President Trump plan for birthright citizenship executive order will force courts to act. That’s good

The language of the Constitution is less clear than Trump’s opponents would have you believe.

President Donald Trump’s announced intention to end “birthright citizenship” by executive order has pushed an already heated debate over immigration into a virtual inferno of election year politicking. At base, however, it is one of the longest standing debates in our Constitution: whether the 14th Amendment affords citizenship to anyone born on our soil regardless of their status. While neither side seems willing to admit it, there are good-faith arguments on both sides of the debate and frankly this order could force the federal court to come to a final and clear resolution of the question.

The debate comes down to six poorly chosen words: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Those words come in the middle of an otherwise clear statement that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States.” The words have long been argued by some to mean that the amendment applies only to citizens and legal residents who are subject fully to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Three ways to interpret those six words

The primary purpose of the amendment was to ensure that freed slaves after the Civil War would have full rights of citizenship in every state. When the amendment was drafted, various senators indicated that they intended the amendment to have the more narrow meaning. One of the key drafters, Sen. Lyman Trumbull stated during the debates that the language confined citizenship to those “born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States,” and excluded foreign citizens. Later, in a federal statute, one of the drafters Sen. John Bingham, said that the law embodied “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.”

Others have argued that the clause refers to people simply being subject to federal laws, not a matter of allegiance to that authority. “Jurisdiction” refers to falling under the authority of a legal system.

There is a middle position that is also possible: that the reference to “jurisdiction” left the decision of the meaning of citizenship up to Congress to decide as a policy question.

Read the rest from Jonathan Turley HERE and follow links below to related stories:

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