Entirely correct.
Modification requires either a law passed by Congress, subject to the interpretation by the Court on its Constitutional validity/legality, or an actual change in adding a new Amendment (e.g. Prohibition).
Trump plans to end birthright citizenship with an Executive Order
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Entirely correct.
Modification requires either a law passed by Congress, subject to the interpretation by the Court on its Constitutional validity/legality, or an actual change in adding a new Amendment (e.g. Prohibition).
Diplomats have immunity, support staff do not. If a lower level staff member of a foreign consulate commits a crime on US soil, he/she most definitely can be prosecuted for it. They might also be deported, depending on the nature and severity of the crime, but they most definitely are subject to US jurisdiction.
Which was exactly the point of my "John McCain" comment. I think that flew 80,000 ft over most people's heads here....you nailed it.
Actually, that's not true. The law in force at the time didn't allow for that. As Representative John Sparkman explained it in 1937: “the Canal Zone is not such foreign territory as to come under the law of 1855 [Revised Statutes section 1993] and, on the other hand, it is not part of the United States which would bring it within the Fourteenth Amendment.” Sparkman went on to call the Canal Zone a "no-man's land".
Richard W. Flournoy had written an article in the 1934 American Bar Association Journal that stated: “we have no statutory provisions defining the nationality status of persons born in the Canal Zone . . . .”
As a result of this, in 1937 Congress passed a statute, the Act of Aug. 4, 1937
(now codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1403(a)) granting citizenship to “[a]ny person
born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904” who had at least one
U.S. citizen parent.
McCain became a citizen by law before his first birthday. Had he actually been born in Panama proper, he would have been a citizen at birth under jus sanguinis. It's weird but it was the law as it existed at the time.
This is what a trump nominee thinks
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203731004576045380685742092
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203731004576045380685742092
She's from Germany....I was in the Air Force and spent most of career there then retired and worked civil service on one of the bases there for 6 years. Anyway, never needed a green card for the wife cuz we lived in Germany. Can't apply for one unless you can show residency and income in the states.
Got an assignment here in Florida so we applied for a green card....didn't anticipate it taking 6 months minimum because the active duty folks applications are expedited and I assumed mine would be...
I applied in August and we weren't able to complete the last portion (interview) till May. Could have done it sooner but I wanted to be with her so flew back to Germany for the interview.
Basically a 3 step process....you do the initial application which goes through DHS.....then you fill out more forms (can't remember the form numbers) to go through the USCIS/State Department. Once all that was done we had an interview at the consulate in Frankfurt....very quick because we'd been married 26 years and had the 2 American citizen kids. Interview is basically to determine if you're legit....
Each step costs $$$ and I was surprised by the cost to be honest. Around $1200 to include a medical examination.
It's all so obvious. There are only two ways to change birthright citizenship - a law passed by Congress working in the fringes that then would get challenged and go to SCOTUS for interpretation or attempt to pass a new amendment to supersede the 14th. Either of those paths are entirely legitimate.
I don’t know that I agree with the executive order, but I agree 100% that just being born in the US should not make you a citizen.
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Countries that offer birthright citizenship. Other than Canada and the US, all are in Latin America. Not one in Europe, Asia, Australia or Africa.
1 Antigua and Barbuda
2 Argentina
3 Barbados
4 Belize
5 Bolivia
6 Brazil
7 Canada
8 Chile
9 Cuba
10 Dominica
11 Ecuador
12 El Salvador
13 Fiji
14 Grenada
15 Guatemala
16 Guyana
17 Honduras
18 Jamaica
19 Mexico
20 Nicaragua
21 Panama
22 Paraguay
23 Peru
24 Saint Kitts and Nevis
25 Saint Lucia
26 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
27 Trinidad and Tobago
28 United States
29 Uruguay
30 Venezuela
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-who-offer-birthright-citizenship.html
1 Antigua and Barbuda
2 Argentina
3 Barbados
4 Belize
5 Bolivia
6 Brazil
7 Canada
8 Chile
9 Cuba
10 Dominica
11 Ecuador
12 El Salvador
13 Fiji
14 Grenada
15 Guatemala
16 Guyana
17 Honduras
18 Jamaica
19 Mexico
20 Nicaragua
21 Panama
22 Paraguay
23 Peru
24 Saint Kitts and Nevis
25 Saint Lucia
26 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
27 Trinidad and Tobago
28 United States
29 Uruguay
30 Venezuela
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-who-offer-birthright-citizenship.html
Never funI'll bet doing your family taxes for the past couple decades has been fun...
Trump supporters who support this Trump EO can no longer call themselves constitutionalists.
