Does the Constitution grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States?

Even the children of people who've entered the country illegally, or the children of foreign tourists who owe our country no allegiance?

That's the question underlying the controversial issue of birthright citizenship.

Many people today take it for granted that the answer is yes.

If you're born on American soil, you're an American citizen, period. End of issue. But is that

what the Constitution says? Let's first look at the text of that document, specifically the 14th Amendment.

It reads, all persons born or naturalized in the United States

and subject to the jurisdiction thereof

are citizens of the United States.

Case closed, right?

Not so fast.

The key phrase here is subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

It creates a second condition for birthright citizenship

beyond merely being born on American soil. But it also raises another question, who is born

subject to U.S. jurisdiction? To answer that question, we need some historical context.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil

War. Its purpose was to rectify the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott v. Sanford,

in which the court declared that Black Americans were not and could never be citizens.

Even after slavery was abolished in 1865, Dred Scott technically

remained the law of the land. Black Americans were left in limbo. They were no longer slaves,

but they still were not citizens. The 14th Amendment resolved the issue once and for all.

These newly freed slaves and their descendants were certainly born subject to the jurisdiction

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