Here is the pertinent portion of my comment:

Gabriel, I found this from a professor of law, who said it in testimony in front of the Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives:

As I argued in the brief I filed on behalf of The Claremont
Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in the case, the received wisdom
regarding the Citizenship Clause is incorrect, as a matter of text, historical practice, and
political theory. As an original matter, mere birth on U.S. soil alone was insufficient to
confer citizenship as a matter of constitutional right.

Linky: http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/eastman092905.pdf

But there was nothing in that first sentence about “people who legally enter the U.S.” Under this reasoning, since illegal immigrants are not subject to our jurisdiction we would not be able to deport them or even arrest them for committing crimes like murder. This is clearly absurd.

Illegal aliens who sneak across the U.S. border and have babies on U.S. soil still owe allegiance to their native land. (Indeed, if the evidence is to be believed, many illegal aliens consider themselves loyal citizens of the nations they left. This becomes painfully visible during illegal alien rallies, where one is far more likely to see flags of other nations on display than one is to see the American flag in evidence.)

You can say all the same things about legal immigrants as well. My father has had a green card since he was a child but has never chosen to be naturalized. Should I have gotten a funny birth certificate too since he “owes allegiance” to someone else (what that means for practical purposes is extremely unclear), or would my mom have made up for that?

They have not petitioned the U.S. for entry, nor have they begun the process of becoming Americans by renouncing their former citizenship. They are therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S., since they have flouted America’s laws upon entry.

I will really have to remember this next time I feel like stealing a couple million dollars. I hope it works in other countries too.

The year was 1898. Yes, that long ago.

Captain Midnight (and the folks at Heritage who make the same argument) go through the most outrageous legalistic contortions to claim that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” doesn’t actually mean “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

The reason that these folks go to such trouble to twist the 14th Amendment out of shape is that it is probably easier to convince a judge of their ideas than to amend the Constitution on this point.

No human beings are illegal.

There is a key part of that sentence, and it is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” This means that the children born of people who legally enter the U.S. and are subject to the jurisdiction of these United States are citizens. As I read it, the children of illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. (the whole sneaking in bit) and thus are not born U.S. citizens. Here is what Rep. John A. Bingham, the author of the 14th Amendment, said regarding the first sentence:

“I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”

Illegal aliens who sneak across the U.S. border and have babies on U.S. soil still owe allegiance to their native land. (Indeed, if the evidence is to be believed, many illegal aliens consider themselves loyal citizens of the nations they left. This becomes painfully visible during illegal alien rallies, where one is far more likely to see flags of other nations on display than one is to see the American flag in evidence.) They have not petitioned the U.S. for entry, nor have they begun the process of becoming Americans by renouncing their former citizenship. They are therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S., since they have flouted America’s laws upon entry.

You can read a long entry on the 14th Amendment at The Federalist Blog.