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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

#321
post #169

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…

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.

Jurisdiction has multiple concepts, you are thinking of territorial jurisdiction. There is also personal jurisdiction, feudal jurisdiction (serfdom), political jurisdiction.

Thomas is reacting to Roberts. Roberts spends time talking about the king's obligations to those born on their land. There is also each person's obligation to the king. Roberts wants to say "we inherited common law, and under common law everyone born on the king's land immediately came under his jurisdiction, the king owed things to these people immediately (and the people owed the king)". Thomas is saying "no kings".

> What a load of nonsense.

Or, this is a complicated, multi-layered concept that goes back through 500 years of common law. It will look messy.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so we have the whole bench of 9 people guessing and discussing the intention of the lawmakers. Did they indeed mean diplomats when they wrote "subject of the jurisdiction thereof"? If a Martian lands on the US soil and gives birth, will the offspring immediately be "subject of the jurisdiction thereof"? What was the common meaning of the word "jurisdiction" in 1868? This kind of stuff.

If they meant simply “diplomats”, why didn’t they just say “other than diplomats”? Maybe that’s what they meant, and maybe it’s not. One thing is sure: depending on which side you are on, it’s “obvious” that it means whatever supports your side.

There are other people who can be within the territorial boundary of the US but not subject to its jurisdiction. An invading army, for example. It leaves some interpretation of this question but it does not leave unlimited interpretation to the President, or even to Congress. That is the understanding of Wong Kim Ark, which overturned the law Congress passed 14 years after the ratification of the 14th amendment.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#323
post #7

You can be pro/fine with legal immigration (and moderate/non-partisan) and still not think birthright citizenship is a good idea (like I do). Also ~95% of countries don't have unconditional birthright citizenship. It creates perverse incentives. Reminds me of legal abortion: practically everywhere in the world has it. If you are not in that vast majority you should be taking a very close look at yourself/things. So y…

Imagine being 18 and suddenly discovering you have to prove the citizenship status of a parent you've never met or else you'll be deported to a country you've never been to and who's language you don't speak

i dont agree with the person you are responding to, but theres a difference between not being a citizen and being deported.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You are correct, but you will never sway the account you are replying to. Check their comment history. They put a ton of effort into carrying water for conservative causes, even when there is no legal or logical backing for them. Just like the conservatives on the supreme court, they arrive at their desired results first and work backward to their justification.

> You are correct, but you will never sway the account you are replying to. Check their comment history.

Me above:

> I don't have an opinion on the legally correct answer, reading the full decision and dissents I'd give a slight edge to the majority.

I'm also British, so DGAF about outcomes.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm personally happy to welcome anyone who's willing to come, work hard, pay taxes, and support democratic ideals. This is how most of our ancestors got here, and it seems fair to me that we continue to extend that offer to other would-be immigrants. Worth noting that the economic literature also shows that this is firmly in our best interests, and immigrants and their children more than pay their way in future taxes…

The system that we had up until the late 1800s had a natural rate limiter in that the technology of the time made international travel so time consuming and expensive that immigration was simply an impossible pipe dream for the vast majority. It was also limited in impact on the native population because there were no welfare programs of any kind at the time, so an immigrant was never an expense item on the budget. I…

1800s? We had actual open borders with the rest of the Americas until, like, the 1950s.

Farmers at the time were super-worried about the shift, since they already relied heavily on immigrant labor. Their concerns didn't manifest as major problems for them mostly because until very-recently enforcement was (pretty much intentionally) half-assed, such that the border remained de facto kinda open for immigrant farm labor (even, and especially, the illegal kind).

Now that situation's arguably not good for a bunch of reasons, but we've never had a strongly-enforced border, and in fact didn't regulate Western hemisphere immigration to any meaningful degree within living memory. Changing that to a highly-selective system with strong enforcement of immigration laws to keep out a large majority of prospective illegal immigrants would be a totally novel approach to US immigration. (Good or bad, either way, you can't really appeal to US history in its defense, and "without it the country will be destroyed by immigration!" demands an answer for why that didn't already happen, to remain a viable point)

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#326

If you shift from being a living constitutionalist to a strict textualist based on the case in question, then what you really are is a machiavellian.

Kavanaugh's dissent is kinda hilarious in this context. > The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers. This,…

I've laughed ever since United States v. Jones (2012), the GPS tracker-stuck-to-vehicle case.

The justices actively debated what the historical equivalent of 24/7 digital tracking would look like in 1791. This prompted the famous hypothetical of an officer secretly squeezing into the trunk of a horse-drawn carriage to track someone's movements over several days.

The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century. Bug or feature?

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, but you will never sway the account you are replying to. Check their comment history. They put a ton of effort into carrying water for conservative causes, even when there is no legal or logical backing for them. Just like the conservatives on the supreme court, they arrive at their desired results first and work backward to their justification.

> You are correct, but you will never sway the account you are replying to. Check their comment history. Me above: > I don't have an opinion on the legally correct answer, reading the full decision and dissents I'd give a slight edge to the majority. I'm also British, so DGAF about outcomes.

I was not replying to nor referring to you.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#330

If you shift from being a living constitutionalist to a strict textualist based on the case in question, then what you really are is a machiavellian.

Kavanaugh's dissent is kinda hilarious in this context. > The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers. This,…

How doesn’t include machine guns?
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