Thread by @usacsmret

14th Amendment

Not a single Democrat in the House or in the Senate voted for the 14th Amendment which ensured citizenship for freed slaves, or for the 15th which enshrined in the Constitution their right to vote.

The Wong Kim Ark case that expanded the constitutional mandate at the end of the 19th century to confer citizenship unto the children of legal, permanent residents did NOT confer that right unto the children of people who here illegally.

In the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873, the Supreme Court said, “The phrase in the 14th Amendment, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”

In 2004 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case, SCOTUS never referred to Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Taliban fighter born in the US, as a citizen, nor did they declare in that case that anyone born on American soil was automatically a citizen. Hamdi was born on American soil to Saudi Arabian parents.

Sen. Lyman Trumbull, R-Ill., a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” meant not owing allegiance to any other country.

The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) of 1952 also establishes in U.S. Code what “jurisdiction” means, and, arguably, that includes children born to illegals, at least by the interpretation of the State Department. But that is simply a law that can be changed by Congress