Talk:Birthright citizenship in the United States

message: It is historically incorrect, and possibly editorializing to claim that:
"Since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on July 9, 1868, the citizenship of persons born in the United States has been controlled by its Citizenship Clause, which states..."
The question of how babies obtain citizenship was not first settled by the 14th Amendment.  The current language suggests that automatic newborn citizenship wasn't conferred by law prior to 1868...it was.
It is inconsistent with the "non-editorializing" policy to present the language of the Citizenship Clause as having uncontestable interpretation, at a time when the official interpretation is highly controversial and public opinion disfavors that interpretation.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbierre (talk • contribs) 14:36, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: "Current U.S. Law" section needs rework

message: I propose that Citizenship Clause be merged into Birthright citizenship in the United States. Because the Citizenship Clause is so important to birthright citizenship, it is important to carefully cover that clause in this article. Having a separate article about it is redundant, inconvenient to readers, and it is likely that editors who are only aware of one of the two articles will create contradictions between the two articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:06, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: * It seems to me the article about how the exact circumstances of a US citizen's birth would affect the citizen's eligibility for the presidency is "Natural-born-citizen clause". I think these two articles should be confined to how US citizens can be citizens from birth, and leave any distinctions among various methods with respect to presidential eligibility be confined to the "Natural-born-citizen clause", except for a one-sentence referral to that article. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You got me there, Rich. It wasn't lack of understanding, but it was self-garble in composing my comment. I was thinking NBC clause but I didn't type that and didn't catch the error before saving my comment. Sometimes I do rush out a WP-talk comment under pressure to get on to other things, and the rush does sometimes result in self-garble—besides which I have always been hopeless at proofreading my own stuff. I'm a repeat offender in both of those areas. My bad. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:02, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger proposal

message: Does the concept of birthright citizenship, as practiced in the North American British Colonies, then the United States of America, extend backwards beyond the British Common Law? Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 02:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical background? 

message: In this recent edit, User:Dsalge972 corrected an incorrect figure of $24B to the $2.4B figure present in sources cited in support of the earlier erroneous figure. The erronious figure seems to have originally come into the article as "2 4 billion" in March 2012 here, to have been changed to "24 billion"  in June 2012 here, and to have persisted in the article throughout the years since then.
Good catch!. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  $2.4B vs. $24B 

message: Your article is incorrect. Jus sanguinis is not a method of birthright in the U.S. The Constitution provides birthright citizenship only under jus soli since its mandate that one be born under the jurisdiction of the United States. While jus sanguinis was available in England it has never been available in this country. Check William Blackstone's article in 1765 which indicates that one can only have one allegiance. check Elk v Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884), checkThe Civil Rights Act of 1866; the discussion of Congress on its intent and application of the meaning "complete jurisdiction thereof" is "not owing allegiance to anybody else"; Osborn v. Bank; United States v Perkins 17 F.S. 177  (D.D.C. 1936)where a federal court denied a plaintiff who was seeking citizenship through jus sanguinis; Attorney general's decision in 1873 that 
jurisdiction" means absolute and complete jurisdiction"; papers of James Madison, 22 May 1789 179-82; Congressional record 6-14-1967 by Pinckney G McElwee on ineligibility of George Romney because he was born abroad in Mexico and most importantly the decision in City of Boerne v. Flores 501 U.S.507 (1997) that makes sections of 8 U.S. Code 1401, paragraphs c,d,e,g and h as well as the Immigration Act of 1940, paragraphs c, d, e, g, h; Sec 203.b; Sec. 204 a, b, c where the Court admonished Congress with the holding; "It holds the sole power to define the substantive rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment - a definition to which Congress may not add and from which it may not subtract.
Lastly, no child born abroad at any facility including U.S. military installations, embassies or consulates are "citizens by birth" most with two American parents which also eliminated jus sanguinis. Reference: U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7 - Consular  Affairs, 7 FAM 1113 Not included in the meaning of "in the United States" @C. "Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities abroad are not part of the United states within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not born in the Unites states and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth".
There is some confusion about the Naturalization Act of 1790 which appears to employ jus sanguinis; however, the act is solely for naturalized individuals and their children. In Osborn, Chief Justice Marshall said "The simple power of the national legislature is to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization AND THE EXERCISE OF THIS POWER EXHAUSTS IT, SO FAR AS REGARDS THE INDIVIDUAL. Thus the Act of March 26, 1790 would be unconstitutional if it attempted to enlarge the rights of a naturalized citizen to be equal of those of natural-born citizens under the constitution.
Clarence Hall, Jr.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Challjr (talk • contribs) 15:34, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You are certainly entitled to add material to this article if it is supported by reliable sources, is free of original research, and reflects a neutral point of view giving appropriate coverage to all mainstream views on the subject.  The material you cited above appears to be a mish-mash of commentaries and court rulings from all over the map, many taken out of context or without regard to their real significance.  For example, United States v. Perkins, 177 F.Supp. 177 (D.D.C. 1936) was a federal district court ruling with no precedential value whatsoever; and City of Boerne v. Flores, 501 U.S. 507 (1997), dealt with the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act and had nothing at all to do with citizenship law.  This sort of grab-bag of proof-texting snippets might possibly be of use for a legal brief, but it is definitely not usable as a reliable source of knowledge or interpretation of the law.  Further, even if you do find well-formed, high-quality material questioning the accepted mainstream interpretation of jus sanguinis in US citizenship law, you would still need to incorporate this material into the article in such a way as to let the reader know that there is a genuine difference of opinion between various experts, and without causing the article to declare authoritatively that one side or the other is "the correct" view.  Even if you are personally convinced that the accepted interpretation of this issue is completely wrong, you need to respect the sources and acknowledge that there are in fact solidly reliable sources which say that jus sanguinis is in fact part of the law of the land.  — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

