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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

#221

Post by shimman »

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.

Citizen tourism is not a real concern; good grief why do people care about fringe issues that impacts no one instead of concentration of corporate power, consolidation of wealth, and decreasing rights for citizens?

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#223

Post by shimman »

padjo wrote: post #114

The crazy thing here is that 4 supposedly conservative Supreme Court justices wanted to overturn over a century of precedent on how the constitution was interpreted.

Our entire history of a nation is the people fighting against the ruling minority of tyrants. Look at how fast SCOTUS struck down the civil rights act of 1875 (only 8 years).

Look at how quickly slavers used the federal government to uphold slavery, the fugitive slave act was one of the first things Congress signed and took zero time enforcing against the will of the people.

Look at how quickly business leaders fought against Americans trying to better their working conditions.

The US constitution was designed to impede societal progress by stripping power from the people. The "reverance" people have for the "founders" doesn't help either, acting like a document written to embolden slavers as sacrosanct is beyond pathetic.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#224

Post by toast0 »

rayiner wrote: post #218
toast0 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Members of tribes on tribal land have been subject to federal law since 1817, though crimes committed by tribe members against other tribe members on tribal land were within the jurisdiction of the tribes. So you had and have a system of concurrent federal and tribal jurisdiction. From today's decision: > 2) In Wong Kim Ark, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment was “declaratory” of the “fundamental rule of…

Yes, but my point is that Wong Kim Ark is internally inconsistent. It doesn’t explain how the exclusion of Indians follows from its idea of what “subject to the jurisdiction” means. Let me put it this way. What is a definition of “subject to the jurisdiction” that excludes Indians, other than saying “well, Indians aren’t included?” It can’t be “people who aren’t subject to US laws,” because Indians have been subject…

I added it late, but the real case to look at for Indians is Elk v Willkins...

The opinion in that case seems to be that Indian nations are sovereign and so an Indian born within an Indian nation is a citizen of that nation and not the US. This doesn't seem to be incompatible with the 14th Ammendment which mentions representation apportioned by whole persons, excluding Indians not taxed. US Citizenship of tribal members was also part of treaties between the US and the tribes.

That situation doesn't arise other than with Indians, because the US does not enter into treaties with any other groups formed within the boundaries of the US. Although the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act prohibited new treaties with Indian nations.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#225

Post by Telemakhos »

fmobus wrote: post #167
thehoff wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wel…

The fourteenth amendment doesn't say "within the jurisdiction" but "subject to the jurisdiction": if you break a window as a tourist, you expect to be prosecuted because you committed a crime within that jurisdiction, but you do not expect to be conscripted into military service or to pay income tax, because you are not subject to the jurisdiction.

Birth tourism is definitely an issue for conservatives worried about China. Here's a 2019 ICE press release on prosecuting someone who was running a birth tourism ring to benefit Chinese government officials: https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/chinese-national-pleads-gu... The right is concerned that Chinese-American dual citizens born in the US but raised in China might, upon reaching adulthood, act with impunity as US-citizen agents of the Chinese Communist Party.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#226

Post by atonse »

paxys wrote: post #24

The most obvious read of the constitution in the world still being a 6-3 verdict shows the state of the Supreme Court today.

Don't agree that any of these cases are "most obvious" given that it's gone all the way through various appeals courts to the supreme court - and that's the mission of the Supreme Court, to interpret all the various situations for these cases and how they apply constitutionally.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#228

Post by wat10000 »

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.

The question of whether babies born to foreign tourists are automatically citizens is separate from the question of whether this is desirable.

On the desirability side of things, it's been this way for the entire history of this country (the amendment just codified how things were already done) and it seems to have worked OK. But even if we were to decide that this is bad, it would need to be fixed with an amendment.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#229

Post by zamadatix »

rootusrootus wrote: post #204
rayiner wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jurisdiction is not some singular concept that means the same thing in every context. You can have jurisdiction over some things in some contexts and not have jurisdiction over other things in other contexts.

In that case, the use of the word jurisdiction in the 14th Amendment is meaningless, too ambiguous to rely on. Unless we think the Constitution should be living, breathing, and adapt to the current political environment. Is that the current conservative viewpoint?

Not all originalists will hold the same views on how to deal with ambiguity in the same way not all on the living constitution side agree how ambiguity should be resolved. The takes are usually more on the "how to think about resolving the meaning" side than a "is there any meaning to resolve" side.

That said, the originalist viewpoint is usually more along the lines of "we should seek to resolve that ambiguity in context of when, why, and with which references the framers who wrote it had in mind". Most originalists are unlikely to care what an argument about the current political environment implies.

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