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Encyclopedia > Citizenship Clause

The citizenship clause (also known as the naturalization clause[1]) refers to a provision, in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution at section one, clause 1. This clause represented Congress's reversal of that portion of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that declared that African Americans were not and could not become citizens of the United States or enjoy any of the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had already granted U.S. citizenship to all people born in the United States; the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrined this principle in the Constitution in order to stop the Supreme Court from ruling it unconstitutional for want of congressional authority to pass such a law, or from a future Congress altering it by a bare majority vote. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and it includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ... Type Bicameralism Houses Senate House of Representatives United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D, since January 4, 2007 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D, since January 4, 2007 Members 535 plus 4 Delegates and 1 Resident Commissioner Political groups (as of November 7, 2006 elections) Democratic Party Republican... Holding Africans residing in America, whether slaves or free, could not become United States citizens and the plaintiff therefore lacked the capacity to file a lawsuit. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... In March 1866, the Republican United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act Of 1866, which gave further rights to the freed slaves after the end of the American Civil War. ...

Contents

Text

Amendment XIV, Section 1, "Clause" 1:

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.

Birthright citizenship

The provisions in Section 1 have been interpreted to the effect that children born on United States soil, with very few exceptions, are U.S. citizens. This type of guarantee—legally termed jus soli, or "right of the territory"— does not exist in most of Western Europe, Asia or the Middle East, although it is part of English common law and is common in the Americas. The phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof indicates that there are some exceptions to the universal rule that birth on U.S. soil automatically grants citizenship. Two Supreme Court precedents were set by the cases of Elk v. Wilkins[2] and United States v. Wong Kim Ark.[3] Elk v. Wilkins established that Native American tribes represented independent political powers with no allegiance to the United States, and that their peoples were under a special jurisidiction of the United States. Children born to these Native American tribes therefore did not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Indian tribes that paid taxes were exempt from this ruling; their peoples were already citizens by an earlier Act of Congress. Jus soli (Latin for right of the territory), or birthright citizenship, is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognised to any individual born in the territory of the related state. ... This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ... Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States, but denied entry after leaving to visit China. ...


In Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a man born within the United States to foreigners (in that case, Chinese citizens) who were lawfully residing in the United States and who were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power, was a citizen of the United States.


Under these two rulings, the following persons born in the United States are not "subject to the jurisdiction [of the United States]", and thus do not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment:

  • Children born to foreign diplomats;
  • Children born to enemy forces in hostile occupation of the United States;

The following persons born in the United States are explicitly citizens: Native Americans are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. ... The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted full U.S. citizenship to Americas indigenous peoples. ... If something is explicit, it generally leaves nothing to the imagination. ...

  • Children born to US citizens;
  • Children born to aliens who are lawfully inside the United States (resident or visitor), with the intention of amicably interacting with its people and obeying its laws.

The Court in Wong Kim Ark did not explicitly decide whether U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" (it was not necessary to answer this question since Wong Kim Ark's parents were legally present in the United States at the time of his birth). However, the Supreme Court's later ruling in Plyler v. Doe[4] stated that illegal immigrants are "within the jurisdiction" of the states in which they reside, and added in a footnote that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment "jurisdiction" can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." Illegal immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently, in violation of the law or without documents permitting an immigrant to settle in that country. ... Plyler v. ...


Loss of citizenship

The Fourteenth Amendment does not provide any procedure for loss of United States citizenship. Indeed the Amendment, taken absolutely literally, would seem to imply that loss of U.S. citizenship is impossible for anyone born or naturalized in the United States. Under the Supreme Court precedent of Afroyim v. Rusk, loss of U.S. citizenship is possible only under the following circumstances:[5] Afroyim v. ...

  • Fraud in the naturalization process. Technically this is not loss of citizenship, but rather a voiding of the purported naturalization and a declaration that the immigrant never was a U.S. citizen.
  • Voluntary relinquishment of citizenship. This may be accomplished either through renunciation procedures specially established by the State Department or through other actions (e.g. treason) which demonstrate an intention to give up U.S. citizenship.[6]

The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ... Traitor redirects here. ...

