Immigrant Legal Issues

 According to the AP in an article published on July 23:

 

 The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

The states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

Trump’s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S.

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In all of the hullabaloo over immigration and citizenship, no one ever seems to mention the requirements of the US Selective Service.  Males in the US between 18 and 26 years of age are required to register with the Selective Service System, just in case the federal government needs some involuntary cannon fodder. This is true not only for US citizens, but also for immigrants, documented and undocumented, residing in the US and its territories. This means that any undocumented alien in the age group that has not registered for the draft is a felon, subject to a fine of up to $250,000 or 5 years imprisonment or both. The last person indicted for this felony was Terry Kuelper, on January 23, 1986. The charge was later withdrawn before trial. Nine individuals have actually spent time behind bars for failure to register, the longest being for 6 months. As of today it will be 29 years since anyone has been prosecuted for failing to register with the Selective Service System.

The Selective Service is still in business, tasked with maintaining an information base of young men who might be needed in an unspecified emergency and with a multi-million dollar budget, and the law is still on the books but is being completely ignored. If there isn't going to be any enforcement, it should be erased and the agency terminated. One can only speculate on the number of foreign felons wandering about the country with no draft card but statistically there must be many.