"We know that people come to this country just to have their children here," he continued. "So, listen, the open question of, can this be done through executive action or does a federal law need to be passed, is one that the attorneys will ultimately decide."
Alright, let’s clear this the fuck up:
Facts of the case
The Chinese Exclusion Acts denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Moreover, by treaty no Chinese subject in the United States could become a naturalized citizen. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to parents who were both Chinese citizens who resided in the United States at the time. At age 21, he returned to China to visit his parents who had previously resided in the United States for 20 years. When he returned to the United States, Wong was denied entry on the ground that he was not a citizen.
Question
Is a child who was born in the United States to Chinese-citizen parents who are lawful permanent residents of the United States a U.S. citizen under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Conclusion
Because Wong was born in the United States and his parents were not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China,” the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes him a U.S. citizen. Justice Horace Gray authored the opinion on behalf of a 6-2 majority, in which the Court established the parameters of the concept known as jus soli—the citizenship of children born in the United States to non-citizens. Justice Joseph McKenna took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Just to underline: there was a federal law passed. The Chinese Exclusion Acts. The Court swept those statutes away as easily as one would sweep away a pesky fly. And executive action doesn't have the force of law of a statute.
The Kim Wong Ark decision traces the concept of jus soli back to it's roots in English common law, and points out in a detailed accounting of the case law in America:
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) 19 How. 393, Mr. Justice Curtis said:
"The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, 'a natural-born citizen.' It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth."
19 How. 60 U. S. 576. And, to this extent, no different opinion was expressed or intimated by any of the other judges.
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said:
"All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution."
1 Abbott (U.S.) 28, 40, 41.
Yes, Dred Scott is the infamous Supreme Court case. The opinion goes on to list similar sentiments in cases from Rhode Island (cited above); Massachusetts; North Carolina; and New York:
That all children born within the dominion of the United States of foreign parents holding no diplomatic office became citizens at the time of their birth does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, when the matter was elaborately argued in the Court of Chancery of New York and decided upon full consideration by Vice Chancellor Sandford in favor of their citizenship. Lynch v. Clark, (1844) 1 Sandf.Ch. 583.
The Ark Court even cites jus soli as common to the law of Europe:
The Code Napoleon of 1807 changed the law of France and adopted, instead of the rule of country of birth, jus soli, the rule of descent or blood, jus sanguinis, as the leading principle; but an eminent commentator has observed that the framers of that code
"appear not to have wholly freed themselves from the ancient rule of France, or rather, indeed, ancient rule of Europe -- de la vielle regle francaise, ou plutot meme de la vielle regle europienne -- according to which nationality had always been, in former times, determined by the place of birth."
1 Demolombe Cours de Code Napoleon (4th ed.) no. 146.
Getting closer to the question of who is a citizen, and how:
It thus clearly appears that, during the half century intervening between 1802 and 1855, there was no legislation whatever for the citizenship of children born abroad, during that period, of American parents who had not become citizens of the United States before the act of 1802, and that the act of 1855, like every other act of Congress upon the subject, has, by express proviso, restricted the right of citizenship, thereby conferred upon foreign-born children of American citizens, to those children themselves, unless they became residents of the United States. Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty.
So far as we are informed, there is no authority, legislative, executive or judicial, in England or America, which maintains or intimates that the statutes (whether considered as declaratory or as merely prospective) conferring citizenship on foreign-born children of citizens have superseded or restricted, in any respect, the established rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion. Even those authorities in this country, which have gone the farthest towards holding such statutes to be but declaratory of the common law have distinctly recognized and emphatically asserted the citizenship of native-born children of foreign parents. 2 Kent Com. 39, 50, 53, 258 note; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf.Ch. 583, 659; Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356, 371.
Passing by questions once earnestly controverted, but finally put at rest by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond doubt that, before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, all white persons, at least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States.
If you're going to replace jus soli, or limit its application based on immigration status, you have to resort to jus sanguinus. But you can't "displace in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty."
And then, a little history lesson on the 14th Amendment:
In the forefront both of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the fundamental principle of citizenship by birth within the dominion was reaffirmed in the most explicit and comprehensive terms.
The Civil Rights Act, passed at the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, began by enacting that
"all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary notwithstanding."
Act of April 9, 1866, c. 31, § 1; 14 Stat. 27.