Right to travel

In Saenz v. Roe, the Supreme Court held that this clause protects an aspect of the right to travel.[7] Namely, the Saenz Court said that the Citizenship Clause protects a citizen's right to resettle in other states and then be treated equally: Holding §11450. ... The Berlin Wall restricted freedom of movement between East and West Germany after WWII Freedom of movement, mobility rights or the right to travel is a human rights concept which is respected in the constitutions of numerous Western states. ...

[T]he Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment expressly equates citizenship with residence: "That Clause does not provide for, and does not allow for, degrees of citizenship based on length of residence." Zobel , 457 U. S., at 69 . It is equally clear that the Clause does not tolerate a hierarchy of 45 subclasses of similarly situated citizens based on the location of their prior residence....[T]he protection afforded to the citizen by the Citizenship Clause of that Amendment is a limitation on the powers of the National Government as well as the States.

The Saenz Court also mentioned the majority opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases, which had stated that, "a citizen of the United States can, of his own volition, become a citizen of any State of the Union by a bona fide residence therein, with the same rights as other citizens of that State."[8] It appears that the Slaughterhouse Court was basing this statement on the Citizenship Clause, although the Saenz Court implied that the basis was the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Holding The 14th Amendment does not protect the privileges and immunities of state citizenship, only national citizenship. ... This provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is unique among constitutional provisions in that some scholars believe it was all but read out of the Constitution in a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court (see Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873). ...


Footnotes

  1. ^ "Constitutional Clauses & Their Nicknames." Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library.
  2. ^ Elk v. Wilkins,112 U.S. 94 (1884).
  3. ^ United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).
  4. ^ Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).
  5. ^ Afroyim v. Rusk,387 U.S. 253 (1967).
  6. ^ U.S. State Department, Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship and Dual Nationality.
  7. ^ Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999).
  8. ^ Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873).
  United States Constitution Complete text at Wikisource

Original text: Preamble ∙ Article 1 ∙ Article 2 ∙ Article 3 ∙ Article 4 ∙ Article 5 ∙ Article 6 ∙ Article 7 Page one of the original copy of the Constitution. ... :We the People redirects here. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Article One of the United States Constitution Article One of the United States Constitution states the establishment of the legislative branch of the United States government, known as Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Article Two of the United States Constitution Article Two of the United States Constitution creates the executive branch of the government, comprising the President and other executive officers. ... Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the federal government. ... Article Four of the United States Constitution relates to the states. ... Article Five of the United States Constitution describes the process whereby the Constitution may be altered. ... Article Six establishes the United States Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States made in accordance with it as the supreme law of the land, and fulfills other purposes. ... Article Seven of the United States Constitution describes the process by which the entire document is to be ratified and take effect. ...

Amendments: 1 ∙ 2 ∙ 3 ∙ 4 ∙ 5 ∙ 6 ∙ 7 ∙ 8 ∙ 9 ∙ 10 ∙ 11 ∙ 12 ∙ 13 ∙ 14 ∙ 15 ∙ 16 ∙ 17 ∙ 18 ∙ 19 ∙ 20 ∙ 21 ∙ 22 ∙ 23 ∙ 24 ∙ 25 ∙ 26 ∙ 27
 Formation  History of the Constitution • Articles of Confederation • Annapolis Convention • Philadelphia Convention • New Jersey Plan • Virginia Plan • Connecticut Compromise • Signatories
 Adoption  Massachusetts Compromise • Federalist Papers
 Amendments  Bill of Rights • Ratified • Proposed • Unsuccessful • Conventions to propose • State ratifying conventions
 Clauses  Case or controversy • Citizenship • Commerce • Commerce (Dormant) • Contract • Copyright • Due Process • Equal Protection • Establishment • Free Exercise • Full Faith and Credit • Impeachment • Natural–born citizen • Necessary and Proper • No Religious Test • Presentment • Privileges and Immunities (Art. IV) • Privileges or Immunities (14th Amend.) • Speech or Debate • Supremacy • Suspension • Takings Clause • Taxing and Spending • Territorial • War Powers
 Interpretation  Congressional power of enforcement • Double jeopardy • Enumerated powers • Incorporation of the Bill of Rights • Nondelegation • Preemption • Separation of church and state • Separation of powers • Constitutional theory


 

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