The 14th Amendment to the Constitution
The 14th Amendment was passed in July of 1868, 73 years after the repeal of the 1790 Immigration Act.
This is the citizenship text of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:
Section 1. 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.
This directly contradicts the 1790 Immigration Act. The 14th Amendment requires birth in the US or naturalization in the US. The 14th adds another citizenship requirement, that the person born in the US or naturalized in the US be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
The 1790 Immigration Act had allowed Natural Born citizenship to extend to births outside of the geographic boundaries of the US. That was repealed in the 1795 Immigration Act. The 14th Amendment likewise required birth on US soil and gave that Constitutional authority which is superior to Federal Legislative authority. The 14th Amendment is superior to all Federal Legislation like the 1790, 1795, 1820 and 1866 Acts and all current Federal Immigration laws.
The Jurisdiction phrase of the 14th is the crux of the issue, the issue that those on the Left pretend not to see. US Jurisdiction isn't conveyed solely by birth within the geographic boundaries of the US.
The 14th Amendment drops the term "Natural Born" and references only "birth" citizenship. This doesn't create a conflict between the two phrases because "Natural Born" was never specifically defined in the 1787 Constitution, which still holds today.
Since the birth citizenship is created in the 14th Amendment it is equal to the phrase "Natural Born" in the 1787 Constitution, and superior to all Federal Legislation.
The 1787 Constitution mentioned 3 types of citizenship.
1) Revolutionary Generation
2) Natural Born
3) Naturalized
#1 is now moot since all that generation has all passed away, though it did give them the authority to seek the presidency. Our first natural born or birth citizen President was in 1837, 50 years after the signing of the 1787 Constitution.
#2 Birth Citizenship was not defined in the 1787 Constitution, but understood at the time as "Natural Born". The only defined birth citizenship in the Constitution is in the 14th Amendment.
#3, Naturalization was left by the 1st Congress for future Congress's to draft.
There are two requirements for US Birth Citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
1) The birth must occur within the geographic boundaries of the United States.
2) The baby must be subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States
Those on the Left ignore requirement #2. There is nothing in the 14th Amendment that says or implies that Birth conveys US Jurisdiction. If that were the case then the condition of US Jurisdiction would not have been included as a separate condition for US citizenship.
In the 19th Century and early 20th Century the citizenship of the Father passed to his child, not that of the Mother. This was universal at the time and conveyed the national Jurisdiction (except for Great Britain which claimed all children born on British soil).
The American law was addressed in the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court in the 1873 Slaughterhouses Case. The Court said specifically that a baby, born of non-citizens while travelling or passing through the US, does NOT receive US Citizenship. The Father's citizenship flows to the child, since the Father in this case is foreign, foreign jurisdiction goes to the newborn.
This same rule is applied to Ambassadors and emissaries of foreign governments serving in the geographic boundaries of the United States. Their children born in the US are subject to the foreign jurisdiction of the Father, an Ambassador or agent of a foreign nation. This rule is recognized across the world, not just in the US.
If the Father is an American citizen and the birth happens within the geographic boundaries of the US then the child receives US jurisdiction and by extension US Birth Citizenship because both requirements 1 and 2 above are fulfilled.
If the Mother not of US citizenship gives birth in the US and the Father is not present at the birth or not a US citizen the baby does not receive US jurisdiction. If the Father later presents himself but cannot prove US citizenship at the time of birth then the child does not receive US jurisdiction and must wait till age 18 to become Naturalized. If the Father can prove US Citizenship at the time of birth then the baby would receive US jurisdiction, retroactive to the time of birth.
The later 1898 Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision did not specifically address or reference the 1873 decision. Nor did the 1898 decision specifically overturn the 1873 opinion on Ambassadors and foreign emissaries or agents or births of foreign nationals on US soil. Nor did it address the Father's jurisdiction passing to the son in that case.
Wong Kim Ark's parents were both foreign nationals who lived in the US for decades and established a successful business in San Francisco. Neither Wong Kim Ark nor his parents ever applied for US citizenship during their decades of life in the US prior to filing the suit. Both parents considered themselves Chinese citizens and remained loyal to the Emperor of China and returned to China where they retired and died.
Wong Kim Ark returned to the US after establishing his parents in their retirement in China. Upon returning to the US in 1896 he was denied entry because of the recently passed Chinese Exclusionary Act. He took the case to the US Supreme Court and won. The Court declared him a US citizen by birth.
For reasons shown below this may have been a kind of citizenship bestowed by the Supreme Court on an individual rather than a class of individuals. Did Wong Kim Ark get a sympathetic decision of birth citizenship just for himself?
Wong Kim Ark was the first Supreme Court decision to turn a blind eye to the Jurisdiction phrase in the 14th Amendment. That set the precedent for other lower court decisions which likewise pretend the Jurisdiction phrase isn't there for Birth citizenship.
Ironically the Jurisdiction phrase is mandatory for Naturalized citizens when they take a specific oath to be subject and loyal solely and only to the US and the US Constitution. The Naturalization oath requires a renunciation of ALL foreign loyalties and allegiances. That places the newly sworn Naturalized Citizen solely under US Jurisdiction.
Clearly it is inconsistent and contrary to the 14th Amendment for Naturalized citizens to be subject to US Jurisdiction but not for Birth citizens to likewise be subject to US Jurisdiction, as the 14th requires, but the 1898 Supreme Court case decided otherwise.
The 1873 Supreme Court opinion specifically states there were two reasons for the 14th Amendment:
1) To give citizenship to all the freed slaves. It had been argued that while the slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment they were not granted citizenship by it. Congress quickly responded by passing the 14th Amendment which bestowed citizenship.
2) To end the decades long legal battles on the definition of US citizenship that had raged in the press and the courts since the 1790 Act.
The 1873 Supreme Court case, only 5 years after ratification of the 14th, was very close in time to those who wrote the 14th Amendment and their opinions on it were clearly in the minds of the presiding Justices.
The 1898 Supreme Court decision was exactly 30 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
A technical point arises from the fact that the 1898 case was primarily on the question of citizenship. Whereas the 1873 case was primarily on the question of the Louisiana courts authority to force removal of slaughterhouses and reconsolidation in one parish of New Orleans which incidentally required consideration of the equal treatment of black citizens under the 14th Amendment in that Louisiana decision.
None the less we still have valid and powerful Supreme Court opinions on the 14th Amendment from the generation that wrote it and most importantly the requirement of US Jurisdiction for both kinds of US Citizenship, birth and naturalized.
If we accept the premise that the Court made what appears a rash and unconstitutional decision only for one person then it makes more sense than to apply it to a class of persons.
Since the 1898 decision US Immigration law has made illegal entry into the US a Federal crime on the first offense and a felony on the second offense. The term "Illegal Alien" is from the 20th Century Federal Legislation.
The Supreme Court has never adjudicated the question of US citizenship attained in violation of Federal Immigration Law. It is clear that a baby allegedly given US citizenship by birth in the US of one or two illegal alien parents has gained that alleged citizenship through the deliberate commission of a Federal crime.
Can or should US citizenship or any legal benefit be granted under such an illegal act? Legal precedent says "NO!".
--- John
