The Constitution is a stronger bulwark than Congress’ laws. If you think Congress can end birthright citizenship, because the Constitution leaves to Congress the right to define the jurisdiction of the United States, then birthright citizenship can be narrowed anytime by an act of Congress. 1/
I think most commentators believe the Constitution protects birthright citizenship *from* Congress, though. (I think so as well. I just think it doesn’t protect it from our rogue Supreme Court, who has done much worse to the plain meaning of the Constitution already.) /fin
we are just confabulating at this point. perhaps invading argument is not the analogy they’d use. a relatively optimistic outcome would include asylum-seekers inside of US jurisdiction, because they have announced and regularized themselves. 1/
the point is, there is wiggle room. the Constitution includes a hint enough of textual ambiguity, and US practice has hung at least one exception to plain birthright citizenship upon that. it’s enough that lawyers can lawyer about it. 2/
lawyers can be very clever and creative! 3/
and judges can be so creative as to enshrine the power of a king to stand above the law in a document born in the wake of a revolution against monarchy. just ask John Roberts! /fin
he’s a rather clever bad man, you know. 1/
i think the play would be that people who conceal their entry from officials of the United States are evading its jurisdiction. their status is not unlike an invading army. 2/
they are not immune from American state coercion, but nor are they orderly subject to US jurisdiction unless they affirmatively render themselves so by declaring themselves to US officialdom. /fin
ask John Roberts, the very worst man in the United States.
this is the Constitution of the United States. anything dependent on other laws to interpret can be reinterpreted by Congress. if Congress gets to decide by virtue of the laws it writes which classes of aliens are subject to US jurisdiction, then Congress can narrow birthright citizenship.
it shows the language is not as plain or unambiguous as it seems. there is already one loophole interpreted into “within the jurisdiction of the United States”. there can be others. 1/
@mtsw.bsky.social suggests a simple, two-pronged test: “1) Are you a person? (Automatic Yes) 2) Were you born in the US?” that is simply not the case under status quo law. 2/
and, contra @fujoshi.bsky.social, “jurisdiction of the United States” does not in plain language narrowly exclude only children with diplomatic immunity. there is more than enough wiggle room in the phrase for a sympathetic Supreme Court to declare other classes not subject. /fin
(i want to be clear i say all this with the very opposite of glee. my preference would be to strip the subject-to-the-jurisdiction qualifier entirely and render @mtsw.bsky.social 2-pronged test true without exception.)
Children of Diplomats | Scott Legal, P.C.
Link Preview: Children of Diplomats | Scott Legal, P.C.: I was born in the United States as the child of a foreign diplomatic officer. Do I get U.S. citizenship at birth? If not, how can I become a U.S. citizen?
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elon’s gonna send us all an oath where we all have to agree to be “hardcore” as citizens or be expatriated.
“we emphasize trust and accountability, your trust and our lack of accountability.”
it’s gonna be unreal when shit gets real.
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"they invented a philosophy — a 'science' they called it — under which greed is reason. then they wondered why things didn't work out."
look at least if we have a warlord called “hagsex” the aesthetic will be something other than cyberpunk.
“never go on Lox News. it’ll only be a total schmear job.”
in retrospect, there were a variety of problems emerging (i’d center inequality and “financial innovation” more than housing, but am happy to include housing). but even knowing the pressure points and contradictions, i had faith in our institutions to address problems, at that time.
yeah. the decline of newspapers, emergence of new media, definitely meant we were going to become something other than we were. at the time i imagined something more like butterfly from caterpillar. but i imagined wrong.
9/11
we had the seeds of a lot of destruction in our economic arrangements. i don’t claim not having 9/11 would have spared us necessarily. but things we did in response to 9/11 were certainly accelerants to decline on a variety of dimensions.
i think its we gen x ers who have picked up red hats disproportionately. without our generation, it’d be president harris.
for a substantial fraction of us, institutions basically seemed to work, were fair, would bring most of us stability and at least a degree of prosperity. that fraction seemed to be enlarging, becoming more inclusive, not shrinking. those institutions seemed to be improving, not declining.