On this day, the 14th Amendment was passed by Congress on June 13th, 1866, and adopted by the States on July 9, 1868. The Amendment had stated that “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.” This brought about great change when it came to BIPOC gaining citizenship during Reconstruction, specifically newly freed people post-Emancipation Proclamation. This also was the creation of “birthright” citizenship.
There are 5 sections that make up the 14th Amendment, but Section 1 is the most focused on. The first section of the Amendment states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Also known as “birthright citizenship.” Birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment was a critical key tool for creating citizenship for newly freed people and allowed them to own their own property and more. It wasn’t a widely accepted idea that all newly freed people should be granted citizenship due to blatant post-Civil War racism and White supremacist attitudes. However, there was a landmark Supreme Court Case that changed that.
In Scott v. Sanford (1857), the Supreme Court held that African Americans were not U.S. citizens, even if they were free. This case was also known as the Dred Scott Case. Dred Scott was born into slavery in Southampton County, Virginia. In 1818, he moved with his owner Peter Blow to Alabama, before moving to St. Louis, Missouri in 1830. Blow passed away in 1832, and army surgeon Dr. John Emerson purchased Scott where they hopped free states like Illinois, a free state, and then to Fort Snelling in Wisconsin Territory, another free state. After the army honorably discharged Emerson in 1842, the Emersons returned to St. Louis with Scott and his new wife and family. In April 1846, Dred and his wife Harriet filed separate lawsuits for freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court against the Emersons based on two Missouri statutes. “One statute allowed any person of any color to sue for wrongful enslavement. The other stated that any person taken to a free territory automatically became free and could not be re-enslaved upon returning to a slave state.” The Supreme Court held that African Americans were not U.S. citizens, even if they were free. However, the 14th Amendment overturned the case and guaranteed that everyone born or naturalized in the United States and under its jurisdiction would be a U.S. citizen. It also meant that states could not prevent freed slaves from obtaining state citizenship and in result federal citizenship.
However, over time the 14th Amendment has received a lot of support but also criticism. In a CNN 2015 interview, President Trump had stated that the “14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby, and, immediately, that baby is a citizen, OK?” That is where the story and the history of the 14th Amendment become multi-layered.
Initially, the 14th Amendment had given citizenship rights to newly freed people during Reconstruction and overturning cases like the Dred Scott case. However, the birthright topic in which Trump is speaking about is one of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) case. The U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark was a Supreme Court held that “when a child is born in America to non-citizen Chinese parents, that child is a United States citizen.” This also clarified that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States..are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This goes for ALL immigrant families who have had children born on U.S. soil.
The main point of controversy around birthright citizenship is the “benefits” surrounding it. Trump had quoted in a 2018 Axios interview that the U.S. is “the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits.” There are 30 other nations that also have birthright but with different, It is important that birthright isn’t a “benefit.” It’s called birthright’ for a reason. BIPOC, including Native American’s, have been fighting for their right to remain and be citizens within the U.S. despite the hardship and dark history of our nation.
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