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Comment by ventana | Hacker News Reader

And so we have the whole bench of 9 people guessing and discussing the intention of the lawmakers. Did they indeed mean diplomats when they wrote "subject of the jurisdiction thereof"? If a Martian lands on the US soil and gives birth, will the offspring immediately be "subject of the jurisdiction thereof"? What was the common meaning of the word "jurisdiction" in 1868? This kind of stuff.

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Citizenship means having political rights. If it's decided at some point that a martian may have political rights...then yes, as it stands, their offspring would have citizenship upon birth/ejection/hatching/transmogrification or whatever means of reproduction they use.

This is really no different than if we decided that a dolphin or a naked mole rat are able to hold political rights. If an understanding that this is possible emerges, then as a logical consequence any dolphin or naked mole rat born in US jurisdiction would be a citizen.

You are surely oversimplifying it. The amendment clearly says "born or naturalized"; can hatching or transmogrification be considered a birth? We need to look at the original meaning of the word "born" in 1868.

Also, it does not say anything about having political rights, just about being a "person", which will surely start a separate debate :)

I look forward to reading the SCOTUS opinions on "US vs Chnr'xu@jjjjjj".

At some point in the not-too-distant future this is going to recur on trying to apply the word "born" to AI, see e.g. Short Circuit II, Humans (2015)

Hatching is definitely a birth (where do you think chickens come from?) but transmogrification maybe not.

If you read Roberts's opinion he literally explains the definition of jurisdiction as it stood when the amendment was drafted (he cites three different dictionaries) and cites floor arguments directly from the Congressional record. It's not long, takes about 15 minutes to get through.

The rest of the documents are the concurrences (Jackson) and the three, frankly insane, dissents. Thomas's is 90 pages long somehow (I couldn't get through all that one, it's properly crazy).

Here's part of the Senate debate where they discuss it. It turns out that they were extremely precise about what it meant, and they described the exceptions in great detail. It's even typewritten. The downside: you can't come away from reading this stuff and pretend like there's some legal flexibility in the term. If that's important to you, you probably shouldn't click the link.

[1] https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30867/m1/12...

If they meant simply “diplomats”, why didn’t they just say “other than diplomats”?

Maybe that’s what they meant, and maybe it’s not.

One thing is sure: depending on which side you are on, it’s “obvious” that it means whatever supports your side.

There are other people who can be within the territorial boundary of the US but not subject to its jurisdiction. An invading army, for example. It leaves some interpretation of this question but it does not leave unlimited interpretation to the President, or even to Congress. That is the understanding of Wong Kim Ark, which overturned the law Congress passed 14 years after the ratification of the 14th amendment.

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