Recent data gathered together by my internet friend James Heaney suggests that 15 percent of the people you might run into (or more) these days may not actually have permission to be in the United States right now. 15 percent is a lot. When I saw the numbers, I was shocked. Me personally? I don’t care. Every immigrant I’ve ever met seems awesome. But let’s say you weren’t sure at even a minimum level that a group of people were committed to a basic posture of nonviolence, or to treat women equally and justly? What if people bring a culture here that’s nothing like ours? Forget skin color or religion, per se. If people don’t commit to basic American values and attitudes, it wouldn’t take much to cause some serious friction that wouldn’t just go away. You can’t just wish all that away with some nice words about equality. That’s about as gracious as I can be toward President Trump and his purpose for being a politician. The last time we had so many outsiders as a proportion of all of us was about 1850.
Lo and behold, right around there, we had a nasty war, because basic dignity and equality before the law wasn’t as obvious a concept to the ones who rebelled. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to our Constitution were the direct result of that war, and the ongoing attempts to subjugate people who began to exercise the rights inherent to all human beings, and secondarily, rights recognized to belong to citizens of the United States. I say “recognized” because, even if classical liberalism sucks and is incompatible with Christianity, governments do not grant rights; a just government recognizes the rights of people, and acknowledges the limits of its own power, relative to people.
“Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is both broad and precise, to prevent federalism from being used against legitimate citizens of the United States. Birthright citizenship at the time was a simple recognition that British common law could not be used against British subjects’ children, even if those subjects were sanctioned criminals. To deny citizenship to those born in US territory as children of slaves now liberated would have tragically created another underclass of subjugated people. But like the British Empire, the sun never sets on the United States. To paraphrase Mufasa, everything the light touches is the American land of freedom. The broadness of the 14th amendment’s language recognizes that the many cannot deny opportunities to the few, even for apparently good reasons.
To be totally fair to the dissent and partial dissents, no ordinary person is owed the privilege of citizenship, just by wanting it. Also, there is a non-trivial question of whether the executive violated the 14th amendment, or simply US federal code (much more easily changed).
I’ll be frank to say that the full dissent from Justice Thomas is borderline incomprehensible, especially for someone so purportedly devoted to the Constitution and to relevant statutes subsequent to it. I also admit that I have never yet been persuaded to re-think anything by Justice Thomas.
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