I keep asking this question about birthright citizenship. Lefty keeps evading.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

There's the usual opening citation of the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The usual rejoinder notes that the children of diplomats born in the US are not considered US citizens. When asked for the law or court case that establishes this exception, I get nothing except, "Well, everybody just knows that's how it works." In other words, they just made up the exception to their made up BRC claim. One of them even linked me an article that said those children are "deemed" to not be citizens.

Deemed by who? Where is this written?

If you reject BRC, you don't have to deem anything, because the underlying argument says foreigners belong to their respective sovereign nations unless Congress legislates otherwise. That's why illegals can be deported using administrative courts rather than criminal courts: They aren't US citizens, ergo they are not entitled to the full US court system.

But I prefer to find things the Left values and set their arguments against those other values. My latest argument is:

Suppose a woman is in the US to attend college. During the course of her studies, she has a child, a son. She has no intention of her or her child becoming citizens or even dual citizens. Once her studies are concluded, she returns home with no intention of ever returning to the US. Yet, if BRC is as automatic as is argued, the child is a US citizen. Once that son grows up, he would be obligated to register for the US military selective service. Worse still, if the US engaged in military operations against the mother's country, any support, aid or comfort the child gave to the mother's country would be treason against the US.

By what justification does the US lay claim to a child that was never meant to be a US citizen, it was just born here as a matter of circumstance?

[Texacon]

Very well said!

KC

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I want to expand on my arguments. Near as I can tell, I'm the only one making this argument; so maybe I'm just crazy.

The key to the debate is the clause "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

This is often understood that the children of foreign diplomats born in the US are not US citizens by way of treaty. It is true they are not US citizens, but it is because the parent is not subject to the jurisdiction of the US; the parent remains a subject of the name they serve.

The reason why treaty is not the mechanism preserving jurisdiction of the parent's nation is: Treaties cannot be used to abrogate the Constitutional rights of American citizens. As evidence of this I cite Reid V Covert (1956). It's actually 2 separate cases combined. In both cases, the spouse of a US military service member accompanied their spouse on an overseas duty assignment and murdered the SM - one in the UK and one in Japan. In both cases, the military tried the wives by military court martial under the UCMJ. Upon return to the US, both convicted spouses had their respective cases appealed, arguing that UCMJ was a violation of the constitutional rights of civilians. The government argued it could do so because the duly-enacted treaties with the host nations stipulated court martial for offending dependents.

The court held:

Article VI, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, declares:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . ."

There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates, as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI, make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in "pursuance" of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important peace treaties which concluded the Revolutionary War, would remain in effect. [Footnote 31] It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights -- let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition -- to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. [Footnote 32] In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government, and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined.

There is nothing new or unique about what we say here. This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty. [Footnote 33] For example, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U. S. 258, 133 U. S. 267, it declared:

"The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/354/1/

What all that means is: You cannot use a treaty to circumvent constitutional rights because treaties are creatures of the Constitution, and the creature cannot be greater than the creator.

If, as BRC advocates argue, citizenship is a fundamental right by virtue of physical geography, a treaty to receive an embassy could not abrogate the alleged right of the children of diplomats.

No. The truth of the matter is: Diplomats are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US because they remain in service to their respective parent nations. Illegals are not subject to the jurisdiction because they are not recognized as lawfully present in the US. That is why we can deport them without trial. We only try them when we wish to mete out punishment for our own purposes, but they remain citizens of their home nations.

[Old n Grumpy]

I read an article recently were a diplomat son lost his citizenship because he wasn’t entitled to it

Might take on that amendment was to make the children of slaves US citizens not anyone who chooses to come here and have a baby to have an anchor baby like all these illegals do. They’re so called citizenship should be revoked.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I read an article recently were a diplomat son lost his citizenship because he wasn’t entitled to it

It sounds like you might be referring to Mocada v Rubio: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/23-55803/23-55803-2025-08-20.html

Might take on that amendment was to make the children of slaves US citizens not anyone who chooses to come here and have a baby to have an anchor baby like all these illegals do. They’re so called citizenship should be revoked.

It was. The purpose was to avert the inhumanity of the emancipated slaves having no nation to call their own because so many had been born into slavery and never knew another country.

For contrast, the native tribes were excluded until a later amendment by statute because they had their own territorial carve outs.