[Vision2020] Sali Seeks to Delay Mexican Consulate

[Andreas Schou]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:01 PM, g. crabtree <jampot at roadrunner.com> wrote:
> What part of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" do you not
> understand?

Individuals residing within the territorial boundaries of the United
States, legally or illegally, are subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States. This is why we can, for instance, try and convict
visitors to the United States.

Foreign visitors have always been subject to US jurisdiction and thus
have birthright citizenship (though no Supreme Court case has been
decided on this issue). Foreign ambassadors are excluded on the
grounds that they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the nation in
which they reside (cf. "diplomatic immunity."). Native Americans were
excluded until 1924 on the fiction that Indian reservations were
sovereign territories not under the jurisdiction of the United States.

And though Chinese-Americans could not become US citizens until the
repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the one Supreme Court case on the
issue (US v. Wong Kim Ark) decided that even the children of
noncitizen US residents can become US citizens. The one remaining
ambiguity is the actual relationship between the immigration status of
Wong Kim Ark's parents and the status of modern illegal immigrants.
Wong Kim Ark's parents entered the United States well before the
complex system of visas and immigration statutes we have today.

As they entered through San Francisco, they likely just showed up on a
boat -- didn't have to take an immigration test; didn't have to pledge
allegiance to the United States; didn't have to sign any paperwork or
carry a green card. Rather, they were just assumed to be US citizens.
The rationale of the decision is in line with this thinking: the court
argues that because Wong Kim Ark's parents were not *agents* (such as
occupying soldiers or diplomats) of a foreign power, and were
domiciled in the United States (intending to make the United States
their place of residence), Wong Kim Ark was entitled to birthright
citizenship.

They also note that this understanding of birthright citizenship has
persisted in Anglo-American common law since at least the 1500s. Your
argument is, by contrast, an entirely novel interpretation of the law;
one that isn't in accord with anything other than right-wing
conspiracy theories about "anchor babies." This is why nothing like
your interpretation has been tried *in the past century*.

-- ACS