The Fourteenth Amendment declares that ALL persons born in the United States are citizens. People can be here illegally, but if their children are born in this country, these offspring are not illegal aliens, they are legitimate citizens.

radjah shelduck on August 15, 2007 at 12:47 PM

You are incorrect. While judges have allowed an eggregious misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to suggest that it means such, that is NOT what it says.

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.

The fact is that the clause in bold above had a very clear purpose when written; to limit the granting of automatic citizenship to only those persons born while subject to the jurisdiction of the United States of America. This specific clause was carried over from similar British and Continental European laws going back several centuries, and it was universally accepted that a child born to parents present within a nation unlawfully, are NOT conferred citizenship of that nation. That interpretation stands to this day throughout Europe. It is only the unfortunate and improperly rendered 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision that strikes out the intent of this key clause.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Plyler v. Doe[3] stated that illegal immigrants are “within the jurisdiction” of the states in which they reside, and added in a footnote that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”

The justices clearly failed an English test in being able to read the words, yet still pretend they aren’t there. Did they really believe that the legislature included that phrase for the sole purpose of clarifying the status of children born to foreign diplomats while on U.S. soil? Because that’s the only condition left to which it now applies, and thus the “anchor baby” is born.

Plyler v. Doe must be reversed, and the Amendment must return to being understood as written, and we can move forward from there with one less immigration problem to solve.

I love the righteous indignation from Laura, and while Sager is clearly a fairly decent and moderately sharp guy, he really had to work hard at playing dumb in order to “miss the point”, that crimes committed by illegals wouldn’t happen here if they weren’t here. To compare it with crimes committed by citizens is irrelevant within the context of the discussion, and he knows better. But like the MSM, once he took his stand he wasn’t going to give ground in the face of a solid argument against him, so instead he just sounded foolish, and opened himself up to a whoopin’, and Laura eagerly obliged.

Freelancer on August 16, 2007 at 2:41 AM