A friend of ours built very nice house with a pool on some land outside our city. They then sadly went through a rough dviroce that caused them to sell house which was a lot of $$. Because of high price it sat on market for a long time. Then a full price buyer came in - condition of who was buying to remain undisclosed. Turns out the Chinese bought it to be a Chinese birthing center for women to come to America the last 3 months of pregnancy to stay comfortably while waiting to have their child on US soil. We need to be careful of allowing foreign nationals to Come and birth citizen spies or likewise into our country.…
Yikes. I've heard about this and worse. Wealthy Chinese men paying American women to birth children for them; human commodities if you will. I don't know what's being done about this. Maybe someone will take this on.
I do not believe the Wong Kim Ark case applies to the unconditional, thoroughly abused and absurd birthright citizenship that is practiced today, and the "under US jurisdiction" should mean what it says -- legally resident parentage.
The distinction in that case is that the parents were in the USA legally. I still would not say that the child had any birthright. At any rate, that's a long way from saying that illegal aliens can come here, have children, and make them US citizens.
Human history has shown tribe and nation remade time and again by war and immigration. Also by environmental change. 'Americaness' is one part of that puzzle. We should also include the Disneyland effect - where America is seen by those who would move to a better life from where they are far more than they would move elsewhere.
Interesting essay. No precise answers are available, but here's a few of my thoughts.
We can talk of what it means, in spirit, to be an American. But the USA was founded on written law, which was a unique concept at the time. A constitution that doesn't get tossed every time a new party takes control is also very unique to America. While I am not confident as to how true it is in practice, the USA has been described as a nation of laws, not men. We can expect to have to obey laws passed by a congress, but not ad hoc laws that vary continually with every shift in the political wind.
Keep in mind that, in 1783, Americans were citizens of their state, not the USA. That changed with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, not necessarily for the better.
If we are going to site the 14th amendment, then we have to recite in its entirety and enforce it in its entirety, not cheery pick the parts we like. That a judge made his own personal interpretation of it does not in fact change the amendment. "...and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." was not just needless filler. It is an essential consideration. American Indians, as far as land rights are concerned, could not be any more American. Yet the constitution did not apply to them, because they were not subject to that jurisdiction. Laws were subsequently passed allowing for their citizenship.
The reason we're even having this conversation is because of the tens of millions of illegal aliens who have been allowed into this country. This is no small matter. Laws have been subverted for political purposes. For people who do this to then hide behind the constitution, pretending that they care about the law is insulting to any rational person.
So, who is an American? The only answer is a non-answer: An American is whoever they want to be. Conformity to anything outside of the letter of the law is not required and should not be expected.
A terrific short and insightful piece by Abigail Ingram! Like pretty much every issue nowadays, the conversation around birthright citizenship is very much binary and lacking in nuance. Trump v. Barbara is one of the most important Supreme Court cases of the 21st Century. It is about defining who is an American and how that is determined. The ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 was a huge turning point in American history. It conferred American citizenship on the freedmen and their children after the Civil War. Ever since, its words and meanings have been debated, scrutinized and argued over what the true intent of them was. The landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 was the most prominent case of this. Wonk Kim Ark was born on American soil to two parents who were Chinese citizens at the time of his birth. The court ruled 6-2 in Ark's favor, temporarily settling the matter.
But those hotly debated words have again come under scrutiny. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. The order while explicitly recognizing the terrible injustice done in the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision issued by the Taney Court in 1857, it argued that the 14th Amendment had been stretched well beyond its intended purpose. The order demanded the recission of the 14th Amendment effective February 19th of that year. The chief concern it alluded to, was the abuse of the amendment by foreign nationals who sought citizenship for children who would never live in the United States.
The case of Trump v. Barbara state simply and plainly, is all about defining what it means to be an American. The question of "who is an American?" has been asked at many points throughout our history. Since the latter half of the 19th Century, this has been encapsulated in citizenship. Abigail as a black American, is rightly wary of the liberal argument that there is no such thing as heritage as being American is just an ideal. After all, her ancestors fought and for centuries to earn the right to call themselves Americans. They dealt with slavery, apprenticing, racial discrimination, Jim Crow, lynching, medical experiments, red lining, being denied loans by banks, and horrific racial violence. Abigail herself is an American but she was born in Britain. Before 1983, that fact alone would’ve conferred upon her British citizenship. But 1981 British Nationality Act which took effect on January 1, 1983, meant she was now just an American citizen, nothing else.
Birthright citizenship is something very few other countries practice only about 15% of them to be exact and no other western country practices it. As the 250th birthday of this nation approaches and our country grapples with these tumultuous times, we need to ask ourselves, what is an American? Where do I stand on this issue? Well, my stance is nuanced as that is the only kind of solution befitting a nuanced issue such as this. I believe we should keep birthright citizenship in place. But we should crack down on birth tourism and shut down these Chinese birth centers. Congress must pass a bipartisan bill immediately amending the 14th Amendment to exclude those born in the U.S. as a result of this underhanded practice. Being an American should also NEVER be considered an ideal, it should once and for all be considered ONLY a matter of heritage! We should put the former argument to rest for all times!
