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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

#301

Post by crote »

sheept wrote: post #100
crote wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it leads to allowing for the possibility of interpreting "..the right to bear arms.." as "you are allowed to own the limbs of an Ursus arctos ". There's plenty in the US constitution which is vaguely worded, but you have to twist its words an awful lot to deny birthright citizenship.

Yes, and they can do that if they wanted to. The Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution.

If we live in a world where words have no meaning and the definition of the Constitution can be interpreted to be literally anything depending on today's mood of the Supreme Court, why even bother writing a Constitution at all?

Why not get rid of the whole charade and just replace it with "whoever is appointed to the Supreme Court can make up any law as they feel like it"? It has the same meaning, but it's an awful lot clearer!

In fact, I think there's a term for a ruler with complete power who's there for life, something like an "absolute monarchy"?

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#302

Post by throw0101d »

rayiner wrote: post #199
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.

What does "subject to the jurisdiction" "obviously" mean, keeping in mind that everyone agrees children of diplomats aren't citizens at birth, but U.S. courts have jurisdiction over diplomats for some activities?

> […] children of diplomats aren't citizens at birth, but U.S. courts have jurisdiction over diplomats for some activities?

AIUI, IANAL, US courts and law do not have jurisdiction over diplomats. When a diplomat the 'hosting' government agrees to immunity, so cannot be prosecuted. E.g.:

> The collision caused diplomatic tension between British and US officials. [Anne] Sacoolas fled Britain soon after the incident, and claimed diplomatic immunity with US support.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn

The 'source' country has to agree to remove the diplomatic coverage.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#303

Post by ronsor »

nozzlegear wrote: post #140
999900000999 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats! But statistically America lags behind most other nations of similar development levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_maternal_... Not to mention the lack of maternity leave or real worker protections. A family member was fired for taking off time during a pregnancy. Everyone's fine now, but she definitely had a rough patch. A big part of this comes down to the lack of any real safety n…

Wow, looking at the data on that page, it seems that people should go to Belarus if they want to have a baby.

Lukashenko did a good job apparently.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#304

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

rayiner wrote: post #199
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.

What does "subject to the jurisdiction" "obviously" mean, keeping in mind that everyone agrees children of diplomats aren't citizens at birth, but U.S. courts have jurisdiction over diplomats for some activities?

Well we know “subject to the jurisdiction” is not equivalent to “is a citizen”, otherwise they would’ve used that term instead of being cute with it and leaving excess room for interpretation. If congress wants to define what “subject to jurisdiction” means, then they have every opportunity to.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#305

Post by solid_fuel »

rayiner wrote: post #90

[flagged]

Here's the full text of the relevant section:

> 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The dissents are worthless, like most of the opinions from Thomas and the other conservative "justices". None of this wording is tricky unless you are specifically trying to find ways to deny rights to american citizens based on their ethnic origin.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#306

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #197
fmobus wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#307

Post by JeremyNT »

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…

> 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.

I mean, they shouldn't do this but clearly they can rule however they want with any pretext they want, because they answer to nobody but themselves. Who's going to tell them they can't do something? Who is left to appeal to?

It's a deeply corrupt and undemocratic institution, with virtually unchecked power to rewrite legislation and even the Constitution at a whim.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#308

Post by ceejayoz »

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…

> What is a definition of “subject to the jurisdiction” that excludes Indians, other than saying “well, Indians aren’t included?”

This seems fairly simple; we made treaties with Native American tribes, up until 1871, and Article I says things like "excluding Indians" and "regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes".

They clearly enjoy special (so to speak) status from day one.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#309

Post by thrance »

gred wrote: post #251
bediger4000 wrote: post #138

This "broad conception" is pretty well documented as what Congress wanted at the time of passage of 14th Amendment. It's been considered "settled law" for ages. The only real reason it's come to SCOTUS is that a particular political faction wants it to, and the media gives that particular faction more credence, and more coverage. So there's two things here: 1. An artificially whipped-up "question". 2. Conservative bi…

> Conservative bias in the media. Depending on how you count, something like 96%, 94%, 65% or 87% of mainstream media employees lean left. Of course this matters less and less as customers tune out and their influence wanes. https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Do_97_percent_of_journali...

Yes, educated people tend to lean left, since the right is so anti-intellectual. But virtually all media in this country (both social and legacy) belongs to the far right pedophile oligarchs currently running this country to the ground to fatten their pockets.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#310

Post by solid_fuel »

rayiner wrote: post #139
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…

This is a great summary! This is a case where all the opinions are quite good. I quite like Jackson’s opinion here. The framers of the 14th amendment were radical egalitarians and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

Nah, the conservative opinions in this case aren't even worth the paper they are printed on. Every single court that saw this case decided the same way: birthright citizenship was intended to work exactly as it has been applied since its inception.
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