# Talk:Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution


### Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
This needs to be removed as at the time slaves weren't immigrants they were considered property, making them illegal imports, not illegal immigrants.
"Furthermore, many of the freed slaves whose children were covered by the Citizenship Clause were illegal immigrants brought in violation of the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves." 2600:6C40:100:C5D:8DC8:F6D3:B57E:208C (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

The more logical argument is the 1807 slave trade act prohibited the importation of slaves. It did not abolish slavery itself within the United States, nor did it prohibit the interstate slave trade. Believing a slave in 1808 was an illegal immigrant is like believing income is not taxable by citing archaic law before the 16th Amendment. Stjoan1 (talk) 02:14, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Respectfully, this argument that the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves informs our interpretation of the Citizenship Clause is cited to a UC Davis Law Review paper from constitutional law scholars Gabriel J. Chin and Paul Finkelman and was repeated by Ilya Somin in the Volokh Conspiracy. Regardless of my personal belief that even conservative courts will decline to adopt your Dred Scott-esque framing of pre-13th Amendment slaves as property, this sentence is sourced to a reliable source. To argue for its removal or the inclusion of a counter-argument, we need a reliable source making your claim, not an original legal argument. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 17:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
@ViridianPenguin  Are you replying to me or to the person that started this section?  I'm well aware of your source cited as I originally took it out claiming citing a source within a source.  You have since corrected that oversight. Personnaly, I'm concerned that you are using the term "illegal immigrants" prior to citing your source but your source is using "unauthorized migrants".  The only mention of slaves and "illegal immigrants" are quoted from another source in relation to the 1870 census.  In all, this is too much information as the 14th Amendment is clear on birthright citizenship but whoever decided to include Trump's challenge to brighright citizenship in the Wikipedia article opened the door.  Peronally, I think we are putting the cart before the horse and it is too soon to be bring this up in the article.  At the very least it should end at "...enforcement of the Executive Order has been blocked as unconstitutional by multiple federal judges."  At least until the matter is finally put to bed by SCOTUS. Stjoan1 (talk) 04:09, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
I was replying to both of you. Yes, the Chin and Finkelman (2021) source uses "unauthorized migrants" instead of "illegal immigrants" but that seems like a distinction without a difference because both terms clearly refer to the same group in this context, so I chose "illegal immigrants" because it is more common in American political discourse. I disagree that discussion of Trump's arguments by legal academics is unnecessary. WP:CRYSTALBALL says Wikipedia should not independently speculate on the future, but if the reliable sources discuss the viability of Trump's arguments, then we need not wait until SCOTUS clarification. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 14:34, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
@ViridianPenguin  I disagree with your choice to use "illegal immigrants" rather than the term the authors of the source use for slaves after 1807. The word "illegal" carries a stronger negative connotation, implying individual criminality, whereas "unauthorized" is generally perceived as a more neutral term, simply indicating a lack of legal permission—an accurate description in the context of slavery. Therefore, the authors are correct in using "unauthorized migrants." Adjusting terminology to align with "political discourse" extends beyond a mere distinction without difference, as a reader reviewing the cited reference would recognize. Stjoan1 (talk) 16:57, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
Though I agree that "illegal" carries a negative connotation implying criminal intent, a child brought without authorization/documentation across the US-Mexico border today is also referred to as an "illegal immigrant" despite no capacity for criminal intent. Since a similar debate is occurring at Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States#Terminology: "Illegal" immigrant vs "Undocumented" immigrant in article mainspace, and the current wording exists to mirror the earlier sentence's wikilinking of "illegal" to that Illegal immigration to the United States article, I think we should leave the wording as is for now. I do not WP:OWN the content though and others are free to chime in if they disagree. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 18:46, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
@ViridianPenguin The term "illegal immigrant" is frequently misused in political discourse. Children are generally not classified as illegal immigrants or accessories to their parents' unlawful entry. Legally, an accessory is someone who knowingly assists in the commission of a crime, but children lack agency in migration decisions and are brought along without intent or awareness of legal violations, meaning they do not fit this classification. Similarly, an enslaved person in 1808 should not be equated with an illegal immigrant. This distinction likely influenced the authors of the source, who deliberately avoided labels that are often misapplied. Using such terminology could undermine the integrity of their work. Stjoan1 (talk) 00:15, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
And that exact source is a complete joke. Which is why you so boldy spew it's "reliable" nature. The silly paper is openly viewable to the public. It actually stoops to deciding that the illegally imported slaves it simply ASSUMES existed must have been granted citizenship because no illegal slaves were deported. That's just pure absurdity. It literally cites a complete absence of evidence of a thing as definitive proof of existence of that thing.  Stunning.
Get serious sources. Like papers written by historians rather than lawyers trying to erect a mythos that provides a beneficial legal position in court. I mean really.The source is plainly unacceptable as a source for historical fact or accuracy. Chin and Finkelstein. UC Davis. No historian as author. No cited historical source, just echo chamber restatement of other non-historical sources. It's like using the Econ dept as your Physics article sources. Simply not acceptable on the face of it. 162.154.248.143 (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
Whether lawyers make good historians is a subject of active debate amid the American judiciary's trend toward originalism. I am willing to agree that sources written by Reconstruction historians would be better, but having reviewed works by such historians like Eric Foner to rewrite the article earlier this year, I was unable to find such sources. In the absence of that, reference to an article in a major law review written by top law professors is surely sufficient support for the claim, preferable to making an alternative claim based on Wikipedians' original research or not making any statement despite the availability of this high-quality source. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 04:55, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

"Recession" is incorrect as the noun form of "rescind." 2600:4040:24E9:6900:D5D2:6E06:66BF:6F41 (talk) 14:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for handling this, Millipede! ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 00:48, 1 November 2025 (UTC)