text: Addition of this original research will not stand. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:03, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  correct birthright citizenship in America 

message: To head off an ongoing edit war, I'm starting a talk discussion.
When I read the article, my impression was that the dimension of public opinion opposing the current policy
was not adequately covered.
  
The challenge is to take a highly polemic issue (whether to keep or change the current policy?), one on which
the partisans hold many divergent assumptions, and try to apply the Wikipedia Policy for authoring on
controversial topics.
Here are the questions we need to solve:
1. Should the Summary indicate that the voter majority is opposed to the current Birthplace Citizenship policy?
(And, is the 2011 Rasmussen poll a credible source to document public opinion?)
FOR: in the detail sections, the lack of consensus over the meaning of the Citizen Clause's full reach
is a recurring theme. The current policy splits a visiting family into divergent immigration statuses with the birth of a baby, complicating administration of deportation rules. The public, by a 2:1 majority seeks to fix this broken aspect of the current system.
AGAINST: 
2. Should the verbatim language lifted from the Citizenship Clause appear with competing interpretive contexts?
FOR: If the interpretive alternatives are cited, readers will be able, while reading the text of the Citizenship Clause, to straddle the ambiguity that has developed with 150 years:
The context of the 1868 ratifiers:
 - The purpose of the Amendment was to confer full citizenship and eaqual legal rights on the recently emancipated slaves 
The context of the modern immigration rights movement:
 - The purpose at the time doesn't matter; only the language, and its modern official interpretation
AGAINST:
Pbierre (talk) 17:21, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an article about a legal matter deriving from the US Constitution, something that is not up for a vote or popularity contest. Citing polls in articles is iffy to begin with and has to be done with great care to make sure the results are representative, relevant to the article, and not outliers or ephemeral things. This particular poll seems to have used biased wording, and is not fairly represented by the proposed text. However, polls just aren't germane to most subjects under the sun. If we added a poll in the lede to every legal institution and principle, we would be poll-o-pedia, it simply doesn't serve a purpose to educate readers about the subject. Newspapers and polling organizations love to run these and other unencyclopedic material, like man-in-the-street interviews, quips by celebrities, trivia, and so on, but we're not a newspaper. The popularity and any debate or challenge over birthright citizenship over time (not just at present), and possibly some other stuff from the lede, belongs in a carefully structured section in the body, not the lede, and at most the lede would contain, if warranted, a statement that the issue has drawn political opposition in connection with US immigration policy, or something like that. If there is a movement to change the Constitution, that would belong in a separate article. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:12, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

text: , please keep in mind that "consensus" does not mean other editors need to convince you that their suggestions are "acceptable".  Nor does it mean that if others are unable to sway you, then you may conclude that your position has won support by consensus.  Indeed, given the way this dispute has gone up till now, your best approach is probably to wait for as many other editors as possible to involve themselves in this discussion and see where it leads.  And if a true consensus does emerge — whether it agrees with your position or not — you should probably let someone else make the appropriate changes to the article to reflect that consensus, in order to avoid any possibility that people may think you are simply continuing the edit-warring activity that has landed you in trouble up till now.  — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:22, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public Opinion running 2:1 Against Current U.S. Birthplace Citizenship Policy is Relevant to Topic 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In this series of edits User:Aguyintobooks added a  template with the edit summary "Can somebody please include the information from 'Natural-born American' prior to it being blanked and made a redirect." 'Natural-born American' is now a redirect to this page.
Since 'Natural-born American' was unsourced and appeared to be based on one editor's personal opinions, it was appropriate that User:WereSpielChequers speedily turned the article into a redirect. Since there was nothing of value to bring in to this article, I consider Aguyintobooks' edit summary unfounded and thus have undone the associated series of edits.
If there is an actual need to broaden this article, please describe in what direction it should be broadened. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:23, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks . I did the redirect here because the two appear to me to be different names for the same thing. The edit history of the redirect is available, but there was no sourced information there, literally nothing to merge in. ϢereSpielChequers 23:39, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The article Natural-born-citizen clause discusses the fact that "The U.S. Constitution uses but does not define the phrase 'natural born Citizen'", and since no one alive now was a resident of the U.S. at the time the Constitution was adopted, one must be a "natural-born-citizen" to become president of the U.S. Whether the phrase "natural-born citizen" in that context as having a birthright to citizenship is a topic of ongoing debate (not just in Wikipedia, but in the country). Jc3s5h (talk) 23:47, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing series of edits

