The infiltration of America by illegal aliens is nearing a crisis. Children of illegal immigrants are overwhelming schools and welfare rolls. The “open borders” crowd believes that today’s immigrants are related to the immigrants of the past, and to deny them access to the economic and political freedoms that constitute American society breaches American values.  Some even believe illegal aliens should be given a privileged place in society, as they are doing “jobs that Americans won’t do”, are hard workers and family men and women.  Further, they argue we are to reward their disregard for our society’s laws with citizenship, as they were forced to break the law out of necessity.

[media-credit id=20122 align=”alignleft” width=”233″][/media-credit]Our society cannot absorb unending, unbridled immigration. The United States must preserve itself.  One step of many is to reverse the current interpretation of the 14th amendment, which confers birthright citizenship geographically instead of politically.  It’s crucial to derive meaning from the founding documents, in this case, the history behind the 14th Constitutional amendment and its intended meaning.

There is no other country in the world that allows illegal aliens to confer jurisdiction upon their own children, simply by being within a geographic area. The 14th amendment was never intended to confer citizenship upon all people born in a certain area, thus it does not confer citizenship upon the children of illegal immigrants. 

Properly interpreting political jurisdiction or allegiance is essential to the jurisdiction clause of this amendment.  Primarily, the 14th amendment sought to deal with whether or not Native Americans and emancipated slaves would become citizens. “All persons, born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens” is key to this understanding.  During the passage of the 14th amendment, there was discussion as to whether Native Americans would be included as citizens. It was decided by the amendment’s framers and Native Americans themselves that their first allegiance was to their respective tribes, not the U.S. Consequently, citizenship was withheld since the U.S. didn’t draw their sole allegiance.

Native Americans were denied citizenship not as a matter of discrimination, but on the basis of allegiance, even though they were born in the U.S.  If Native Americans weren’t considered U.S. citizens back then, how can it be said today that an immigrant who enters the U.S. and has a baby, has on their own conferred citizenship on their child, simply because they’re here and claim jurisdiction.  Again, it’s not jurisdiction in the sense of being here, it’s having allegiance to another country such as Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Russia and so on.  Open border advocates claim children of illegal immigrants are granted citizenship under geographic jurisdiction, but the original framers of the 14th amendment argued for political jurisdiction.

Immigrants have helped America become the country it is today.  It’s impossible to know where the U.S. would be today without tailors, merchants and masons who immigrated to the U.S. However, curbing illegal immigration is vital to the preservation of our country’s traditions and principals.  The American people must return to the original interpretation of the 14th amendment.

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