Babies Don’t Provide Anchors!

By Publius Huldah

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says, in part:

“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…”

One of the purposes of Section 1 was to extend citizenship to freed slaves.

This Section does not provide that illegals who invade our Country and drop a baby here are automatically the parents of a US citizen.

The key is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”: Consider the French ambassador and his lovely young wife stationed in Washington, DC. She gives birth to a child here. Her child was born here. But is her child “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States? No! The child is subject to the same jurisdiction as his parents: France.

Consider the American Indians: Sec.1 of the 14th Amendment did NOT confer citizenship on American Indians. They were not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” – they were subject to the jurisdiction of their tribes.

An illegal alien who invades our Country is in the same status as the French Ambassador’s wife. The baby she drops here is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the Country she left.

So the 14th Amendment does NOT confer citizenship on babies of illegals born here – just as it does not confer citizenship on the babies of foreign diplomats stationed here.

Pursuant to Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 4, US Constitution, Congress may make laws deciding how people become naturalized citizens.

But Sec. 1 of the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship status on babies born here of illegal aliens.

This is important.

For a deeper understanding of this important issue, see Professor Edward Erler’s brilliant essay,  Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship: Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny

To see the debates (on the language I quoted at the top) in the US Senate on May 30, 1866, go HERE  

and start reading in the center column, under the subheading, RECONSTRUCTION.   Fascinating.