A new high: 41% think children born to illegals on U.S. soil should be citizens

The very author of the citizenship clause expressly said:

“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.”

- Senator Jacob Howard, (R-MI), The Congressional Record published as The Congressional Globe, 30 May 1866

His colleague from Pennsylvania confirmed the understanding that merely being born on American soil did NOT make one an American citizen when he stated on the floor of the United States Senate:

“The honourable Senator from Michigan has given this subject, I have no doubt, a good deal of his attention, and I am really desirous to have a legal definition of “citizenship of the United States.” What does it mean? What is its length and breadth? I would be glad if the honourable Senator in good earnest would favour us with some such definition. Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen? If so, what rights have they? Have they any more rights than a sojourner in the United States? If a traveler comes here from Ethiopia, from Australia, or from Great Britain, he is entitled, to a certain extent, to the protection of the laws. You cannot murder him with impunity. It is murder to kill him, the same as it is to kill another man. You cannot commit an assault and battery on him, I apprehend. He has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptation of the word. It is perfectly clear that the mere fact that a man is born in the country has not heretofore entitled him to the right to exercise political power.”

- Senator Edward Cowan, (R-PA), The Congressional Record published as The Congressional Globe, 30 May 1866

It wasn’t until 1982, that children of illegals or legal immigrants were subject to the jurisdiction of another country even began to be considered Americans by birth. In Phyler v Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), a case where the Court held that there is no right to public education, but if a state offers it, it must be made available to all children whether citizen or alien, legal or illegal. In a footnote to his 5-4 opinion, Justice Brennan asserted 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.” (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)

It was a FOOTNOTE in a Supreme Court decision in 1982 that established the so-called “anchor baby rule.”

Resist We Much on December 19, 2012 at 4:42 PM