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Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

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Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#161

Post by cogman10 »

rayiner wrote: post #153
cogman10 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That exception comes from the fact that, I'm guessing, no diplomat or their children have sued over it. If they have, I'd love to see exactly where a prior SC decided that it's constitutional. If you are an originalist, textualist, or even just standard jurisprudence believer then it's crystal clear what the 14th meant. The only reason for any question about it is because a large portion of people hate the fact that…

So what does “subject to the jurisdiction” mean, from a textualist standpoint? The word “jurisdiction” in the law can have different meanings in different contexts. What does it mean here?

> 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.

Notice the "and" clause before the "subject to the jurisdiction". It means "everyone who is born in the united states and additionally everyone who is subject to a US jurisdiction". It's the clause which allows people born on US military bases to also be citizens of the US because that's a jurisdiction of the US. For example, Ted Cruz. It does not mean "Who are also"

And since this is a clause which additionally adds on people it's talking about, you could exclude it all together. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States".

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#162

Post by SauciestGNU »

ventana wrote: post #150
HDThoreaun wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it really isn’t. Immigrants are clearly subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. As Wong Kim stated the only way not to be is if the government has given you permission to be here without being under jurisdiction like a diplomat or if you’re part of an invading force. Every other person in the us is expected to follow us laws. Just because they don’t doesn’t mean the us doesn’t have jurisdiction.

Were you so sure yesterday that the Court would decide the way it did? I'm sure that with a different set of justices, the result could've been different. A "clear" law would likely not result in a 6:3 vote. There are enough cases in the Supreme Court that get 9:0, those can probably be called "clear".

[flagged]

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#163

Post by pixel_popping »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #101
greggoB wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define successful? (You'll probably want to avoid metrics like happiness indices and life expectancy though)

At a minimum, it's been a place that people wanted to come to, more than they wanted to come to anywhere else in the world. That's successful as measured by people. (Or at least, people wanted to come until the last couple of years...)

I'm not sure it's true, that seems to be mostly for economic reasons (which might define success, arguably), but I bet a lot more people would dream about living let say in Thailand than in the US, they just can't because they don't have the means.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#164

Post by fmobus »

rayiner wrote: post #133
fmobus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jurisdiction clause is there because of diplomats. It's a common thing in other Jus Solis countries, for good reason.

[flagged]

We know that because jurisdiction is such a fundamental concept that it needs no further specification. It's fundamental to any system of laws, if a jurisdiction is not defined, the system of laws is useless. Running a legal system without a jurisdiction is like running computer code without memory space.

The US legal system defined everyone in its soil to be under its jurisdiction, _except diplomats_, because of diplomatoc norms.

If an illegal immigrant kills a person while in the US, they get tried according to US law. If a diplomat kills a person in the US, they do not get tried because the US has no jurisdiction over that diplomat.

> You’re saying we need to look to the international meaning of some Latin phrase (“jus soli”).

Discussion of law discussion that uses comparison with international standards is quite common in every legal system. The sentence regarding the murder of a relative of mine had citations of Italian law, German law, some Spanish doctrine. It was also peppered with Latin terms and expressions, because Roman law had quite an influence in all Western legal systems.

So yeah, sometimes discussions of law can be complicated. This one... Ain't.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#165

Post by arpinum »

cogman10 wrote: post #158
arpinum wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The debate is whether the USA is a Jus Soli (no s) country. Roberts claims Jus Soli applies to the USA by looking at historical concept of the words in the constitution and the king's obligations to those on his soil. He cites historical statements by founders. Thomas and Gorsuch rejects Jus Soli applies since it is a concept from feudal lords and serfdom which the USA did not inherit. The cite historical statements…

I'm sorry, but it's simply insane to appeal to the founders over Jus Soli. The founders did not write the 14th amendment. Their opinions on the matter are irrelevant. The 14th amendment grants Jus Soli. End of story. It doesn't matter if every single founder and their forefathers were opposed to that notion. The people who drafted the 14th and ratified it were in favor of Jus Soli. They were VERY explicit about that…

> The 14th amendment grants Jus Soli. End of story.

