Bulgarians, Pakistanis, Filipinos and a Token "American"

Three Bulgarians, three Filipinos, a Pakistani and a token American were sitting at a dinner table. Were they having a good time? Absolutely. This isn't the start of some good joke.

Last year, our daughter's first year of college, we had hoped to visit her more often than we did. We did a couple times, mostly on our way to and from someplace other than that town but mostly she came home. As a result, some friends of ours who moved to that town six years ago and whom we said we would visit more often now that our daughter was attending college there, didn't get seen at all. So this past holiday weekend, we decided to rectify that before another year goes by.

The Bulgarians, husband, wife and son who is now a senior in school, are actually U.S. Citizens now. Since we last saw them, they finished the last step of the process and were sworn in two years ago. Their son was born in Baltimore before either were citizens but by the interpretation of our Constitution, he has always been a U.S. citizen. That is up for review by our Supreme Court the last time I read anything about it. There are only a few countries that offer citizenship via the principle of jus soli or right of soil, meaning that if they are on U.S. soil when born, they are a citizen. One country, the United Kingdom has changed from this method in recent years so there is a trend to reverse this as the world becomes more crowded and resources dwindle. There are more countries that practice jus sanguinis means by blood and usually means that you must have parents or ancestors from that country to automatically become a citizen. Most countries in the world don't offer such guarantees to the newborn.

The Pakistani was a freshman in college and also a child born in America to non-citizen parents. Her parents weren't there at the meal but are good friends with my wife and the Bulgarians. I don't know if they are citizens now or not but as long as they have been in our country, I would suspect the answer is yes. My eldest daughter, who was born when I was a U.S. Citizen but not her mother, was part of what I am referring to as the Filipino contingent and our hope was to make a connection with the Pakistani girl. That turned out to be a great success and after we dropped them back off at the dorms, my daughter took the Pakistani girl out in search of some halal foods which she is having difficulty finding in the dorm cafeteria. Hopefully they can sort all that out.

I of course was the token "American", in quotations since I was the only one whose parents were both U.S. citizens at the time of my birth. It made me ponder a bit about birthright citizenship. From our 14th Amendment, section 1:

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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I'm not a legal scholar by any means but I think the debate of the recent months/years center around the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". It has broadly been defined as relating to foreign diplomats and the attempt it to narrow it by applying a more specific definition. I assume sometime in the coming weeks/months, we will know the outcome one way or another. 

Me personally, I see some wisdom in making the definition be a bit more restrictive. The vast majority of the countries in the world are way more restrictive than us and I assume for some very good reasons. As far as I know, there is no cottage birthing industries in any other country but ours, mostly because it isn't allowed like we do. Just because one was born on our soil and then the parents left with child never to return, seems like a stretch that they should enjoy all the privileges of citizenship at any point in the future should the child return. The main argument for this is that we are a land of plenty and wealth and can afford to take everyone. While I think this is debatable given some of the problems we suffered during our recent Covid pandemic, even if it were true now, how long will it remain true in the future? 

I would argue that the son of two non-citizen Bulgarians and that the daughter of two non-citizen Pakistanis (assumption for the sake of argument), are both worthy citizens that anyone who knows them would be happy that they are citizens of our great country and have been since their birth. I hope if the interpretation is narrowed to the point that their citizenship was no longer valid, that we grandfather those presently in that situation in as citizens and just start fresh.