July 2, 2025 The Sun Bay Paper Page 14 Did Congress intend to invent “anchor babies”? “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…...” – from Amendment 14, Section 1 to the U.S. Constitution. During his first day as our 47th President, Donald Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. but without either parent being a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Very soon, numerous state AGs brought suit and many district court judges across the U.S. ruled to block Trump’s EO. The Supreme Court agreed to hear this issue on an emergency basis on May 15th. Trump’s administration claims district courts don’t have country wide jurisdiction and that the EO should survive at least in the states that have not brought suit. The administration did not ask for a ruling on the E.O.’s constitutionality, just the nationwide injunctions, preferring to have constitutionality dealt with later. What was the intention of Congress when creating the Amendment’s Citizenship Clause? What would have motivated them to assure citizenship to anyone, without exception, born within our borders? Did they intend to create benefits for those violating our laws by being in the U.S.? America’s original Constitution provided little direction regarding citizenship. Following the Civil War, the Citizenship Clause reversed the 1857 “Dred Scott decision” which had denied citizenship to people of African descent, even freed slaves. That was clearly the immigration issue they were addressing at the time. Nevertheless, that clause has become the basis for “Birthright Citizenship,” which includes what has become known as “anchor babies.” This means any child born within the U.S. border is automatically a citizen, even if born to undocumented immigrants. How did the original intent make such a leap? Inconsistencies and invalid assumptions are to blame. In 1982, Supreme Court Justice Brennan created confusion. In a footnote to his Plyler v. Doe opinion, he wrote that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” That’s untrue. It’s clear that solving this puzzle requires understanding what was meant by the qualifying statement “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” In 1866, Michigan Senator Jacob Howard, a 14th Amendment author, stated: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” These words indicate the intention to exclude families of legal inhabitants temporarily in America. Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, another Amendment author, commented on the jurisdiction phrase: That means “subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof,” or “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” Most illegal immigrants probably still owe allegiance to another country. In other words, “jurisdiction” refers to complete political jurisdiction. “Complete” refers to the fact that citizens have responsibilities such as jury duty or military service. If examined closely, Supreme Court and other rulings related to the Amendment shed light on how this clause should be interpreted. I found my examples from multiple sources including publications of The Heritage Foundation. In 1885, the State Department decided that a man born in the U.S. was not a U.S. citizen because his parents were temporarily in the U.S. and returned to their homeland. In 1890 the Justice Department denied citizenship to an American-born daughter of a woman, who didn’t qualify for lawful admission to the U.S. Those and other cases have been ignored, along with statements by the Amendment’s authors, quoted earlier. They point to the 1898 decision U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark as evidence for their interpretation. However, Ark was properly granted citizenship, but this reversed the 1882 Exclusion Act whereby Chinese couldn’t be citizens. Wong’s parents were here permanently and simply had been prevented from becoming citizens, much like the slaves had been. It’s a shame that decisions about granting Birthright Citizenship are being made largely because of selectively ignoring decisions, and based on a Judge’s poorly researched, obscure footnote, the basis for which appears to be nothing much more than word-of-mouth and hearsay. The current interpretation of the Citizenship Clause seems to make a mockery of, or at least cheapens, the concept of citizenship. That must change. Steve Bakke Visit my website at myslantonthings.com Last issue’s puzzle solution to ‘ALL ABOARD’
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