But it isn't the end, it then qualifies who gets Jus Soli. And that is the debate.

> The people who drafted the 14th and ratified it were in favor of Jus Soli

Thomas cites Sen. Howard and Sen. Trumbull statements in support of the claim that the 14th amendment ratifiers did not intend to grant universal Jus Solis. Is he a liar?

> ... and Kavanaugh are all hacks for going further back into history than the drafting of the 14th

Kavanaugh doesn't go back further into history, it seems like you didn't read the opinion. He spends very little time on the constitutional question.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#166

Post by TimorousBestie »

rayiner wrote: post #90

[flagged]

> Meanwhile, English common law points one way, while some legislative history, the 1866 civil rights act, and the 1924 indian citizenship act point the other way.

This is a summary of Thomas’ dissent; the majority opinion is based on more than just “English common law.” Even Thomas acknowledged this.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#167

Post by fmobus »

thehoff wrote: post #151
fmobus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, when I enter as a tourist, I'm not in jurisdiction? Sweet! Crime time!

Genuine question. Isn't this statement aimed at citizenship tourism or whatever its called? I used to live in a state where some new friends had told us about places that facilitated pregnant women's trips to the US solely for the purpose of staying and giving birth in the US so the child could become citizens. They then head home. I have no idea how prevalent this is.

Well, it doesn't matter. If the SCOTUS decides that some people, in certain circumstances, are not in jurisdiction of US law, then they have to apply that notion everywhere.

They can't pick and choose "oh no they are in jurisdiction of law A but not in law B". Jurisdiction is a fundamental concept, there's no middle ground.

As for whether people are really doing birth tourism: sure, there might be some cases, but well, they are using something that the legal system allows. If the country feels like it doesn't want that happening, it needs to amend the Constitution.

(Also, let's not kid ourselves that the birth tourism thing is what conservatives care about... People doing that kind of thing are usually rich. The real target are poor illegal immigrants giving birth in the country.)

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#168

Post by Tadpole9181 »

rayiner wrote: post #126
Windchaser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no, but almost everyone inside US borders is subject to US laws. The exceptions are rare: people in foreign embassies (which is "foreign soil"), invading armies, and indigenous tribes on tribal land.

[flagged]

Oh, please, this is just blatant sanewashing.

Anyone who does not have an explicit exclusion is under the jurisdiction of US laws while on US soil. There's zero room for ambiguity unless you're coming in bad faith with politically motivated intent. Or are you seriously arguing there's an interpretation where illegal immigrants can commit any crime they want and can't be deported?

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#169

Post by fmobus »

arpinum wrote: post #132
fmobus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jurisdiction clause is there because of diplomats. It's a common thing in other Jus Solis countries, for good reason.

The debate is whether the USA is a Jus Soli (no s) country. Roberts claims Jus Soli applies to the USA by looking at historical concept of the words in the constitution and the king's obligations to those on his soil. He cites historical statements by founders. Thomas and Gorsuch rejects Jus Soli applies since it is a concept from feudal lords and serfdom which the USA did not inherit. The cite historical statements…

So what's Thomas's point then? Do they mean to say that jurisdiction attached to soil is a feudal concept? Wtf? What IS the US jurisdiction then? Is no one under jurisdiction because there are no feudal lords obliged to serfs? What a load of nonsense.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#170

Post by Tadpole9181 »

Windchaser wrote: post #49
swrobel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6-3 with Thomas, Alito & Gorsuch dissenting

Kavanaugh ruled that Trump's EO wasn't unconstitutional, just contrary to federal law, and Congress could change the law there if they wanted. So, this makes it only 5-4 upholding the 14th amendment. Which is gods-damned crazy. We are that close to overturning major civil rights.

This would also overturn our ability to arrest or deport non-citizen, no? If the argument is that they are not under the jurisdiction of the US government, we cannot legally arrest or prosecute them?

This would create chaos. Not to mention the tens of millions of citizens retroactively turned into stateless people!

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