http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,329728.msg1778911.html#msg1778911CAN “BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP†BE ABOLISHED BY ANY BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT?
The Post & Email by Mario Apuzzo 8/27/2018
https://www.thepostemail.com/2018/08/27/the-post-email-interviews-atty-mario-apuzzo-on-the-14th-amendment-part-1/To begin the interview, we asked Apuzzo whether or not modern-day Americans are misinterpreting the meaning of the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof†found in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment. “Does it all hinge on that?†we asked.
“It’s a complex issue,†was Apuzzo’s initial response. “Trying to understand the meaning of those words is very, very involved. There really is no ‘right’ answer, because it all depends on context. You can make those words mean anything you want. If you study the debates on the 14th Amendment, which are in the Congressional Globe, you’ll see how the senators don’t agree with each other as to what it means. Then, they talk about ‘in the sense of that particular constitution, this is what it means.’
He continued:
For example, if you look at Wong Kim Ark, the court said, “It means ‘subject to the laws.'†But then if you read the debates, it says that anybody is subject to the laws, even Indians. The debate there was American Indians and whether or not they should be excluded. Senator Doolittle put forward an amendment to the amendment saying that you have to put the language in there, ‘excluding Indians not taxed.’ The other senator, Sen. Howard, who had put forward that particular citizenship clause, was joined by others, one of whom was Sen. Trumbull, and they all said, “Oh, no, we don’t need that language. It’s clearly understood.†Well, it’s clearly not understood.
So they went on and on, and Trumbull said that it means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction.’ It still doesn’t really tell you what it means. Then there’s further discussion that in this sense of the Constitution, the Indians are not subject to the jurisdiction. So the whole thing is really up in the air; it is what you want to make it to be.
When we asked if the discussions and differing viewpoints of today are little different from the debates of 1868, Apuzzo responded:
What drives the whole thing is policy, and what drives policy? politics. And what drives politics? You can get into all kinds of things driving politics: economics, power; you want to share things with others or you don’t want to share it with others; so the whole thing comes down to politics.
I suspect there was a lot more going on in Congress than what is in the records. If you look at the Civil Rights Act of 1866, it says ‘not subject to any foreign power,’ and it also says, ‘excluding Indians not taxed.’ Later on they say that the Indians are ‘subject to a foreign power,’ so why did they have to add ‘excluding Indians not taxed’? So clearly, when they said, ‘not subject to any foreign power,’ they meant somebody else other than the Indians. They’re not telling us that, but I think there’s a clue in the debates that they really were targeting Chinese in California.
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