Birthright Citizenship

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday comes from the first sentence of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:  “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States….”  Many people believe that this clause means that anyone born on United States soil is automatically a citizen of the United States.  If the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment wrote the amendment to give citizenship to everyone born in the United States no matter what other circumstances prevailed, they were setting up our nation for destruction by foreign countries. 

                Donald Trump is not my first choice for President of the United States, but he has done our nation a great favor by bringing birthright citizenship to the forefront of the dialogue of our country.  I believe that illegal immigration with all its problems including birthright citizenship is THE topic of discussion for the 2016 election.  Many people read the Fourteenth Amendment as it is written – and quoted above – while other people conveniently forget the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

                Daniel Horowitz presents “The Originalist Case Against Birthright Citizenship.” “The American people are being told by the political class that there is nothing they can do to prevent future waves of illegal immigrants from coming here, unilaterally declaring political and legal jurisdiction, and securing citizenship for their children.  We are told that there is no recourse through our elected representatives to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining a legal foothold in this country all because of a footnote from the most radical anti-originalist justice of this century, William Brennan Jr.

                “If you are scratching your head wondering how our own Constitution can be used as a suicide pact against us by foreign countries, you are not missing anything.  This irrational sentiment expressed by a number of conservative and liberal pundits alike, in fact, undermines the very fabric of the social contract, popular sovereignty, and the republican form of government established by the preamble of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

                Horowitz proceeds to explain in detail how people are getting the Fourteenth Amendment wrong.  He then concludes his article:  “Indeed, the issue of birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants is not just a tangential topic within immigration.  It cuts to the very core of how illegal immigrants are able to coerce their will on the American citizenry and the broader issue of sovereignty.  This runs much deeper than the 14^th Amendment.  The question for policy-makers has moved beyond whether we will survive as a nation as our Founder’s envisioned.  We have already deviated so far from that vision.  It’s a question of whether we are a nation at all.”

                Illegal aliens come into our country by breaking our immigration laws. They then have the nerve to march in protest to our laws.  Why are not the protesters rounded up and deported?  Why must American citizens endure all the problems brought by people coming to America illegally?  The answer to these questions and others is simply that our elected representatives are failing to do the job they were elected to do!