Tampering With Citizenship The Process And The Perils Of Changing The 14th Amendment

The Los Angeles Times has a great Editorial up on the process and perils of tampering with the 14th Amendment, up here:

What the article does exceptionally well is outline the process of  actually changing the 14th Amendment, and why it is so difficult for states to actually change who is and is not a citizen. In particular it does an excellent job of outlining the specific contours of the 14th Amendment in regard to citizenship:

The [14] amendment, ratified after the Civil War, 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." The natural reading of that language is that it covers any person born in the United States, who by definition is subject to American law. But the legislators opposed to so-called birthright citizenship offer a different interpretation of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." They argue that a child is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States unless he or she has "at least one parent who owes no allegiance to any foreign sovereignty, or [is] a child without citizenship or nationality in any foreign country.

The Editorial also does an excellent job of outlining the State Legislators plan:

The legislators lack the authority to change the definition of citizenship, something they hope Congress will do. But they hope to lay the groundwork for a two-tiered system with two proposals based on the idea that birthright citizenship is invalid.  One would confer what's known as "state citizenship" on people with at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent legal resident, while denying it to children with two parents who are illegal immigrants. The other would create a compact in which participating states would issue two kinds of birth certificates, one for children who meet those criteria and another for children "not born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States," in effect creating a caste system.

And finally why the concept of State Citizenship is impossible to reconcile with already existing federal laws:

The legislators' definition of citizenship is impossible to reconcile with Supreme Court precedent. In 1898, the court, interpreting the 14th Amendment in light of common law, ruled that the American-born child of noncitizen Chinese immigrants was entitled to citizenship. It rested its decision on the "fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory." The only exceptions, the court said, were "children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or [those] born on foreign public ships, or [children] of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and … children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes."