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For more than a century, the United States has applied the principle of citizenship by birth, granting U.S. citizenship to anyone born in a U.S. territory, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. However, over the past several decades, anti-immigrant politicians have advocated restricting citizenship based on place of birth, primarily to deny birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants.
In 2018, former President Donald Trump called birthright citizenship a “crazy policy,” and in late 2019 said he was considering birthright citizenship “very seriously.” These statements lacked detail and were never realized. Research has demonstrated that abolishing citizenship based on birthplace would have dire consequences given that it would create a subclass of individuals within the United States. But the debate over birthright citizenship remains at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election.
A new fact sheet from the American Immigration Council explains the origins of birthright citizenship and the laws that currently govern birthright citizenship in the United States. The study found that the only way for the United States to strip birthright citizenship based on place of birth is to ratify the U.S. Constitution’s amendment or follow centuries of legal precedent that interprets the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as follows: It concludes that through a fundamental departure by the U.S. Supreme Court from the United States Supreme Court. Constitution. Interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
14th Amendment to the Constitution
The adoption of birthright citizenship in the United States can be traced to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment, enacted after the end of the Civil War, guaranteed certain rights to African Americans in all states (among other things). Importantly, it amended the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which held that the U.S. Constitution did not extend citizenship to people of African descent. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as the Citizenship Clause, guarantees birthright citizenship to all persons born in U.S. territories, regardless of race, with some limited exceptions. It was the purpose.
This article states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are nationals of the United States and the state in which they reside.”
While the fight for equal rights continues long after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Citizenship Clause’s access to birthright citizenship extends to all people born in the United States, regardless of race, at birth. It was to guarantee equality.
Supreme Court Interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment served as the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions on birthright citizenship over the years. The citizenship clause’s “subject to” U.S. jurisdiction created uncertainty as to who was subject to U.S. jurisdiction. However, the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision established a clear precedent that anyone born in the United States is a citizen at birth, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to Chinese parents. In 1890, when he attempted to return to the United States from a brief visit to China, the U.S. government banned Wong Kim Ark from entering the country under the Chinese Exclusion Act. This law declared some racial groups permanently ineligible for citizenship. However, in a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that because Mr. Ark was born in the United States, he was indeed a U.S. citizen, and that the Chinese Exclusion Act could not supersede his Fourteenth Amendment obligations. I put it down.
In the years since then, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that illegal immigrants and their children are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. In the 1982 case Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court stated that there was “no plausible distinction” between documented and undocumented immigrants with respect to jurisdiction, and that both “are subject to the full range of immigration charges imposed upon them.” I will comply with my obligations.” [the location’s] civil law and criminal law. ” The case ruled that undocumented children have a constitutional right to an education.
Could the United States strip people of their birthright citizenship?
Stripping children born on U.S. soil of their birthright citizenship is not easy. Doing so will only be possible through the passage of new constitutional amendments. It would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate and ratification by three-quarters of the states.
Alternatively, the U.S. Supreme Court could adopt a more restrictive interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to limit birthright citizenship. However, this path would require courts to radically depart from established precedent that cements the fact that domestically born children are legal U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. It will be done. Congress and the president could seek to limit birthright citizenship through legislation or executive order, but such actions would violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Filed under: Citizenship
