Experts: GOP Plan To Change Citizenship Rights Is 'Clearly Unconstitutional'

I wrote both links in my comment, and the first quotes the Senator who authored that clause of the 14th. So, yes, based on what the author of that clause wrote at the time, I do believe that I know what he meant. And, that's because: he said at the time what he meant

Sigh. Gosh. OMG!

So children of foreign diplomats don't become US citizenms by virtue of being born here? Makes sense.

Maybe the GOP could just make them 3/5 of a person? There'sconstitutional authority for that, and it was the original intent of the Framers to boot!

The "Authority" being appealed to here happens to be the "Author" of the part of the amendment under discussion.
FYI, all of the amendments were added _after_ the Constitution was written, the 14th having been proposed in 1866 and ratified a couple of years later.

Elk v Wilkins does not support the proposition for which you cite it.

The case turned on the fact one born in America to Indian parents at that time was not completely subject to the jurisdiction of the United States being instead governed, in part, by the legal arrangements of the tribe to which he belonged with which the United States declined to interfere. No such abstention exists in American law with respect to the children of illegal aliens. Instead America exerts full jurisdiction over all children born in this country unless they are the children of diplomats. Indeed the language in the following passage from Elk which recites that citizenship is not acquired by "the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations" would have been illogical since the words 'within the domain of that government' would have been unnecessary and the specific exclusion of the children of diplomats would have been unnecessary since they would have been excluded already if the intent had been to exclude "the children of subjects of any foreign government" even if they were born in the domain of the United States.

Elk:

"The persons declared

Page 112 U. S. 102

to be citizens are "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts, or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.

Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of and owing immediate allegiance to one of the Indiana tribes (an alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more "born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations."

I agree with you on both points. Ladyfractal's reasoned response was a pleasant read and the rights willingness insistence on following this path of denying civil liberties to the less powerful will expose them as racist and cowards.

You do realize that Puerto Ricans are US Citizens, don't you?

Also, there are Mexicans who have families from when California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico were all Mexico. Now because territory lines have changed, they should suddenly be kicked off of their own land?

Hawaiians are American Citizens too. Oh and gosh darn so are:

Black people
Jews
Mormons
Catholics
Gay people
People from Guam
Lesbians
Bisexual people
Women who work
Feminists
Asian Americans
Native Americans
President Obama

I figure that's the start of people you want gone. Did I leave anyone out, darling?