The radical Left’s resort to ad hominem attacks and allegations of “racism” against their political opponents has become so commonplace that the charges have become virtually meaningless. Apparently, the open-borders Right now thinks that by joining the catcalls, they can resurrect some of the old sting.
How else to explain the recent spate of scurrilous charges leveled against Michael Anton for daring to state that the 14th Amendment—as the Supreme Court itself has recognized—does not mandate automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who owe their allegiance to a foreign sovereign. Anton is anti-Black, anti-Asian, and anti-Hispanic—indeed, anti all non-white people—and even wants to restore the infamous holding in Dred Scott, claims The Federalist’s Robert Tracinski. He wraps himself in the flag “while loathing the republic for which it stands,” asserts Bill Kristol. His argument “is an offensive dumpster fire,” adds David Marcus, also at The Federalist. ...
The argument they seek to avoid is pretty straightforward, and compelling. The language of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause contains two components. First, “all persons born . . . in the United States”); “and” second, “subject to its jurisdiction,” are to be automatically citizens. The phrase, “subject to the jurisdiction,” standing alone, can have two meanings: A full, allegiance-owing jurisdiction, and a partial, territorial jurisdiction. Anyone present in the United States (save for diplomats) is subject to her partial, territorial jurisdiction....
Responding to the question whether the clause would mandate citizenship for “Indians” because they were “most clearly subject to our jurisdiction, both civil and military,” Senator Lyman Trumbull (R-Ill.), a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the 14th Amendment, responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” jurisdiction, “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.”
Similarly, Senator Jacob Howard (R-Mich.), who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
And what was the “same jurisdiction” that applied at the time? It was set out in the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which the
14th Amendment was intended to constitutionalize: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” ...
Misreading the 14th Amendment to confer automatic citizenship on the children of temporary visitors and, even more troubling, on the children of those who have entered this country illegally, destroys the notion of consent, usurps Congress’s plenary power to set naturalization policy, and undermines the rule of law. Worse, it is a throwback to the old feudal notion that anyone born in the King’s realm is forever the King’s subject. Our Declaration of Independence renounced that archaic claim. We should be appalled that self-proclaimed intellectuals on both the Right and the Left want to resurrect it.
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