Birthright Citizenship was NOT derived from the 14th Amendment but 30-years later, unconstitutionally, by activist supreme court judges in the Wong Kim Ark case. Yet, the false idea of the 14th Amendment’s ‘born in the United States’ citizenship clause granting ‘native-born’ citizenship, even meeting the ‘natural born’ citizenship requirement for president, is ‘common knowledge’ professed by just about every citizen, attorney, jurist,1 and politician.
Proof?
1) The 14th Amendment was a transfer of the 1866 Civil Rights Act from codified federal law to the constitution. The authors of the amendment made it clear in the congressional record of their discussions that it did not apply to children of foreign fathers. Those children were under the same foreign jurisdiction as the parents. Only by naturalization of the parents would the minor children also be naturalized citizens, i.e., they were NOT citizens at birth.
2) Unlike the ‘citizenship at birth’ created by the 1898 Wong Kim Ark court, the 14th Amendment did NOT create dual citizenship in conflict with existing legislated act. The Wong Kim Ark court admitted to Conflicts of Law, in violation of existing statute, but were so determined to revive ‘place of birth’ or jus soli rights of citizenship that they willingly abrogated the law (as cited and explained by the U.S. District Attorney quoted below). It was up to congress to ‘fix’ the problem, but congress never did and ‘birthright citizenship’ became a virus, and infection of the law so severe that it is now not just a Conflict of Law, but a full-blown Crisis.
PERSONAL NOTE AND REQUEST: I’ve been writing about the abuses of naturalization law since 2009. The above proofs are a distillation of tens of thousands of words and research into the essence of the law and how it changed. Reading the Wong Kim Ark case (1898) is no easy task. Associate Justice Grey goes to great lengths justifying his violations of the law, treaty, and jurisprudence to undermine and abrogate standing and followed law in order to elevate an antiquated and rejected feudal concept the jus soli, over a century of jus sanguinis being the foundation of our naturalization law. His reincarnation of that ‘dead’ concept was in direct conflict with constitutional laws, in complete opposition to the congressional mandate and plenary power to create UNIFORM NATURALIZATION LAW. Further research shows that this decision came at a time when the congress and ‘the people’ were fighting against a literal invasion of cheap Chinese labor. Labor unions were formed and statutes limiting admission of Chinese migrants passed, but the court sided with Big Business interests and the Six Chinese Companies, ‘busting’ the unions with this decision.
If you are suspicious of the above proofs, the following are extractions of history and cited portions of the Wong Kim Ark case so you don’t have to plow through it yourself.
Please, with Facebook cancelling all of my followers and banning me from Meta and Instagram, my reach is limited. If you share this post with your friends and followers, it would be much appreciated.
Leonard A. Daneman, Paralegal Retired
THE TRUMP VS BARBARA CASE DIDN’T DISCUSS THIS, IN FEAR OF BEING LABELED RACIST. BUT IF A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT LIMITING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP TO ‘LEGALLY DOMICILED’ ALIENS IS PASSED BY CONGRESS, IT WILL STILL BE A CONFLICT OF LAWS AND NOTHING MORE THAN MASSIVE AMNESTY
The Wong Kim Ark court created birthright citizenship in direct conflict with existing legislated act, its history, and the constitution itself. The decision wandered through pages of opinions and secondary sources to justify the conflict, ‘kicking the can down the road’ for future legislation to sort out.
But the conflict was real; dual citizenship through revival of ‘feudal’ traditions of ‘place of birth’ allegiance for a child who already inherited, by blood, the foreign nationality of its parents by statute and natural law.
The conflict created by birthright citizenship was a distinct departure from the ‘born in the United States’ clause of the 14th Amendment, which DID NOT create the conflict of dual nationality. Contrary to popular opinion and the opinion of legal ‘experts,’ birthright citizenship did NOT derive from the 14th Amendment. Instead, the court unconstitutionally created it, leading to a crisis; an infection in the law that is slowly killing our country.
Today, the racial and cultural heritage from the nation’s founding to World War II has shifted to the point that entire political classes are battling in cities, states, and congress. Birthright citizenship is a magnet for opportunists coming here to receive free social services and medical care, never intending to become citizens themselves. Childcare is paid for by the state, by citizen taxpayers in a disappearing middle class struggling to afford their own housing and children. 10% of children born are from non-citizen parents.2 Since World War II, Muslims have grown from 5000 to 5M in population. The Muslim security guard reported in the recent San Diego Islamic Center shooting has eight children. And although polygamy is still illegal and a deportable offense, his number of wives was not reported. The Somalis, more Muslims imported by Obama, have gained political power through defrauding social services which investigation may prove to equal our entire national debt.
