The issue is too small for the Court to screw around with the 14th. Extended families must petition to reside with a US citizen anyways, they don't have any automatic right to join so called anchor babies. That's just whipped up political fear mongering bs. Basically the whole deal is about illegal aliens and immigration rules, and there's plenty of statute to handle all of that if the will was there, without grandstanding ideas for pointlessly and needlessly fkn about with the Constitution.
It's his amazing 'thought' process that endears the Donald to us. Bless his heart, he may not realize a 2 thousand mile White House fence would be more expensive than a 400 yard White House Fence, especially after it is manned at the same density.
I'm sure that when it comes to projecting the cost to build and maintain physical structures, you would have a better idea about those things. lol
This not surprising. As I stated earlier limiting illegal immigration is going to become a huge issue in the upcoming election cycle. It has become clear to most U.S. citizens that something needs to be done while mainstream politicians have been ignoring the issue. I also expect legal challenges will roll-back the 14th amendment and put a stop to "birth-right citizenship" for babies whose parents are not legal U.S. residents.
Things are sometimes not so straight forward as they might seem. The 14th Amendment, according to the discussion in Congress of it's intent and meaning, seems, to me anyway, to leave no question with regard to 'anchor' babies born to illegal aliens, the key phrase in the amendment being "..., and under the jurisdiction thereof. They are not, under the 14th, citizens of the United states. This is made doubly clear by the language of the Civil rights Act of 1866. [see below for a recap of the discussion of the meaning of the citizenship clause of the 14th] The main issue that makes me less than 100% certain of how the Court would rule is "the long standing practice of granting automatic citizenship to u.S.-born children of illegal immigrants" (see U.S.v. Ark below). The Court could end up tailoring their decision so as to side-step the original intention of the 14th, as clearly stated by the framers, passed by Congress, and ratified by the States (even Mississippi) and go instead with stare decisis. That would be very unpopular among a certain segment of the population, and cheered by another. The Court in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark ,1898, ruled in Favor of the U.S. citizenship of a person born on U.S. soil to Chinese citizens while they were legal residents . That is quite a distinction in comparison to illegal residents! From Wiki : United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a child born in the United States of Chinese citizens, who had at the time a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and who were carrying on business there other than for the Chinese government, automatically became a U.S. citizen.[1] This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco around 1871, to Chinese parents legally domiciled and resident there at the time, had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration and prohibiting immigrants from China from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, holding that the citizenship language in the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed the specific circumstances of his birth, which included that he was the child of foreigners permanently domiciled and resident in the U.S. at the time of birth. The case highlighted disagreements over the precise meaning of one phrase in the Citizenship Clause—namely, the provision that a person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof acquires automatic citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority concluded that this phrase referred to being required to obey U.S. law; on this basis, they interpreted the language of the Fourteenth Amendment in a way that granted U.S. citizenship to at least some children born of foreigners because they were born on American soil (a concept known as jus soli). The court's dissenters argued that being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not being subject to any foreign power—that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent)—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded "the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country".[2] In the words of a 2007 legal analysis of events following the Wong Kim Ark decision, "The parameters of the jus soli principle, as stated by the court in Wong Kim Ark, have never been seriously questioned by the Supreme Court, and have been accepted as dogma by lower courts."[3] A 2010 review of the history of the Citizenship Clause notes that the Wong Kim Ark decision held that the guarantee of birthright citizenship "applies to children of foreigners present on American soil" and states that the Supreme Court "has not re-examined this issue since the concept of 'illegal alien' entered the language".[4] Since the 1990s, however, controversy has arisen over the longstanding practice of granting automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and legal scholars disagree over whether the Wong Kim Ark precedent applies when alien parents are in the country illegally.[5][6] Attempts have been made from time to time in Congress to restrict birthright citizenship, either via statutory redefinition of the term jurisdiction, or by overriding both the Wong Kim Ark ruling and the Citizenship Clause itself through an amendment to the Constitution, but no such proposal has been enacted. [underlining is mine.] ~~~~~~~~~~~ Now here is a Recap of the discussion in Congress regarding the meaning of 'jurisdiction' in the 14th Amendment. [for the original citation from which the following excerpts are taken, see Arnie's post #69. All the underlining and text color are mine.] N.B. -- Trumbull, Howard, and Bingman are all framers of the 14th Amendment. " ...Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (39th Congress), James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed on March 1, 1866 that children under this class of aliens would not be citizens: “We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.” ...Framer of the Fourteenth Amendments first section, John Bingham, said Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes meant “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.” If this statute merely reaffirmed the old common law rule of citizenship by birth then the condition of the parents would be entirely irrelevant. ...This remark by Sen. Howard places this earlier comment of his on who is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” into proper context: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.” What Sen. Howard is saying here is citizenship by birth is established by the sovereign jurisdiction the United States already has over the parents of the child, and that required that they owe allegiance exclusively to the United States – just as is required to become a naturalized citizen. __________________ If the court were to adjudicate, it could easily turn out to be a battle royal between those who don't want to rock the boat, and see the issue as water over the bridge, and the Scalia led orginalists who could well fall back on the framers intent. I agree with those who have suggested the issue could be handled with statutory law; thus avoiding the uncertainty of a Court decision. But could Congress get its Act together to pass a law; they couldn't pass the Dream Act!