Tuesday 30 October 2018

Trump'ing the Fourteenth Amendment

Contrary to media and activist rhetoric, the 14th Amendment does not grant Citizenship rights to anyone who just happens to be "born" in the United States;
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.
Citizenship is bestowed by virtue of residency, a child born on US soil is subject to United States law only when their parent are similarly subject (this was to include and grant citizenship rights to recently freed slaves, and indigenous Indians, neither of whom were considered citizens of the United States at the time). The author of the 'citizenship clause', Sen. J.M. Howard, remarked on this context that;
The first amendment is to section one (cf. above), declaring that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." I do not propose to say anything on that subject except that the question of citizenship has been so fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.
Further to this context conferred rights to citizenship may be granted where the parents of a child are considered to be permanent residents, but not (yet) naturalised citizens, of the United States (cf. United States v. Wong Kim Ark);
A child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, in this context Trump's action could be considered a strict interpretation of the Executive Office's obligations to its role and the Constitution, making the following intentionally misleading; Trump is not claiming to "unilaterally end" anything rather to enforce the law as it currently stands;

Besides, since when do those opposing the move care about the Constitution so eager are they to find reason to infringe the individuals exercise of their 1st through deplatforming, social media account blocking, bans etc., and 2nd using every 'mass-casualty event' as reason for "common sense gun control".