Kamala Harris was born in the US. The Trump campaign brings back conspiracy theories for birtherism anyway.

If you thought Trumpworld went beyond birtherism, think again.

Just hours after presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday introduced Kamala Harris as his presidential running mate, the Trump campaign was busy trying to dispel racist conspiracy theories of the kind of Donald Trump back in 2011.

Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis retweeted an op-ed written by Professor John Eastman in which he claimed that Harris “is not entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment as originally understood,” citing a Frisian legal theory that ‘ t claims that children of temporary visitors to the country do not receive citizenship, even if they were born here.

Ellis is clearly trying to get controversy over the question of whether Harris, a Black woman who is a naturalized citizen for immigrant parents from India and Jamaica, is actually a U.S. citizen, and therefore eligible to serve as vice president.

Ellis asked for comment by Will Steakin of ABC, saying that Harris’s qualification is “an open question. ”

In reality, however, Harris is not in conversation.

Kamala Harris is a ‘natural born citizen’ under the Constitution

Sen. Harris was born to immigrant parents in Oakland, California. That fact alone makes her a ‘naturally born citizen’, and therefore eligible to serve as president or vice president.

Under the 14th Amendment, “all persons born as naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside.” So, with one narrow exception for individuals who are not under the “jurisdiction” of the United States – that is, people who are not subject to U.S. law – everyone born in this country is automatically a citizen.

The Supreme Court declared the narrow scope of this exception of “jurisdiction” in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), a case that held that a Chinese American man born in San Francisco was an American citizen. Certain Native American Americans, who were historically exempt from U.S. taxes and primarily subject to tribal law, were not considered citizens, even if they were born within U.S. borders. Similarly, the children of foreign diplomats (who enjoy diplomatic immunity under U.S. law), and “the children of foreign enemies, born under and within their hostile occupation” are also not citizens at birth.

But Harris’s parents were not foreign diplomats, and they certainly did not form part of an invading army. That makes her a natural citizen.

However, in the Newsweek advice piece promoted by Ellis the Chapman University professor of law John Eastman tries to lay a case for Birala of Kamala Harris. Eastman’s primary argument is that there is a missing word in the Declaration of the 14th Amendment that “all persons born as naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction,” are citizens.

The expression “subject to its jurisdiction”, Eastman argues, means “subject to the complete jurisdiction, not only a part jurisdiction similar to that applicable to anyone temporarily residing as a resident of the United States (whether legal or unlawful). “So, Eastman suggests, Harris is not a citizen if her parents were not” legal permanent residents at the time of her birth. ”

This argument that the words “subject to its jurisdiction” actually mean “subject to full jurisdiction” is not new – in fact it is very old. In Wong Kim Ark, the two deviating justices made a similar assertion. “Born in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction,” according to Chief Justice dissident Melville Fuller in Wong Kim Ark, means born “under such circumstances as are entirely subject to that jurisdiction.”

Fuller took an even stinking opinion on citizenship than Eastman – Fuller’s dissent suggests that only the children of American citizens are entitled to civil citizenship. But the fact that the Wong Kim Ark dissent and Eastman both read the word “complete” in an amendment that did not deeply underline Eastman’s argument. It must of course be said that a dissenting opinion is not the law.

There are also good reasons to believe that the Wong Kim Ark majority opinion is correct and that the dissent misread the 14th Amendment.

De Wong Kim Ark majority produced an unusual scientific opinion, which traced the history of the birth of civil rights back to the English common law that existed prior to American independence. “The fundamental principle of the common law concerning English nationality was birth within the marriage,” Wong Kim Ark explains. This rule of citizenship was’ not limited to native-born subjects and naturalized subjects, as to those who had taken an oath of allegiance; but were predictable for aliens in amity, as long as they were in the kingdom. “

This English general rule of law, Wong Kim Ark continues, “was in force in all English colonies on this continent until the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States thereafter, and continued to rule under the Constitution as originally enacted.” Indeed, the principle that “all children born in the United States to non-diplomatic parents became citizens at the time of their birth” does not appear to be more than fifty years after adoption. of the Constitution. “

There was one very important early American advancement of the rule of civil citizenship. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), a notorious decision on slavery, the Court held that Black people “are considered to be of an inferior order, and not at all fit to associate with the white race, in social or political relations” – and therefore not entitled on the rights of citizenship.

But one of the primary goals of the 14th Amendment was cover-up Dred Scott. As de Wong Kim Ark majority, sought the amendment to establish the Citizens’ Initiative of Free Negroes, which was rejected in the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott. ”

This history, in other words, suggests that civil rights were the American rule long before the 14th Amendment was ratified. This general rule inevitably came into conflict with slavery of talks – which could only exist in a nation that denied its followers the full rights of citizenship – but the nation chose birth-citizenship then slavery as part of the settlement that ‘ t ended the Civil War.

And that regulation was written into the constitution even when the 14th amendment was ratified.

There is simply no basis, in other words, for denying that the child of immigrants – someone like Kamala Harris – is a natural citizen.

Once a birther, always a birther

It is no shock that the Trump campaign would so quickly be used to print conspiracy theories of this kind about the first Black and Indian American woman to appear on the presidential map of a major party. Trump has a long and surreptitious history of doing the same about the first American president of the Blacks.

During the run-up to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, Trump held himself to the extreme right by pushing for conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace. For example, during an April 2011 appearance on CNN, Trump said, ‘he could have been born in Kenya and moved to the United States. Everyone wants to be a US citizen, and his grandparents put up an ad saying he was born in the United States because of all the benefits you get from being born in the United States. “

Obama responded the same month by releasing long-form copies of his birth certificate. But even then, Trump would not admit that he was wrong, and in the months that followed, he repeatedly claimed that Obama’s birth certificate was false.

When then-Republican presidents nominated Trump to finally address his history of birtherism at a September 2016 press conference, he went so far as to suggest that he deserved praise for raising the issue, saying unapologetically: ‘I’m ready . President Obama was born in the United States period. ‘ ‘

But there are indications that Trump’s interest in birtherism in the White House persists. In November 2017, the New York Times reported that Trump “used closed-door talks to question the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.”

One senator who listened when the president raised his doubts about Mr Obama’s birth certificate nodded on Tuesday when he returned the call. The president, he said, has had a hard time dismissing his claim that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States. The senator asked not to be appointed to discuss private conversations.

Reaching for comment on Thursday afternoon, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said Trump was the national leader of the grotesque, racist birthing movement with respect to President Obama and has tried to fuel racism and tear our nation apart on a daily basis. of his presidency.

‘So it’s not surprising, but no less appalling, that if Trump makes a fool of himself to punish the American people for the appalling toll of his failed coronavirus response that his campaign and its allies to cruel, demonstrably false lies in their pathetic would despair, ”Bates added.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a question about whether Ellis’ comments reflect the official position of the campaign.

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