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Interpreting the Fourteenth in the Context of Chinese Birth Tourism
Amendment XIV: Section 1. 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.
“Anchor babies” and “birth-right citizenship” have been the topic of a great many of our political discussions lately — when we’re not talking about Donald Trump. Though we tend to concentrate on illegal immigration from Latin America — and the ethics and legality of deporting entire families once some of their children have been “born American” — This completely ignores another part of the “birth-right citizenship” phenomenon.
Denver talk-radio host and freelance columnist Mike Rosen has long articulated the most convincing interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in the context of Chinese “birth tourism.” From his 2011 Denver Post column on Birth Rights and Wrongs:
Unlike illegal immigrants who cross our southern border, these pregnant Chinese women don’t enter our country illegally. They come on tourist visas, stay for a few months and then most go home to China with their newborns who have the option of returning someday as full-fledged American citizens, entitled to all the rights and benefits that includes.
Right now, today, there are “American citizens” being raised in China, by Chinese parents, speaking only Chinese, effectively as Chinese citizens, due to this senseless misinterpretation of an amendment intended to confer rights and immunities to freed slaves who, significantly, had never known any other national affiliation. More from Rosen:
The amendment was written in 1866 following the Civil War and ratified in 1868. In addition to punishing the confederate rebellion, it was intended to abolish the legacy of slavery. Section 1 effectively granted citizenship and all constitutional protections to former slaves “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That key phrase doesn’t mean subject to our laws; it refers to persons who owe no allegiance to another country [emphasis mine]. That is, who were not citizens of another country or children of citizens of another country.
Consistent with that precise intent, the same Congress that wrote the 14th Amendment passed a civil rights law, also in 1866, restricting American citizenship to those born here “and not subject to any foreign power.” Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, the author of the 14th Amendment, confirmed “that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
Citizenship isn’t a matter of the geographical location of one’s birth place. It’s a matter of allegiance. The babies of Latin American illegals have no more right to American citizenship than the babies of Chinese tourists. The current interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is inane.
Published in Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Politics
I don’t think you do. It’s tedious, and inaccurate.
“Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough“
Here’s a quote from the article you linked: “First, they trot out the Holmes quote for the proposition that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. But this is not in dispute.” I trotted it out for this exact reason and he also says it’s not in dispute. You say it is. Funny you would link an article that agrees with me rather than supports your argument in that the first amendment is absolute. Thanks for playing.
got this in my email just now
https://www.claremont.org/page/center-for-political-philosophy-and-statesmanship/the-14th-amendment-immigration-and-citizenship/
Thanks. I subscribe to the CRB and like its articles. I always refer back to the founders but this may be a case where things have changed. The new country was short of manpower and needed people while we are merely short of people willing to work. Immigrants came here on a one way trip and thus embraced the language and culture. Today, many immigrants do not come here to assimilate but rather to bring their country to ours. I wonder how our founders would have accepted boatload after boatload of Brits going to New York in hopes of claiming it once again for England. The bottom line is you are not a sovereign nation if you have no say over who can come in, what language they speak, and what laws they will follow.