It has hit the news cycle once again: The perennial question of whether the children born in America of parents illegally in this country are natural born (โbirthrightโ) citizens. The constitutional question revolves around whether such children are โsubject to the jurisdictionโ of the United States as that phrase is used in theย Fourteenth Amendment.ย
This is a very difficult constitutional question, one that will have to be resolved by the Supreme Court. Claims on both sides that the Constitution or case precedent clearly answer this question are not accurate.
I have written extensively on the question for this website. Here are some articles:
- There is anย objective summary of the constitutional issues here.
- A TV interviewย discussing them is here.
- Some problems in the history of the Fourteenth Amendmentย are discussed here.
- An explanation of how opponents of birthright citizenshipย should argue their case here.
In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution's original meaning have been repeatedly cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions and published or cited by many top law journals (See: https://i2i.org/author/rob/) He co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). He was a law professor for 25 years and taught constitutional law and related courses. He is the Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at Colorado's Independence Institute.
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