The Myth of Birthright Citizenship
Anna Leutheuser /
Last month, Arizona lawmakers introduced legislation intended to invite legal review of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Other states are quickly following suit. Why, after one hundred and fifty years of implementation, is this amendment so controversial? Amendment XIV, Section 1 clearly states that “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.” So doesn’t that mean that all children born in the United States (even to parents who are in the country illegally) are automatically citizens? Where is the controversy?
This, Edward Erler argues in the latest Constitutional Guidance for Lawmakers essay, is a fundamentally incorrect interpretation of the Citizenship Clause. He draws attention to the often overlooked second part of the phrase, and explains that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” does not equal ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’. As John Eastman has stated, “it is a well-established doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts, including the Constitution, are not to be interpreted to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to absurd results.” The second half of the phrase therefore is not simply repetition, but introduces a key distinction. (more…)