And in an interesting twist of lime in this story, if you believe Trump can do this by EO, you also must accept that the next President can reverse it with a subsequent EO. So you would have citizenship depending upon who is in the WH, which is OIT level batisht crazy.
And in an interesting twist of lime in this story, if you believe Trump can do this by EO, you also must accept that the next President can reverse it with a subsequent EO. So you would have citizenship depending upon who is in the WH, which is OIT level batisht crazy.
We need liebensraum.
33 nations out of 206, or about 15%. Got it. Time we join the other 85% of the world....
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If a POTUS needs to fill in the gap where Congress has passed a law having gaps, or if Congress directs the executive branch to write regulations based on a concept, that's fine.
Obama, and now Trump, aren't filling in gaps, they were / are trying to legislate. The notion of the POTUS making an executive order because Congress is unwilling to change existing law is wrong. That's not the function of the POTUS. Writing an EO that contradicts the Constitution, or specific statutes is wrong, no matter what "the will of the people" is. The will of the people is based on who they elect to Congress and President. POTUS can only veto new laws, and is supposed to faithfully execute existing laws. That's it.
I'll bet doing your family taxes for the past couple decades has been fun...
I actually had "Man, how was his SF-86 process?" go through my head first. I have a couple of friends and a BiL that married foreign nationals, their clearance process was...umm...complicated. Especially the one that needed the TS.
Agreed. It was a major problem I had with Obama. Now, I don't put it entirely on him (maybe 90-95% of it was) as having a GOP majority that was against most of his policies made it difficult to get things through, but, that doesn't necessitate bypassing proper procedures.
That was an unintended clerical anomaly that was corrected retroactively. The point is that any child born anywhere in the world to American parents is an American by virtue of birthright citizenship.
The fact that the 1937 law applies only to children who had at least one US citizen parent (eg, John McCain) differentiates it from a situation where a pregnant Mexican woman sneaks into Texas to give birth.
Because it removed diplomats from the law...even then they weren't subject to the laws of the countries in which they served.
The obvious conclusion is that birthright citizenship is not commonplace in developed countries. It is commonplace in banana republics.
Immaterial. This has nothing to do with immigrants. By law, McCain was not a US citizen at birth. There was no statute or Constitutional provision in force at his birth that granted citizenship to those born in a US territory regardless of their parentage. It's just a weird anomaly but Congress thought it was important enough that they addressed it with the 1937 law.
Agreed. The authors were not simply repeating themselves...it has a different meaning from simply being here.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203731004576045380685742092
In the aftermath of the Civil War, members of the 39th Congress proposed amending the Constitution to reverse the Supreme Court's notorious 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling denying citizenship to slaves. The result is the first sentence of the 14th Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The plain meaning of this language is clear. A foreign national living in the United States is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" because he is legally required to obey U.S. law. (By contrast, a foreign diplomat who travels here on behalf of a foreign sovereign enjoys diplomatic immunity from—and thus is not subject to the jurisdiction of—U.S. law.)
During congressional debates, both proponents and opponents of the citizenship clause agreed with this interpretation of the 14th Amendment. For example, Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan opposed the clause precisely because it would extend birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of Chinese laborers and other noncitizens who "owe [the U.S.] no allegiance [and] who pretend to owe none."
Weren't you complaining about Blue Bunny switching away from gallons to the Euro/commie measurement system?!
It already happened with an Obama-Orwellian Amendment aka Executive Order.
Wait I thought it didn’t matter what the rest of the world thought? Should we outlaw the death penalty?
My Mom went through this process when I was young and I remember going to the court and having a party afterwards on her becoming a US citizen. She was even in the small town paper!!
All I know is that I was around 7 when it happened and she came to the states around 1984 and it took her until 1995 to become a US citizen.
It's only unconstitutional if the SC says it is. A few years ago I wouldn't have worried about that.
Actually it is material. JP tried to make the point that the language of the jurisdiction clause of the 14th Amendment is there to help people like John McCain. But as you pointed out, it did not help McCain due to an anomaly in the legal status of the Canal Zone.
My point is that the Naturalization Act of 1790, nearly a century before the 14th Amendment, granted automatic citizenship to children born abroad to citizen parents. McCain would have been granted citizenship whether or not the 14th Amendment had ever existed.
Congrats on her residency. My wife was granted resident status in 1974 and became a citizen in 1980. It was not easy then, but I don't think it cost very much (however, residency was granted from abroad via application at the US embassy, and we had spent months putting documentation in place). Permanent resident status was and is hard to achieve.
However, other forms of being here legally are much easier to achieve and can lead to permanent residency. I don't think we need to water down our immigration laws, although I think this issue should be handled by Congress, not via Executive Order.
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