The same Congress, shortly afterwards, evidently thinking it unwise, and perhaps unsafe, to leave so important a declaration of rights to depend upon an ordinary act of legislation, which might be repealed by any subsequent Congress, framed the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and, on June 16, 1866, by joint resolution, proposed it to the legislatures of the several States, and on July 28, 1868, the Secretary of State issued a proclamation showing it to have been ratified by the legislatures of the requisite number of States. 14 Stat. 358; 1 Stat. 708.
The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution begins with the words,
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of he State wherein they reside."
As appears upon the face of the amendment, as well as from the history of the times, this was not intended to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship, or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens by the fact of birth within the United States who would thereby have become citizens according to the law existing before its adoption. It is declaratory in form, and enabling and extending in effect. Its main purpose doubtless was, as has been often recognized by this court, to establish the citizenship of free negroes, which had been denied in the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) 19 How. 393, and to put it beyond doubt that all blacks, as well as whites, born or naturalized within the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens of the United States. The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), 16 Wall. 36, 83 U. S. 73; Strauder v. West Virginia (1879), 100 U. S. 303, 100 U. S. 306.; Ex parte Virginia (1879). 100 U. S. 339, 100 U. S. 35; Neal v. Delaware (1880), 103 U. S. 370, 103 U. S. 386; Elk v. Wilkins (1884), 112 U. S. 94, 112 U. S. 101. But the opening words, "All persons born," are general, not to say universal, restricted only by place and jurisdiction, and not by color or race -- as was clearly recognized in all the opinions delivered in The Slaughterhouse Cases, above cited.
There's also some loose talk among Trump's advisors that "subject to the jurisdiction" doesn't include undocumented immigrants. Which, among other things, will come as a surprise to the immigrants and Border Patrol or ICE. And to the courts, for that matter:
The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States" by the addition "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 1, 18b; Cockburn on Nationality, 7; Dicey Conflict of Laws, 177; Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 28 U. S. 155; 2 Kent Com. 39, 42.
The Court considered the question of birthright citizenship settled law before the Ark case came before it:
This sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is declaratory of existing rights and affirmative of existing law as to each of the qualifications therein expressed -- "born in the United States," "naturalized in the United States," and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" -- in short, as to everything relating to the acquisition of citizenship by facts occurring within the limits of the United States. But it has not touched the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents, and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.
The effect of the enactments conferring citizenship on foreign-born children of American parents has been defined, and the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion of the United States, notwithstanding alienage of parents, has been affirmed, in well considered opinions of the executive departments of the Government since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
The 14th merely codifies into the Constitution what was already well-settled law:
Besides, it allows Trump to claim citizenship:The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 6a, "strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;" and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, "if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle." It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides -- seeing that, as said by Mr. Webster, when Secretary of State, in his Report to the President on Thrasher's Case in 1851, and since repeated by this court,
"independently of a residence with intention to continue such residence; independently of any domiciliation; independently of the taking of any oath of allegiance or of renouncing any former allegiance, it is well known that, by the public law, an alien, or a stranger born, for so long a time as he continues within the dominions of a foreign government, owes obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for treason, or other crimes, as a native-born subject might be, unless his case is varied by some treaty stipulations."
Ex.Doc. H.R. No. 10, 1st sess. 32d Congress, p. 4; 6 Webster's Works, 56; United States v. Carlisle, 16 Wall. 147, 83 U. S. 155; Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 6a; Ellesmere on Postnati 63; 1 Hale P.C. 62; 4 Bl.Com. 92.
To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.
As for that loose talk about immigrants not being subject to the "jurisdiction of the state," i.e., the federal government, I offer Plyler v Doe, which rests on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, finding that immigrants are "persons" within a state's jurisdiction who are subject to equal protection of law. Because, contrary to the preferences of Trump, "persons" does not mean only "white people" or even immigrants with the proper paperwork.
There really is a forest of laws you'd have to cut down to eliminate birthright citizenship, or even just restrict it to the "right" people. Yes, I know, the Roberts court repealed Roe and made up a whole new doctrine of immunity for Presidents. But any Court can repeal any other court's decision; stare decisis is not the absolute defense some want it to be (otherwise we'd still be stuck with Dred Scott and several other dreadful opinions); and making things up is what the critics of Roe said (with justification, in part) was wrong with Roe (it's certainly a part of most critiques of Trump v US). Cutting down a forest of laws, however? I don't think even the Roberts court wants to do that.
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