Who gets the privilege of United States citizenship? The way that citizenship works here in the U.S. is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you were born in this country, you're a citizen. If you weren't born in this country, you must apply for citizenship.
This way of organizing citizenship is not universal in our world. Take, for instance, the German model of citizenship, in which ethnic ancestry plays a pivotal role. Families who have lived in Germany for generations have been denied citizenship because they lack the "virtue" of a German bloodline. Although a man may have spent his entire life living in Dresden, he is a "Turk" because his great-grandparents lived in Turkey. At the end of the 20th century, nearly 2 million "foreigners" living in Germany were actually born in Germany. Only with the turn of the millenium are these restrictive laws being modestly reformed.
Jurisdiction, Immigration, the Constitution and Citizenship
At the beginning of this year, Representative Bob Stump of Arizona and 11 Republican colleagues introduced legislation that would move the U.S. away from its traditional conception of citizenship, toward the model of Germany. H.R. 190 would deny citizenship to babies born in the United States unless those babies' parents are themselves citizens.
One of the strongest proponents of the bill outside the Congress is FAIR, The Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR's web site argues that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is meant to keep the children of illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship by being born on U.S. soil. The germane section of 14th Amendment reads as follows: "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."
In a form letter to members of Congress in support of H.R. 190, FAIR argues that the children of illegal immigrants "are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States, but owe their allegiance to a foreign country...they too have rejected the application of U.S. law by either sneaking into the country or by failing to depart when required to do so."
