Settled Law

Mark Krikorian claims to support law of the soil citizenship but he finds the stridency of law of the soil proponents irksome.  Why?  Because of arguments like this:

[Linda Chavez] writes:

The language is unambiguous: “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.”

By “unambiguous,” of course, she actually means “ambiguous,” since the meaning of the “jurisdiction” part is not at all obvious and is the focus of the whole debate.

That's right, if you point out that all the Supreme Court decisions, like this one, dealing with "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" mean being here regardless of how you got here makes the legal meaning of the 14th unambiguous you're "sneering" at those constitutional Conservatives who only want to "debate" the possibility that American values require the creation of a second class of non-citizens.