Why Kamala Harris qualifies to be President or Vice President.
Citizenship under the 14th Amendment includes those born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens. This was clearly established over 100 years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the landmark 1898 decision of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (169 U.S. 649), the Court held that a person born in San Francisco to Chinese parents (who, at the time, were not permitted to naturalize as U.S. citizens) nonetheless became a U.S. citizen at the time of his or her birth by virtue of the 14th Amendment. As the Court explained, “[t]o hold that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.” Wong affirmed dicta from Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167 (1875).
And anyone suggesting that the 14th Amendment’s phrase, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” is open to reinterpretation lacks any understanding of the courts rulings. The Supreme Court explained that this phrase simply meant that children born to foreign diplomats or hostile forces are not automatically U.S. citizens. The Court found that these few discrete exceptions to U.S. born citizenship are rooted in the Common Law, dating back centuries. The Common Law provided that all children born in the territory of the sovereign were citizens except for those born to foreign diplomats or hostile occupying forces, (law of the soil). In addition, at the time, many Native Americans born on U.S. soil were also excluded from U.S. citizenship because of their tribal affiliations. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 later granted full U.S. citizenship to the country’s indigenous peoples. See 8 U.S.C., Sec. 1401(b). The Supreme Court has subsequently affirmed the understanding that non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the 14th Amendment. See, e.g., Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211, 243 (1982).
Any country claiming that a natural-born citizen of the United States, because of the parentage, is a citizen of their country has no relevance when it comes to determining U.S. citizenship.
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