Trump's birthright citizenship stance may have unexpected consequences

[jmowreader]

Mr. America First is trying to get the Supreme Court to repeal birthright citizenship - the concept that anyone born on the shores of a nation is automatically a citizen of that nation. You must hold your mouth just right to get this to work because it would require repealing the Constitution, which the Supremes don't have the authority to do.

Trump's effort revolves around the interpretation of a phrase in the Fourteenth Amendment: "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."

The "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" thing is to take care of diplomats. Let's say that phrase didn't exist, and the Irish Ambassador's wife got pregnant. If the passage said "all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States" then the Irish Ambassador's kid would be an American citizen. In addition to totally trashing the concept of diplomatic immunity, this would leave the ambassador on the horns of a dilemma: do I have my wife give birth in the United States and go through a massive amount of work to renounce my baby's US citizenship and have her naturalized as an Irish citizen, or do I buy my wife a plane ticket and send her back to Dublin until she gives birth? By stating that persons not under the jurisdiction of the US are not citizens of the US, that problem goes away. But it is pretty damned limited; everyone else - whether he or she was born here, emigrated to here, overstayed a visa or crawled over the waist-high fence on the Canadian border - is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Here's the thing: if someone is not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in this one issue, what says they're "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in anything? Could an undocumented immigrant commit a felony and tell the cops "you can't arrest me, I'm not subject to your jurisdiction?" Could one tell the ICE agent who just kicked in her door to capture her for deportation, "sorry guys, you've got no power over me"? Or put a sovereign citizen-style "not required to obey traffic laws" license plate on his car and drive without a license or registration without fear of being dragged through his broken window? No one's in a status where they can ignore the laws they don't like, but that's the direction Trump seems to be heading.

Your thoughts are welcome.

[Norrrm]

1. Dual citizenship Melania Barron Oz

Dr Oz is a dual citizen.
Oz served in the Turkish Army and refused to serve in America's military service.
.

[mopinko]

2. the ambassador's baby wd b an irish citizen born abroad.

that’s y dual irish citizenship passes to grandchildren of irish born immigrants. the parents r automatically citizens. they can apply for a passport, or b enrolled in the registry of citizens born abroad. but not required to do either.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Essentially what I've said (repeatedly) about why their argument is ludicrous.

If they aren't subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, we can't arrest them and charge them with crimes. All we can do is expel them. It's not a minor problem with people here with diplomatic immunity - it would be exponentially worse if we did not have the jurisdiction over undocumented immigrants.