Adopted in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says “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.”
Note the order of the clauses.
There are two conditions: referring to people who are born or naturalized in the United States, and are also subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, these people are citizens of the United States.
It doesn’t say that all persons born or naturalized here automatically become citizens, which will make them subject to US jurisdiction as a result. It doesn’t say that at all. It’s the other way round.
To clarify it, for the denser folks among us, we could add in the unspoken “already.”
Try this: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, who are already subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” (note: the “who are already” is my addition for clarity. This is what’s clearly meant by the original text).
If you are born here or naturalized here, and you are already subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, such as by being a child of American citizen parents or by having gone through the naturalization process, then you are a US citizen and nobody has a right to deny you the benefits of citizenship, such as the protections granted by the Bill of Rights.
This was an important issue in the late 19th century, because lots of local governments – primarily Democrat party-run governments, still frustrated over losing the Civil War – wanted to have it both ways with former slaves and their descendants. They wanted black Americans to have to pay taxes and work for a living and so forth, but they didn’t want them to be able to vote or participate in government or otherwise be considered equals under the law (in this, the Democrats haven’t changed much in the past 150 years).
So, the 14th Amendment clarified things. If these two conditions are met – you’re born or naturalized here, and you’re subject to the government of the USA – then you’re a citizen. Local party bosses can’t deny you the right to vote; they can’t deny you a jury trial; they can’t seize your land without just compensation, etc.
Unfortunately, for the past couple of generations, there has been a common misinterpretation of this amendment. People disregard the second clause entirely – “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” – and just declare that being born here alone automatically makes you a citizen.
This is nonsense.
But when people raise their voices to say “we need to correct this misinterpretation,” they are shouted down as bigots, and, politicians being what they are, usually back down at the accusation.
It’s easy to see what it means to be born or naturalized here. Your mom gave birth to you in a U.S. state or territory.
It’s also easy to see what the second clause means: what country legitimately claims the parents as subjects? If the parents are citizens of the United States, so is their child. If the parents are citizens of France, so is their child. If the parents are subjects of the King of England, or the King of Spain, or the King of Greece, then their child is too (why, yes, we could do this all day).
But why, you ask, didn’t they make it clearer, and clarify how citizenship is determined if the parents are just a Japanese couple on vacation here for a week, or if the parents are Italians, here on a business trip, or if the parents are a couple of Indian students here for a semester of college, or if the parents are illegal aliens who smuggled themselves in a cargo ship and just arrived in time for their child’s birth?
Why didn’t they specifically allow for all these possibilities when they wrote the 14th amendment?
Well, two reasons come to mind.
First, because the writers of the Amendment didn’t think we’d all be idiots.
Everyone knew, then and now, that the amendment was to ensure equal citizenship for black Americans, and they never dreamed anyone would conveniently forget that fact. People even asked at the time, what about children of parents from the Indian nations, or parents who are traveling diplomats or merchants from England or France? And the answer was that obviously then they’d be subject to the laws of the Indian nations or England or France, so it obviously doesn’t apply. It was painfully obvious, especially then, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, that this was about black Americans.
And second, because these odd circumstances that happen all the time nowadays were virtually unheard of in the 19th century. Hardly anyone traveled for business, hardly anyone traveled for college, hardly anyone traveled across an ocean on a vacation. We didn’t have airplanes or even safe cruise ships back then; we didn’t have cars and buses. The concept of just popping over from Europe or Asia for a week to have a baby and then go home was utterly inconceivable in the 19th century. Ocean travel wasn’t that much safer in 1868 than it was in the 17th century when half our original settlers died aboard ship on the way.
In short, you didn’t need to write an amendment to specifically cover foreigners here temporarily because it happened so rarely as to be nothing more than a rounding error. And since they didn’t anticipate a world of routine airline travel, they had no reason to believe that infrequency would ever change.
And besides, again, they didn’t think we’d be idiots.
The Modern Press
Unfortunately, before we can use reason and scholarship in studying constitutional questions nowadays, we are confronted with coverage in the world of journalism, which all too often poisons the well with bias.
A relevant example, from the Wall Street Journal on May 15:
“On the first day of his second term, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to reinterpret the 14th Amendment.”
When we talk about press bias, the setup of the premise is often the very first sin. Even before we get into who they interview for the story, which facts and examples they choose to cherry-pick, and how they frame the conclusion, they must begin with a setup: “this is what this story is about.”
And today’s example from the WSJ is an excellent case study.
The conventional wisdom today is that President Trump is trying to “reinterpret” AM14.
Is that true?
No.
In fact, he’s working to correct an illegal, intentional misinterpretation of the 14th amendment that’s been allowed to stand for a couple of generations.
The supporters of the 14th, when they ratified it a century and a half ago, wrote the amendment to ensure that blacks and other former slaves who were here legally deserved to be considered full citizens just like any other legal citizens.
The 14th was designed to stop crooked politicians from denying black neighbors the right to vote, or the right to go to public school, or the right to receive such government services as police protection and a fair trial if accused, and so forth.
But then sometime in the mid 20th century, the democrats got away with reinterpreting it to mean that a tourist from Europe or a student from India or an illegal farm worker from Mexico could just arrive in the USA in the morning, have a baby in the afternoon, and have that child qualify for all the benefits of US citizenship, from free schooling and healthcare to voting rights.
(Oh yes indeed, it’s always about voting rights).
Every time conservatives would scream about this “anchor baby” concept being unconstitutional, a twisting of the language and a violation of the rights of American citizens, the left would call us “bigots”… and we’d back down.
Finally, America has a president who’s not backing down.
It’s NOT racism. We just advocate common sense and the proper application of the law.
Any child born to US citizens on US soil is a US citizen too. Period. Black or white, striped or plaid. No racism involved.
And a child born to noncitizens on US soil is a citizen of his parents’ country, according to their laws.
That’s the only thing that makes sense, and it’s the clear intention of the Framers of the 14th amendment.
Now, this still doesn’t necessarily answer every question. We should work on clarifying the tough questions. What about a child born to two green card holders who end up going back to their original countries and abandoning their citizenship application? What about a child born to parents on student visas from different countries with different rules about dual citizenship? There are probably lots of odd cases like these, which would certainly be worth hammering out in congress, one at a time, to be thorough. And perhaps even adding to a reworked, more helpfully clarified Constitutional amendment.
But at minimum, we have to settle the big issue, which is ending this intentional, corrupt misinterpretation that has gone on for generations, filling the country with millions of citizens for the purposes of diluting the voting power of American citizens and empowering the Democratic party at the ballot box while devastating our bankrupt federal, state, and local safety nets.
Is President Trump’s Executive Order a reinterpretation? Of course not. The Democratic position is the corrupt reinterpretation.
President Trump is correcting an intentional, destructive misinterpretation, NOT singlehandedly reinterpreting a law that was correct before.
And to present this situation any other way is press bias, clear and simple.
Even if it’s coming from the Wall Street Journal.
Copyright 2025 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance trainer and consultant. President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his first nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” are all available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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