The parents have no intention to naturalize, or are denied that right due to unlawful residency status, but the children born here are citizens who retain national identity and loyalty through blood and culture. Politicians who can’t make the difficult decision to enforce the law as it was intended by congress and defy the 1898 Supreme Court feel the only answer is giving up, declaring amnesty.
Did the 1898 U.S. Supreme Court Act in Advocacy in Support of Big Business and Chinese Organizations?
Aristotle declared that ‘The Law was Reason, Free from Passion.’ But we all know that justices of the highest court are often moved by politics and other pressures. Did the 1898 court ignore the law, blurring distinctions in dualities and verbosity in order to benefit Big Business and cheap Chinese labor, in direct opposition to citizen workers and labor unions?
A careful study of Wong Kim Ark reveals the court violating 108-years of legislated act, treaty, and the constitution itself in order to ‘legalize’ the admission of one Chinese worker, leading to the eventual repeal of the Chinese Exclusionary Act.
What statutes were violated by the court? For 108-years, a child gained U.S. citizenship through the father already being a citizen, or naturalized as a minor when the father naturalized himself. That is the principle of jus sanguinis, the law of blood inheritance. In fact, the court cited all Uniform Naturalization Acts from the First in 1790 et seq to 1855’s revisions. In all those statutes, there was no provision for citizenship at birth to a foreign father’s children, illegally or legally ‘domiciled.’ There was also the Chinese Exclusionary Act.
The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 permitted business to acquire unlimited Chinese labor, until the Chinese Exclusionary Act of 1882. The Treaty and Act represented a tug of war between the Executive and Legislative branches, one supporting labor groups and pro-immigration progressives, and the other interests expressed by the People. Surely, the treaty was one-sided as U.S. citizens were limited in having any influence in China.
Article I’s Congressional Power was to Create Uniform Naturalization Law, but the Court Created Conflict
And the constitution was absolutely abrogated by the court, admitting to but then ignoring the plenary power of congress to produce ‘uniform’ naturalization laws under Article I Section 8, and the limited purpose of the 14th Amendment itself. The creation of ‘native born’ citizenship was in direct conflict with 108-years of the jus sanguinis. No greater conflict of the constitutional ‘uniform’ law possible; Conflict of Law being the absolute opposite of Uniform Law.
Yes, the Wong Kim Ark court admitted that the law supported the position of the government in denying Wong Kim Ark entry into the United States–in the record as an amicus brief–the U.S. Attorney citing specific statute denying Wong’s claim of citizenship rights and therefore also denying admission into the United States (full quote from the case below in, ‘Native Born Citizenship Did Not Exist in the Law’).
But, through an incredible exercise of sophism the court abandoned U.S. law and reached back into England’s feudal common law and jurists, foreign and extinct opinions that in earlier centuries mandated permanent allegiance of all children born within the king’s dominions. This was the principle of jus soli, or law of the soil. And the court insisted, despite rules of jurisprudence, that English common law prevail above and supersede legal precedent, thereby creating citizenship for Wong Kim Ark based solely on the fact he was born in the United States.
The court dismissed Uniform Naturalization Law being a constitutional plenary power of congress, and challenged them to fix any conflict of law by revising statute to accommodate the whims of the court. That never happened, except for a mass psychosis misinterpreting the ‘born in the United States’ citizenship clause to apply to aliens, legal or illegal.
