re: Is it time for the US to join the rest of the world and end birthright citizenship?

If anyone is trying to ban guns, they won't be successful, so there's no sense in getting riled up. People trying to stop you from being able to have a weapon that can kill dozens of people in mere moments is another story. And the 2nd Amendment doesn't specify which arms or any of the crazy tech that we have today. So the way I see it, if we can have handguns, shotguns, and rifles, then our right to bear arms has been maintained.

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Is it time for the US to join the rest of the world and end birthright citizenship?

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And join the rest of the developed world in getting rid of the death penalty?

Funny how American Exceptionalism goes out of the window when Xenophobia is involved.

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Funny how American Exceptionalism goes out of the window when Xenophobia is involved.

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What does this have to do with ending birthright citizenship?

Ok I'm done. I just wanted to spread a little DisplacedBuckeye assholishness around the thread a bit

Yes it would require an Amendment. Anything would. The 14th is pretty clear.

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I'm commenting on the fact that the public support that the 21st Amendment likely received would pale in comparison to what you are suggesting.

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What are you basing that claim on? The Birthright Citizenship crowd may be the equivalent to the noisy temperance do-gooders. Big noise but not that many of them...or even the ones who supported the 18th saw the layers of damage with organized crime and changed their minds. Same with the "They're innocent children" bullshite.

I’ll agree but it would have had to happen after WWII. There are too many women and liberals that would never support it. Is it good for my party if good for my country. You know what they’ll choose.

Actually, the 14th Amendment doesn't grant birthrite citizenship to illegal immigrants. It grants citizenship at birth to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".

See, the bolded portion is important because the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment were explicitly trying to avoid granting blanket birthrite citizenship because that would have made Native Americans living in states and territories citizens.

The bolded portion was included to require that those persons not only be born here, but subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the United States. Native American tribes were seen as sovereign nations. Thus, their members were subjects of the jurisdiction of their tribal nation NOT the United States. Therefor, the 14th Amendment was not conferring them citizenship. In fact, it wasn't until 1927 that Congress passed a statute granting citizenship to Native Americans so that they could be required to register for selective service.

Now, what does that mean for immigrants? Well, if one is a legal immigrant with a VISA or Greencard that just so happens to have a child here, their child is a citizen. The act of applying for and attaining that legal immigrant status is considered to be subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of the United States. If one is an illegal immigrant who simply walked across the border, they did not subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the United States, and are thus still subjects of their home country's jurisdiction, much like those poor Native American tribes were between 1865 and 1927.

I know, you're about to say: "But the MEDIA!!! They keep telling me all these anchor babies are becoming citizens!!!" Well, they are, but they shouldn't be. See, the Supreme Court has surprisingly had very few cases on this subject. It did rule that the children of legal immigrants were citizens following the rational outlined above, but it has never once ruled that the children of illegal immigrants possess that same right.

Since the Supreme Court hasn't said otherwise, Congress or even the president could put a stop to the practice tomorrow. So, why don't they? It'd be a massive paperwork headache. Hospitals automatically issue valid birth certificates with social security numbers when children are born. Those birth certificates are considered proof of citizenship. The government would have to go back and retroactively invalidate millions of birth certificates and social security numbers. It would be a clusterf&%k of epic proportions trying to go back and prove whose parents were citizens and whose were legal immigrants, whose were illegal, whose came here as legal immigrants but their VISA ran out before the child was born, etc.

The best option is basically what The Boat called for: a compromise. Those who have already been granted citizenship this way get grandfathered in, but those who are born to illegal immigrants going forward are ineligible. This could maybe be passed via executive order, but would be better off passed as a Congressional Statute.

Such a law, however, would inevitably be challenged in federal court and spend years being injoined before making it to the SCOTUS. You know that Kagan, Sotomeyor, RGB, and Breyer would never uphold such an act as Constitutional and Kennedy would be a near lock as well. Gorsich, Thomas, and Alito would likely interpret it as Constitutional and Roberts would be a swing vote. That means until Kennedy and RGB retire/die and are replaced with textualists, it's a non-starter. Thankfully, that may be happening some time during Trump's first term.

So we want people who are born in America to not be citizens?

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Is it time for the US to join the rest of the world and end birthright citizenship?

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Stopped reading right there. I've known several American couples over the years whose children have dual citizenship because they happened to be born in the country where the parents were working. You don't know what you're talking about.