Update with error 3 at the end
KrisAnne Hall, who is a constitutional attorney, is currently studying at Oxford. She has taken time to address the errors in the Supreme Court birthright citizenship ruling. The first error refers to Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. It gives Congress the power to enforce the provisions of this article. Congress has never passed legislation granting birthright citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or those unlawfully in the United States. Thus, the Court has exceeded its authority and can’t write the legislation Congress never enacted.
Secondly, we don’t want any kings. The Court used Jus Soli as its guide, but it is a legal doctrine developed by kings and conquerors to expand political power by creating subjects. That is the doctrine of kings and oppressors and therefore patently un-American.
I can’t help but wonder if the Court ruled politically in this case, especially in Chief Roberts’ cases. Is it tied to President Trump or their fear of losing the 9-member court?
Don’t lose hope. President Trump said he was prepared for this and was working with Congress on at least two ways around this ruling. They have the 51 votes they need to pass their legislation.
The Analysis by KrisAnne Hall
SCOTUS and Birthright citizenship ERROR #1.
SCOTUS relies on the 14th Amendment to justify Birthright Citizenship while ignoring the limits the 14th Amendment places upon its own authority.
Section 5 of the 14th Amendment reads:
“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Congress has NEVER enacted legislation granting Birthright Citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or those unlawfully present in the United States.
SCOTUS has the authority to review executive orders and determine whether they are constitutional. That is where its authority ends.
SCOTUS does NOT have the authority to write the legislation Congress never enacted.
If Birthright Citizenship extends to the children of temporary visitors or those unlawfully present, the Constitution assigns that decision to Congress not the courts.
By creating through judicial opinion what the Constitution assigns to the legislative branch, the majority has violated the separation of powers and exceeded its constitutional authority.
That is not constitutional interpretation. That is judicial legislation.
SCOTUS and Birthright Citizenship ERROR #2
SCOTUS says the history of Jus Soli establishes that everyone born on American soil regardless of parental legal status automatically becomes a citizen.
However, factually and historically, Jus Soli is a legal doctrine developed by kings and conquerors to expand political power by creating subjects.
I find it disturbingly ironic that the liberal Justices, who claim to see slavery and oppression in every corner of American history, completely overlook the genuinely feudal origins of this doctrine.
This is what happens when history and the Constitution are replaced with political mythology.
Children are born subject to their parents, not to government. It’s a parental authority issue, not a government jurisdiction issue.
Government does not become a child’s master simply because they first draw breath within a particular border.
Even Great Britain, the very nation the majority relies upon to bind us to this feudal doctrine, has abandoned unconditional birthright citizenship.
1. Americans rejected the notion that people are born owing unconditional and perpetual allegiance to kings and governments when we declared Independence.
2. We rejected it again when we established a constitutional republic where citizenship is founded upon law, consent, and allegiance, not the accident of geography.
Now, through an astonishing ignorance of both history and constitutional principle, the majority has resurrected the very feudal philosophy our Founders rejected.
It is a political doctrine that says government owns your political allegiance from the moment of your birth, regardless of the allegiance of your parents.
That is the doctrine of kings and oppressors and therefore patently un-American.
If SCOTUS will, through an unfathomable depth of ignorance for political reasons, voluntarily adopt such despotism, are we also going to overturn Dred Scott in some creative but imaginative way that will become championed by the very people it once oppressed?
Every generation that abandons discernment eventually discovers the same truth: unintended consequences are monsters that never stay under your control. Eventually, they turn on their creators.
The Long Awaited Review: Error #3.
The majority claims the 14th Amendment is clear. But the members of the Senate who wrote and ratified it prove otherwise.
Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the Citizenship Clause, expressly stated that it “will not…include persons born in the United States who are foreigners [or] aliens.” The Senate repeatedly affirmed the same principle throughout the ratification debate.
The Senators who wrote the 14th Amendment, in clear English, established by INTENT.
The constitutional standard is jurisdiction, complete political allegiance to the United States, not geography.
A child cannot legally declare allegiance as they are not sovereign in the eyes of the law!
That is why the debates repeatedly distinguished foreigners, aliens, tribal Indians, diplomats, and others who owed allegiance elsewhere.
Repeatedly.
The authors of the 14th Amendment understood the difference between being physically present in the United States and being completely subject to its political jurisdiction.
Once again the Majority cherry picks history to make its politically driven conclusions rather than admitting that history is clear, the drafters were clear, and the point was established through repetition for the defining point:
Citizenship did NOT attach merely because a child happened to be born on American soil.
When the words of the Constitution become detached from the intent of those who wrote and ratified them, judges are no longer interpreting the Constitution.
They are writing legal fairy tales.
BONUS SECTION: Want to know where this entire failure begins?
It begins at Supreme Court confirmation hearings, where Senators interrogate nominees over whether they are “conservative” or “liberal.”
That is a political standard, not a constitutional one.
As long as Americans tolerate judges being selected according to that false paradigm, we will continue to get judges who substitute their own will for the Constitution.
Our Framers warned us about judges like this. In Federalist No. 83, Hamilton explained that judges who abandon the Constitution are subject to impeachment.
Until we demand that our Senators evaluate judicial nominees by constitutional fidelity rather than political ideology, we should not be surprised when every constitutional question becomes just another political debate; another opportunity to rewrite the Constitution from the bench.
The Constitution does not survive simply because judges occupy a bench. It survives only when We the People demand that it be obeyed-with zero excuses.
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Visit KrisAnne Hall’s page for in-depth analysis on the Constitution.
