Sure, but what about the bar for being born to parents who are on US soil illegally? If the location of the birth itself is not legally sanctioned, does the birth right based on that location still apply? This seems to be an obvious loophole. And there is, I think, a clear distinction between this and denying citizenship to the children of legal immigrants. A lot of the media reporting on this issue seems to be completely ignoring this distinction.
I think this 'loophole' is BS. It's Dred Scott all over again. The language is plain. Everyone born on US soil is an American. Having more Americans is great. Don't get why you'd try so hard to deny them. Is illegal immigration really killing you so bad?
The good news is that I don't think there's any way Trump gets away with it. The current SCOTUS might lean "right" but this would be an assault on the constitution that they wouldn't let him get away with.
The language is flawed, and I think it should be fixed by amendment (not executive order). Is there any historical evidence that this was ever intended to apply to people who are illegally entering the country? Please don’t compare that to slaves or their descendants who had a legal right to be here. “Having more Americans is great.” As long as everyone is following the same rules, I agree. I am opposed to any system that encourages lawlessness, because it puts people who respect our laws at a disadvantage. It has nothing to do with how I personally benefit or don’t benefit from it (it has no negative effect on me, personally, that I can tell).
Why aren't Republicans praising the caravan? They are seeking refugee status and aren't trying to sneak inside the U.S. They are going to a point of entry to handle the whole thing in a legal way. Isn't that what folks on the right have advocated or at least said they have nothing against those that do things the legal way? They should celebrate the caravan as a triumph. It is literally thousands attempting to do things the right and legal way.
Probably because they aren't real refugees, they are economic migrants looking to exploit a loophole in order for a handful of the caravan to get to skip the line that those who did it the right way are in while the rest get to stay in the country for a few months before deportation. If they were real refugees, they wouldn't have turned down Mexico's offer of asylum and jobs.
I have a hard time believing you have any knowledge of the situation of the thousands of individuals in that caravan. Until you can show that knowledge of the thousands of individuals in the caravan you aren't really talking about anything credible.
Are you suggesting that the people in the caravan didn't refuse Mexico's offer of asylum and jobs? Is this mainstream enough for you? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migrant-caravan-members-reject-offer-stay-mexico-n925171
I'm not suggesting that at all. I am suggesting that doesn't mean they aren't refugees. As we know, asylum seekers have the choice to seek asylum where they wish. It doesn't have to be closest in geographical location. That is only a condition that you are placing on the asylum seekers. Nothing in that article proves they aren't asylum seekers.
Fair enough, I'm suggesting that it does. Real refugees don't turn down that kind of an offer in order to push 1000 miles further north only to be deported back to their original country.
Trump is just trolling for votes. A week out from the elections and he goes HARD trying to rally the conservative base...... shocking. My views on immigration line up with Bill Clinton's views in his state of the union speech or Barack Obama when he was a senator. If republicans laid out a plan that was verbatim to what Clinton proposed would Democrats vote for it? Yea... I didn't think so.... democrats moved big time on the issue....
While I still very much disagree with the interpretation he's talking about, I read up on it and it has had a decent level of support for decades now. The suggestion is that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means that the parents don't have loyalty to any other foreign country. Now I don't buy that, but I just thought I'd try to explain where they are coming from.
I agree, if we want to change the 14th amendment it should be done Constitutionally, not by legislation and certainly not by executive order. If we want to have a national conversation about changing the Constitution, I'm game. I mean, I'd oppose the change, but not the dialogue. As for the executive order, even if there was some sound legal argument that it shouldn't apply to the children of illegal immigrants, to change the interpretation of the Amendment now after over a century of different usage on the whim of a president would be capricious and unjust. As for historical intent, there wasn't such a thing as illegal aliens at the time. We were already getting waves of immigrants then, including what some thought were undesirable sorts -- Chinese in the west and Romanians in the east -- but there was no strong effort at the federal level to exclude them. The debate was what to do about "Indians not taxed" whom they wanted to exclude because they were autonomous nations with treaty relationships with the federal government (they were all naturalized in 1924), and about diplomats of foreign countries (their children do not become US citizens even today). Looking at this history, I'd say the absence of any conditions around your immigration was a meaningful omission -- they knew immigrants were coming, including ones people had a problem with, and they still said everyone has access to citizenship by the place of their birth. Maybe (probably) it was a lack of forethought on their part. The US was so hungry for population growth that they did not envision creating a system to keep people out. If we're considering what their intentions were when they wrote the Amendment, I'd say they intended that all immigrants be legal. That approach isn't very appropriate to our current circumstance, which to my mind undermines the whole approach of looking at intentions when examining the Constitution.
What is happening today with regards to immigration/birth right citizenship was in no way contemplated by those who drafted or voted on the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment. It was intended to safe guard the citizenship of the then newly freed slaves. That's the historical context.