Invasion vs Immigration
“At least one Chinamen has already been naturalized, and though none of them have any intention of remaining here permanently, if it would pay them to acquire votes and they could be protected in voting, there are none of them who would object to being naturalized every hour in the day. The swearing required is nothing to them, and as for identification, all Chinamen look alike to the unpracticed eye. At present, law or no law, the Chinese on the Pacific coast could not vote, unless between lines of bayonets; but this do not prove they will never vote. Who could have dreamed ten years ago that the slaves of South would now be the voters?” 1869-05-01 Henry George: The Chinese in California NY Tribune, pg 1, 2 https://cooperative-individualism.org/george-henry_chinese-in-california-1869-may.pdf
Thirty-three years later, a Pro-Chinese activist expressed his opinion:
On January 12, 1902, [a human rights activist championed the Chinese. William Lloyd Garrison Jr.] gave a lengthy speech at the Henry George Club in Philadelphia. He pointed out that the real reason for Chinese exclusion was for politicians to win the favor of union voters on the West Coast Historical Record of Chinese Americans | A Hundred-Year Grievance: Chinese Americans and Voting Rights Chinese Exclusion Act/排华法案, English Articles / March 30, 2022
Author: Qian Huang https://usdandelion.com/archives/6970
Garrison went on to say that the Chinese were moral, upstanding people who would assimilate if given the chance. However, the article by Henry George himself described a people undercutting ‘white’ workers through accepting intolerable living standards. And, regardless of the freedoms guaranteed by the Burlingame Treaty, the people, language and culture were that of China and under total subjection of the Chinese Emperor. Money was sent back to China, workers returning to live comfortably on their savings, and ships carrying bags of gold dust regularly transited the Pacific back to China.
In 1898, 10% of California’s population was Chinese, and they had no citizenship other than, under statute and treaty, permanent subjection to the Chinese Emperor. The Wong Kim Ark case, in violation and conflict with over 108-years of U.S. statute, suddenly created a potentially massive constituency, if not voting bloc, by creating ‘native born’ citizenship for Chinese nationals.
There were nativists who fought the pro-immigration advocates; many comparing the denial of naturalization for the Chinese to the plight of the freed slaves. The unions were fighting to preserve livable working wages and conditions for their members and saw the Chinese laborers as a threat. On one side, pro-Chinese capitalists said there was a demand for labor justifying importation of Chinese; while the unions complained their lower wages were displacing citizens.
Considering the politics of the time, the Wong Kim Ark case may have been more political and influenced by Progressives and the Six Chinese Companies than a true and honest, dispassionate consideration of the law.
Native Born Citizenship Did Not Exist in the Law
In U.S. law from 1790 et seq, there was no such thing as a ‘native born’ form of citizenship. In fact, there still isn’t except for a general misinterpretation as ‘common knowledge.’ A child was either ‘born or naturalized,’ and the conditions were clear in the law—the child was either born to a U.S. citizen father, or the father naturalized which conferred automatically to all minor children.
Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States, but as a minor he retained the Chinese national subjection of his parents. The family returned, permanently, to China in 1890. When Wong reached the age of 21, he decided to return to the United States but was detained and ordered to be sent back to China. This order was supported by the law, as presented by the District Attorney of the United States:
At the hearing, the District Attorney of the United States was permitted to intervene in behalf of the United States in opposition to the writ, and stated the grounds of his intervention in writing as follows:
“That, as he is informed and believes, the said person in [Page 169 U. S. 650] whose behalf said application was made is not entitled to land in the United States, or to be or remain therein, as is alleged in said application, or otherwise.”
“Because the said Wong Kim Ark, although born in the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, United States of America, is not, under the laws of the State of California and of the United States, a citizen thereof, the mother and father of the said Wong Kim Ark being Chinese persons and subjects of the Emperor of China, and the said Wong Kim Ark being also a Chinese person and a subject of the Emperor of China.”
“Because the said Wong Kim Ark has been at all times, by reason of his race, language, color and dress, a Chinese person, and now is, and for some time last past has been, a laborer by occupation.”
“That the said Wong Kim Ark is not entitled to land in the United States, or to be or remain therein, because he does not belong to any of the privileged classes enumerated in any of the acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, * which would exempt him from the class or classes which are especially excluded from the United States by the provisions of the said acts.”
“Wherefore the said United States Attorney asks that a judgment and order of this honorable court be made and entered in accordance with the allegations herein contained, and that the said Wong Kim Ark be detained on board of said vessel until released as provided by law, or otherwise to be returned to the country from whence he came, and that such further order be made as to the court may seem proper and legal in the premises.”
This request for summary judgment should have been the end of it. The State Department and U.S. Attorney had jurisdiction over immigration and the law was clearly an Article I Sec 8 plenary power of congress. The case should have been dismissed and Wong Kim Ark returned to China. But that’s not what happened. The court decided to ignore the law and take the matter under ‘cases and controversies;’ although as the law was clear and unambiguous, no controversy existed. Yet, the court, in its advocacy, invoked foreign law in order to change U.S. immigration and naturalization for this one Chinese laborer, a cook.
