This weekend, the Washington State Republican Party adopted a platform which includes a provision aimed at oppossing automatic citizenship for babies born in the United States to illegal immigrants. While it is nice to see the Republican Party adopt a platform that coincides with their Conservative base, it remains to be seen if this is merely rhetoric, or if they actually intend to act on it. Some of the positions of the party leaders within the State lead me to believe no actions will be taken on the issue.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna, one of the state’s most prominent Republicans, said he doesn’t support banning automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants.

“We have more than 200 years of history in which children born in the U.S. are deemed U.S. citizens,” said McKenna, before reading the platform language. “What matters is where the children are born.”

Not all delegates attending the convention support the position, either.

“The Constitution says that if you’re born in the United States you’re a U.S. citizen,” said Scott Workman, of Sequim. “I’m not willing to change the Constitution. If we’re going to let them in and they’re going to have babies here, then they’re U.S. citizens.”

Both of these statements are factually incorrect and I am dissapointed hearing them come from high ranking Republicans. The Constitution does not stipulate that citizenship is determined solely by the place of birth. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”.

I had addressed this last year when I wrote about the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, affirming that it is a common misconception that place of birth is the sole determining factor to citizenship.

In ELK v. WILKINS, 112 U.S. 94 (1884) the Supreme Court ruled:

The main object of the opening sentence of the fourteenth amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes, (Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393;) and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.

This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared [112 U.S. 94, 102] to be citizens are ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards, except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts; or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.

This definition put forth by the Supreme Court was taken from the Slaughterhouse cases which ruled:

The phrase, “subject to its jurisdiction” was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States. (emphasis mine)

Those who cross our borders illegaly cannot be legally defined as falling under the complete political jurisdiction of the United States, without first accepting the legal ramifications of breaking our immigration laws. If the childrens parents were not subject to the political jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth, the children should not be granted automatic citizenship according the the Fourteenth Amendment.

The sole intention of the 14th Amendment was to gaurantee citizenship to freed slaves, and was not meant to adress citizenship of foreigners, in fact the author of the Amendment, Senator Howard specifically stated he intended to exclude aliens:

“This amendment which I have clarified is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already..[It] does 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 person. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.”

The Republican party should remind the American people of those words.

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Constitution, Features, Fourteenth Amendment, Immigration