoners of war and would be covered under the treaties that apply to POWs, not civilian laws. They don't become citizens by surrendering.
I suspect the gray area would be around terrorists and stateless combatants, but the general principle that "people who are operating under the orders of a foreign government are not subject to the laws of the united states, but rather bound by the treaties between the US and their foreign state" would still apply.
Maybe this is a gray area in theory, but practically speaking I don't think it matters. The child has nothing to do with the parent's choices in life, do they deserve to be treated any differently than any other child born in the US?
I really urge you to read the original debate. It isn't like the handwritten notes we get from the 1700s; it's typewritten and the Senators are so thoughtful and utterly precise about what they meant. It's ELI12.
[1] https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30867/m1/12...
I'm not taking a side here, but it injects a couple more words that could imply something else:
[Mr. Howard] (Sen. from MI)
"This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory as what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.
This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of embassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.
It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States."
(Apologies for any typos as this was hand written.)
"This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of embassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."
They don't mention Indian tribes in that quote, but they mention it elsewhere. Seems completely clear to me.
[Mr. Cowan] (Sen from PA)
"So far as the courts and the administration of the laws are concerned, I have supposed that every human being within their jurisdiction was in one sense of the word a citizen, that is, a person entitled to protection; but in so far as the right to hold property, particularity the right to acquire title to real estate, was concerned, that was a subject entirely within the control of the States.
It has been so considered in the state of Pennsylvania; and aliens and those who acknowledge no other allegiance, either to the State, or to the General Government, may be limited and circumscribed in that manner.
I have supposed, further, that it was essential to the existence of society itself, and particularly essential to the existence of a free State, that it should have the power, not only of declaring who should exercise political power within its boundaries, but that if it were overrun by another and a different race, it would have the right to absolutely expel them."
[Mr. Conness] (Sen. CA)
(Acclaimed for his pro-Chinese immigration views.
Wiki: "In the Senate debate on the 14th Amendment, Conness said “We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children begotten of Chinese parents in California … shall be citizens.”
from the link:
"Now, I will say, for the benefit of my friend, that he may know something about the Chinese in future, that this portion of our population, namely, the children of Mongolian parentage, born in California, is very small indeed, and never promises to be large, notwithstanding our near neighborhood to the Celestial land. The habits of those people, and their religion, appear to demand that they all return to their own country at some time or other, either alive or dead. There are, perhaps, in California today about forty thousand Chinese--from forty to forty-five thousand. Those persons return invariably, while others take their places, and, as I before observed, if they do not return alive their bones are carefully gathered up and sent back to the Flowery Land. It is not an unusual circumstance that the clipper ships trading between San Francisco and China carry at a time three or four hundred human remains of these Chinese. When interred in our State they are not interred deep in the earth, but laid very near the surface, and then mounds of earth are laid over them, so that the process of dis-interment is very easy. That is their habit and custom; and as soon as they are fit for transmission to their own country they are taken up with great regularly and sent there. None of the bones are allowed to remain. They will return, then, either living or dead. "
(Sadly the site is now offline.)
The issue was contentious then as it is now. They wouldn’t have spilled so much ink on the topic if it wasn’t. Your link is proving my point.
None of it's complicated. You could read this as an 8th grader and have no doubt what they were trying to do.
Most of the discussion was of the form "hey, could we add an exception to exclude even more people from citizenship" and then the sponsors would say something like, "yes, we agree that those people aren't excluded under the current language; that adding extra language could exclude those people; and that we don't want to exclude those people or change the language." And then Congress voted for the language exactly as it was originally proposed.
In this case, I really doubt even the most conservative justices believe "birthright citizenship means whatever an Executive Order says it does." At a minimum, we know they aren't signing on to the reasoning the 5 in the majority used. And then we can learn whatever they feel like saying in the dissent, but a dissent is just an essay with no force of law.
> The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens.
Alito and Thomas straight up believe that the constitution does not provide birthright citizenship and the executive order is valid. Gorsuch mostly agrees but makes an exception if the parents plan to stay in the US. Kavanaugh agrees that birthright citizenship is not provided by the constitution, instead he argues its a federal statute that congress can overturn (but the president cannot)
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...