A friend of ours built very nice house with a pool on some land outside our city. They then sadly went through a rough dviroce that caused them to sell house which was a lot of $$. Because of high price it sat on market for a long time. Then a full price buyer came in - condition of who was buying to remain undisclosed. Turns out the Chinese bought it to be a Chinese birthing center for women to come to America the last 3 months of pregnancy to stay comfortably while waiting to have their child on US soil. We need to be careful of allowing foreign nationals to Come and birth citizen spies or likewise into our country.…
Yikes. I've heard about this and worse. Wealthy Chinese men paying American women to birth children for them; human commodities if you will. I don't know what's being done about this. Maybe someone will take this on.
I do not believe the Wong Kim Ark case applies to the unconditional, thoroughly abused and absurd birthright citizenship that is practiced today, and the "under US jurisdiction" should mean what it says -- legally resident parentage.
The distinction in that case is that the parents were in the USA legally. I still would not say that the child had any birthright. At any rate, that's a long way from saying that illegal aliens can come here, have children, and make them US citizens.
Human history has shown tribe and nation remade time and again by war and immigration. Also by environmental change. 'Americaness' is one part of that puzzle. We should also include the Disneyland effect - where America is seen by those who would move to a better life from where they are far more than they would move elsewhere.
This is settled law and the united states has been more than fine with it in force! Trumps cruel attempt to undo it are racism, end of story 😎
Interesting essay. No precise answers are available, but here's a few of my thoughts.
We can talk of what it means, in spirit, to be an American. But the USA was founded on written law, which was a unique concept at the time. A constitution that doesn't get tossed every time a new party takes control is also very unique to America. While I am not confident as to how true it is in practice, the USA has been described as a nation of laws, not men. We can expect to have to obey laws passed by a congress, but not ad hoc laws that vary continually with every shift in the political wind.
Keep in mind that, in 1783, Americans were citizens of their state, not the USA. That changed with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, not necessarily for the better.
If we are going to site the 14th amendment, then we have to recite in its entirety and enforce it in its entirety, not cheery pick the parts we like. That a judge made his own personal interpretation of it does not in fact change the amendment. "...and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." was not just needless filler. It is an essential consideration. American Indians, as far as land rights are concerned, could not be any more American. Yet the constitution did not apply to them, because they were not subject to that jurisdiction. Laws were subsequently passed allowing for their citizenship.
The reason we're even having this conversation is because of the tens of millions of illegal aliens who have been allowed into this country. This is no small matter. Laws have been subverted for political purposes. For people who do this to then hide behind the constitution, pretending that they care about the law is insulting to any rational person.
So, who is an American? The only answer is a non-answer: An American is whoever they want to be. Conformity to anything outside of the letter of the law is not required and should not be expected.
A terrific short and insightful piece by Abigail Ingram! Like pretty much every issue nowadays, the conversation around birthright citizenship is very much binary and lacking in nuance. Trump v. Barbara is one of the most important Supreme Court cases of the 21st Century. It is about defining who is an American and how that is determined. The ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 was a huge turning point in American history. It conferred American citizenship on the freedmen and their children after the Civil War. Ever since, its words and meanings have been debated, scrutinized and argued over what the true intent of them was. The landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 was the most prominent case of this. Wonk Kim Ark was born on American soil to two parents who were Chinese citizens at the time of his birth. The court ruled 6-2 in Ark's favor, temporarily settling the matter.
But those hotly debated words have again come under scrutiny. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. The order while explicitly recognizing the terrible injustice done in the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision issued by the Taney Court in 1857, it argued that the 14th Amendment had been stretched well beyond its intended purpose. The order demanded the recission of the 14th Amendment effective February 19th of that year. The chief concern it alluded to, was the abuse of the amendment by foreign nationals who sought citizenship for children who would never live in the United States.
The case of Trump v. Barbara state simply and plainly, is all about defining what it means to be an American. The question of "who is an American?" has been asked at many points throughout our history. Since the latter half of the 19th Century, this has been encapsulated in citizenship. Abigail as a black American, is rightly wary of the liberal argument that there is no such thing as heritage as being American is just an ideal. After all, her ancestors fought and for centuries to earn the right to call themselves Americans. They dealt with slavery, apprenticing, racial discrimination, Jim Crow, lynching, medical experiments, red lining, being denied loans by banks, and horrific racial violence. Abigail herself is an American but she was born in Britain. Before 1983, that fact alone would’ve conferred upon her British citizenship. But 1981 British Nationality Act which took effect on January 1, 1983, meant she was now just an American citizen, nothing else.
Birthright citizenship is something very few other countries practice only about 15% of them to be exact and no other western country practices it. As the 250th birthday of this nation approaches and our country grapples with these tumultuous times, we need to ask ourselves, what is an American? Where do I stand on this issue? Well, my stance is nuanced as that is the only kind of solution befitting a nuanced issue such as this. I believe we should keep birthright citizenship in place. But we should crack down on birth tourism and shut down these Chinese birth centers. Congress must pass a bipartisan bill immediately amending the 14th Amendment to exclude those born in the U.S. as a result of this underhanded practice. Being an American should also NEVER be considered an ideal, it should once and for all be considered ONLY a matter of heritage! We should put the former argument to rest for all times!