Quote:
Originally Posted by margaretmattson
If you were born in the USA or territories, this makes you a citizen. Even babies of the illegal construction workers who were born in the USA are citizens. The parents will be deported but not the children.
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This needs to be rebutted because it's patently false (though many people believe it because they aren't properly educated on the Constitution in school -- so likely no fault of the writer).
The Constitution explicitly says that to be a non-natural born citizen, a person must be BOTH born here and (more importantly) be "subject to the general jurisdiction" of the U.S. There is a rule in law (30+ year retired attorney here) called the "rule of surplusage", which states that all words in a statute (or the Constitution) must have meaning. So just being born here is not enough; the key is "being subject to..." and that's the battle being fought now. If being born here was sufficient, the second phrase is surplus and meaningless.
The authors of the 14th Amendment made it clear that illegal aliens and other similarly situated do not qualify, but that has largely been overlooked for well over a century. It's good that President Trump made an E.O. about the issue, so the courts can rule on it once and for all. Hopefully they align with the clear intent of the authors of the Constitutional amendment.