http://canadafreepress.com/article/74841By Tim Dunkin -- Bio and Archives August 28, 2015
Once again, Donald Trump has managed to open up a robust national discussion about an issue that up to this point had been largely ignored by the political class. This time, the discussion is about so-called “birthright citizenship,” the idea that whenever a foreign national (regardless of legal status and with a very few exceptions) has a child on American soil, this child automatically becomes an American citizen from birth. This approach to citizenship has been the de facto (though not de jure) approach to the issue of “anchor babies,” the children of illegal aliens who come to the United States so that they can have their children here, thus allowing the parents to remain as well, usually helping themselves to generous American benefit monies.
Defenders of unrestricted birthright citizenship - primarily found among liberals, establishment GOP types, and the more uninformed types of libertarians—adamantly argue from the 14th amendment’s Citizenship Clause that birthright citizenship is not only legal, but is in fact constitutionally protected, and is what the 14th amendment has meant all along. They often try to buttress their arguments by appealing to English common law with its historical provisions for birthright citizenship. However, is this sort of “swim a river, fill our quiver” approach really what the 14th amendment meant? Is it really what English common law, which forms the basis for much of our own law and constitutional interpretation, historically upheld? The answer to these questions is, “No.”
The crux about which the discussion revolves is the Citizenship Clause found in the 14th amendment, 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.”
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