Demonstrating that birtherism rots minds, Trump platform:
End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
Trump is clearly no legal scholar or even historically knowledgeable. He also appears to suck at sociology. Oppositional responses to his “proposal” are all over the map. Failing to KISS is a good way to lose to an ignorant demagogue. There is the downright silly stuff about people considered valuable US citizens based on jus soli that would become aliens under the Trump proposal.* Silly because ex post facto laws are unconstitutional. Thus, those that enjoy US birthright citizenship cannot have that taken away from them by any state or the USG even if the 14th Amendment were to be repealed.
It’s important to note the Section I of the 14th Amendment was necessitated to overturn the horrendous Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Specifically:
The Court held that neither Scott nor any other person of African descent–whether or not emancipated from slavery–could be “citizen of a state”, and therefore was unable to bring suit in federal court on the ground of diversity.
As blind to existing conditions of free African Americans that owned property and legally voted as Citizens United that sees no problem with the super wealthy buying US elections.
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This merely codified pre-existing common law and naturalization federal legislation before the Dred Scott decision. Among other duties assinged to Congress in Article 1. Section 8 is:
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
Why was “naturalization” specifically included in the original US Constitution while citizenship is unmentioned (except the requirement that the President must be a “natural born citizen)? For an exhaustive review of this, see, Bernard Lynch v. John Clarke and Julia Lynch. Opinion of the Hon Lewis H. Sandford. (It’s a long opinion and well worth the time to read. And no, Julia Lynch wasn’t an “anchor baby.”) The simple answer to that question is that under common law, birthright citizenship (jus soli) was so completely accepted in the colonies that there were no legal arguments against it. It was imported from Great Britain where it had been established law before 1482. It was only the requirements for naturalization that varied among the colonies, and uniformity under the new United States for naturalized citizens was deemed necessary since all would also be US citizens.
As to the question of whether or not slaves born in the US were citizens of the new nation, the framers of the Constitution simply didn’t address it. Common law, regardless of the status of parents, conferred citizenship on all “native born” persons. However, many states passed laws denying citizenship to slaves. If not for the Dred Scott decision and with the 13th Amendment, all former slaves should have enjoyed the same rights to citizenship as the people did at the inception of the country when they automatically transferred from British subjects to US citizens.
If the 14th Amendment were repealed, where would that leave this country? That question is way beyond my pay grade, but such a repeal on its own wouldn’t automatically do what the Trumpsters think it would because the issue would default to the pre-existing common law of 1864. Thus, only an amendment to the US Constitution can change birthright citizenship.
That’s possibly a discussion that “we the people” should have, but only if it’s held dispassionately and rationally among well-informed and mature adults because it’s a complex issue. Restricted Jus Soli, Jus Sanguinis, and Lex Sanguinis create problems as well. And none address the underlying problems that are aggravating immigration in much of the world today. So, perhaps our time would be more profitably spent on dealing with those matters instead of dicking around with Jus Soli.
*This type of argument is similar to the anti-abortionists that say, “What if Einstein’s mother chose to have an abortion?” It’s cheap and sloppy.
Well, if they repealed it, it would help my case for Italian citizenship and I could move to a country with virtually no snow (none in my grandfather’s province) and while politicians are as venal and sex-mad as here, they don’t let people starve in the streets.
How did the 14th Amendment impact you? Had you been born in the US before 1864 to Italian immigrant parents, you would still have been a native born citizen of the US.
Well, if birthright citizenship were to be retroactively repraled, my father would not have been a citizen nor I since neither of us ever applied for naturalization (being born here). My grandfather (the Italian one) started the process but I can find no evidence of his completing it. OTOH, my German grandfather had his paperwork all in order and there is a complete record filed with the Cook county Circuit Court, all neat and complete including his Ellis Island records. At least back then, Germans were always neater about paperwork and records. But, in defense of the Italian grandfather he was a peasant with only the obligatory fifth grade education. I don’t know the German grandfather’s education but he was a skilled iron worker from a middle class family and probably had more. I’ll tell you something though, when it came to “street smarts”, the Italian peasant had it all over the middle class German.
First — retroactive repeals that result in harsher terms than what existed in real time are unconstitutional. Second, birthright citizenship was the law of this land before the formation of the nation and wasn’t changed with the formation.
One can also be born with dual citizenship. Depending on the laws of where the birth takes place and the laws of the country of which the parents are citizens. For example, Ted Cruz is a “natural born citizenship” of the US based on his mother’s citizenship and until he renounced it, a natural born citizen of Canada.
Yes, my daughter told me about dual citizenship. She was/is interested because the Italian laws are still rather sexist because the citizenship right passes through the male line. A woman can get citizenship if her father is a an Italian citizen, but a man can get it if his father or paternal grandfather was a citizen, provided neither renounced their citizenship as required by the US Oath. My grandfather never renounced because he didn’t complete the process. My father never renounced because he was a birthright citizen and never had to take a naturalization oath. But I claim my dual citizenship, so can she as my daughter. She was very interested in having a bolt hole from a future US fascist government.
Still, we have ventured far afield in this little exchange. My original comment was frankly facetious. I was responding to Trump’s proposal. I’m sure you are right that it was wildly against settled law and convention.
Are you going to do another Bernie diary? Looking forward to it as I respect your political acumen very much.
From what I’ve read on this and in general, grandchildren cannot opt for birthright dual citizenship if the parent (or in your case your father) didn’t exercise his/her right. Again using Ted Cruz an example, had he remained in Canada and not bothered to file the paperwork to claim his US citizen birthright and then after his death, his Canadian born children (both parents being Canadian citizens) couldn’t claim US birthright citizenship. They’d have to go the emigration and naturalization route.
wrt another review of the State of Sanders’ campaign, have to leave it until the third quarter FEC filings are in. Those filings contain hard data that illuminates what has been reported from on the ground. Expect those reports will also tell us which of the GOP candidates are likely to drop out early, which ones will go on as Zombie candidates, and which ones still have a chance.
An amusing side effect of the Trump phenomenon is that it create a more difficult fundraising climate for the GOP POTUS candidates and their “independent” SuperPACs. The latest poll continues recent strong trends from GOP primary voters, and magnifies them:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?Release
ID=2274
“Donald Trump leads the crowded Republican pack with 28 percent, up from 20 percent in a July 30 national survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. This is the highest tally and widest margin for any Republican so far in this election. Ben Carson has 12 percent, with 7 percent each for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. No other Republican tops 6 percent and 11 percent are undecided.”
Imagine how, for example, Walker’s fundraising and campaign teams must be doing/feeling right now. The goggle-eyed humunculus employed by Koch Industries has lost about half of his supporters in the early states and nationwide.
As noted from the 6/30 FEC filings, none of the GOP candidates are doing all that well in their campaign fundraising. Several of the Super Pacs are very well heeled from an extremely small donor based dumping in mega-bucks; so, they’ll have to run wholesale instead of retail campaigns. The on-the-ground teams will necessarily have to be limited.
We shall see in Trump is able to convert his better poll numbers into dollars.