There seems to be a misconception about anchor babies and automatic citizenship. The general consensus is wrong, judges that claim and/or rule that anchor babies are automatic citizens have ruled incorrectly and obviously don’t have a clue about the constitution, particularly the 14th Amendment.
What do I mean, and where do I come off telling lawyers, judges, politicians, etc… they are wrong?
You have to remember to apply the constitution as it was written. In this case, the 14th Amendment as it was ratified in 1868. Just like “the General Welfare,” that does not mean welfare benefits, there was no such thing back then, so “welfare” does not mean handouts as it wrongly does today. Same with the 14th Amendment.
The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period in which it was ratified.
Post-Civil War reforms focused on injustices to Black Americans. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves. It was written in a manner so as to prevent state governments from ever denying citizenship to blacks born in the United States. But in 1868, the United States had no formal immigration policy, and the authors therefore saw no need to address immigration explicitly in the amendment.
Senator Jacob Howard clearly stated the meaning of the 14th Amendment in 1866:
“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 ambassadors 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. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”
Does anyone know what the key words are? ANSWER: Subject to their jurisdiction.
An illegal alien is subject to the jurisdiction of his or her native country whereby nullifying automatic citizenship to the anchor baby.
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes automatic citizenship.
Pretty simple and straightforward.
The correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.
So, this immigration mess we have today is a direct result of politicians not following the constitution as it was written. In fact, all of the problems this country faces today have been caused by big government politicians not following the constitution.
If we lived within the confines of the constitution, and followed the constitution over the years, this country would not be in the mess we are in. The solution to our problems is simple. Strict adherence to the constitution. Who could be against that?