message: It strikes me that the article should be checked for NPOV, and also updated as the issue is back in the headlines of late.
In particular, the intro states that: "The application of birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants remains controversial among right-wing politicians."
The wording there is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1. It's not just politicians that it's controversial among, but a significant percentage of the American people, so suggesting that it's just an issue for politicians is misleading.
2. The use of the label "right-wing" is somewhat POV.  Most who are critical of birthright citizenship for the children illegal migrants and tourists would probably describe themselves as "conservative," but certainly others would describe themselves as "moderate," "independent," or even "liberal" or "progressive."
Labeling criticism of universal jus soli citizenship as "right wing" seems to suggest that it's somehow a far-right position, but actually countries like New Zealand and Sweden (hardly right-wing bastions!) don't grant it either.
I would suggest a more direct and neutral wording - perhaps something along the lines of "among those wanting more restrictive immigration policies."
Beyond that, I think the article needs to have a bit more nuance with regards to what it asserts regarding the 14th Amendment and universal jus soli...
I think it would be reasonable for the article to assert that the widely accepted view is that the 14th Amendment provides for universal jus soli citizenship, and that this has been official US government policy for many decades now.  But I think Wikipedia should stop short of officially asserting as fact that the 14th Amendment does in fact do that, since this would go against NPOV, and there's an ongoing dispute as to how exactly the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment should be interpreted.
The Supreme Court has actually not yet directly ruled on whether the 14th Amendment grants automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants or of those visiting the United States with tourist visas.  And of the Supreme Court cases discussed in this very article, some of the rulings actually suggest a more restrictive interpretation of "under the jurisdiction of."  -2003:CA:83D0:7F00:8D9C:3331:761F:6CF7 (talk) 15:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The reality is that the campaign to end birthright citizenship for undocumented works comes from the U.S. Right and has no support among mainstream legal experts. What positions are left or right or reasonable or otherwise differs among countries and time periods. TFD (talk) 18:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There really is not any ambiguity as far as what the 14th Amendment meant. It simply placed into the constitution, and generalized to all people, what had been previous British law and hence U.S. post-colonial law: that white people born on U.S. soil were automatically U.S. citizens.All of the legal books that say this are now public domain, anyone can go read them.  Also, in this article itself are quotes from the Congressional Globe of the discussions over the 14th Amendment, and you can see them making objections like “But what about Chinamen!” and “But what about gypsies, they infest society!” and clearly deciding that the 14th amendment would apply to all people. See also the passage in the current version of the article,And note that, for example, for purposes of treason, even someone simply visiting the U.S. is construed to hold temporary allegiance to the U.S., beyond simply being under the jurisdiction of U.S. law, and consequently can be legally regarded as having betrayed the United States if their entire connection to the country is that they arrived at JFK airport a few hours ago and ate a giant cinnamon bun before committing treason. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:20, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The wording the original poster was describing as POV has since been changed, and the intro seems more neutral now. The 14th Amendment doesn't apply to all people born in the U.S.; it excludes Native American tribes and diplomats. I clarified that in the intro. I also clarified the distinction requested above while avoiding giving an opinion in Wikipedia's voice - while some people claim the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to illegal immigrants, this has never been endorsed by the courts. -- Beland (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV, update.... 

message: I’m doing a little cleanup here and noticed the proliferation of the term “illegal aliens.” Since this is a highly politicized term (sure all immigration-related terms can have some political valence, but “illegal aliens” is as far on that specific side of the political discourse as one can reasonably go), I’m just checking the appended cites for each usage and modifying as needed. 
This is an NPOV-related issue, although I’m not sure that use of “illegal aliens” is actually a strict NPOV violation, so I’m not claiming that. Since almost none of our cites actually use the term “illegal alien” in their own voice, I’m modifying most of the usages in our article. I expect this to be uncontentious with regular editors, but if I modify a usage incorrectly or miss a modification, feel free to change it appropriately or to holler at me to discuss further. ThanksForHelping (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: See #Undocumented vs. Unauthorized vs. Illegal as a descriptor of some immigrants. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:46, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, damn; thank you! I searched Talk and got all turned around because of the “anchor baby” brouhaha. Appreciate it. ThanksForHelping (talk) 03:28, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

text: In addition, the terminology in this article should not usually change from one sentence to another just because a citation associated with that sentence used certain terminology. The exception would be if the sentence was about what terminology a certain source uses.
I went through and removed uses of "illegal alien" that were not direct quotations.  It is inappropriate language to use in 2024.  I did use different terminology to fit some material that was cited, in part because there is nuance to different terms and context can matter, particularly in the law. If someone has an issue with this, ping me at my talk. Montanabw(talk) 23:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  “Illegal Aliens” 

message: — Assignment last updated by PurdueGrad29 (talk) 14:51, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Race, Law, and Politics