Conflicts of Law—’birthright citizenship’ case was in direct and absolute conflict with existing law, Justice Gray even citing Joseph Story and A.V. Dicey (the latter was a British Whig). The first conflict was whether the court had subject matter jurisdiction. The law was clear–from 1790 onwards to the late 1800’s–and Justice Gray even cited and reviewed all legislated acts from 1790 et seq. (United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), page 672). Justice Grey played between the feudal jus soli mandates of permanent allegiance to more modern concepts of free choice, putting allegiance into a ‘grey’ area (pun intended), regardless of a universal acceptance of jus sanguinis in modern law, a fundamental legal principle shared by England and France.
But relying on centuries old feudal British common law and commentaries violated jurisprudence and the clear law of the land. The cited foreign laws were not stare decisis or ‘followed’ law, yet Justice Gray insisted on ignoring existing statute, creating his own law.
Here is the particular text where the diversion takes place:
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, [another British jurist] in the same year, reviewing the whole matter, said:
“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.” [Writer’s Note: If you read the 1772 British Nationality Act, the father’s national allegiance and subjection is the common and key factor in the child’s national subjection and allegiance, regardless of ‘place of birth’ within the King’s dominions. So it ‘appears’ Lord Chief Justice Cockburn is mistaken.]
By the Constitution of the United States, Congress was empowered “to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.”
“In the exercise of this power, Congress, by successive acts, beginning with the act entitled “An act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization,” passed at the second session of the First Congress under the Constitution, has made provision for the admission to citizenship of three principal classes of persons: First. Aliens, having resided for a certain time “within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States,” and naturalized individually by proceedings in a court of record. Second. Children of persons so naturalized, “dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization.” Third. Foreign-born children of American citizens, coming within the definitions prescribed by Congress. Acts of March 26, 1790, c. 3; January 29, 1795, c. 20; June 18, 1798, c. 54; 1 Stat. 103, 414, 566; April 14, 1802, c. 28; March 26, 1804, c. 47; 2 Stat. 153, 292; February 10, 1854, c. 71; 10 Stat. 604; Rev.Stat. §§ 2165, 2172, 1993.
. . . In 1802, all former acts were repealed, and the provisions concerning children of citizens were reenacted in this form:
The children of persons duly naturalized under any of the laws of the United States, or who, previous to the passing of any law on that subject by the Government of the United States, may have become citizens of any one of the said States under the laws thereof, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of their parents’ being so naturalized or admitted to the rights of citizenship, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States, and the children of persons who now are, or have been citizens of the United States shall, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never resided within the United States.” Page 169, 170 U. S. 672 [emphasis mine]
In effect, Gray cites every Uniform Naturalization Act, from 1790 to 1855, and then dismisses Congressional Plenary Power under the Constitution in order to invoke English law, law not even followed by England.
To support his ‘place of birth’ principle, Justice Gray decried the practice of both England and China who considered renunciation of subjection at birth a form of treason.
Conclusion: One must consider the outcome of the decision. One, a Chinese man born in the United States to Chinese parents who all, as a family, returned to China, gained U.S. citizenship without any process of naturalization, i.e., oath and renunciation. And two, 10% of California’s population, Chinese, potentially became a solid voting bloc of the electorate.
The question is, was the birth of ‘birthright citizenship’ intended as a tool of invasion as it is now? The Chinese Exclusionary Act was repealed in 1943, the Chinese no longer denied entry; but within a few years key U.S. industries were, in effect, deported to China. President Trump has tried to reverse loss of critical industry through tariffs, but the U.S. Supreme Court has, once again, interfered with the will of the people.
- James C. Ho, Chinese immigrant now Associate Justice 5th Circuit in his law review article: “The Fourteenth Amendment begins: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Repeal proponents contend that this language does not apply to the children of aliens – whether legal or illegal (with the possible exception
of lawful permanent residents) – because such persons are not “subject to [U.S.] jurisdiction.” But text, history, judicial precedent, and Executive Branch interpretation confirm that the Citizenship Clause reaches most U.S.-born children of aliens, including illegal aliens.” https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/publications/Ho-DefiningAmerican.pdf ↩︎ - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/31/about-9-of-us-births-in-2023-were-to-unauthorized-or-temporary-legal-immigrant-mothers/ ↩︎
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