Birthright Citizenship: Two Perspectives

The Federalist Society has a debate on the 14th Amendment and citizenship. Here's one perspective that's anti- anchor baby from Gerald Walpin :

During the same session in which Congress approved the 14th Amendment, it had already enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, providing that, for a U.S.-born baby to be a citizen, the baby must “not [be] subject to any foreign power.”12 A child, although born in this country, who, after birth, returns with foreign citizen parents to, and lives in, the foreign country of which the child remains a citizen, is subject to that foreign power. Thus, that statute mandated that such U.S.-born children be denied U.S. citizenship. The record makes clear that, in considering the 14th Amendment, Congress did not repudiate the statute it had just enacted. Not even a single member introduced a bill to rescind that legislation. The absence of any attempts to walk back the statute suggests that Congress remained satisfied with that law, and that the same-session approval of the 14th Amendment did not signal any change of view.

Despite these facts, some might still question why, with this statute already enacted, it was necessary to adopt the 14th Amendment so shortly thereafter, if not to change the condition for granting citizenship. Others might ask why the 14th Amendment did not copy the negative requirement that the baby “not [be] subject to any foreign power,” but instead substituted the affirmative requirement that the baby must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. If one were to stop the analysis with the substitution, it certainly would leave reasonable questions. However, the statements made by the proposers of the 14th Amendment provide clear answers: The proposers sought to prevent any future Congress, by a simple majority vote, from altering or rescinding the civil rights statute.13 In contrast, altering or rescinding a constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress and approval by three-fourths of the state legislatures—a vastly increased burden and, as history has shown, seldom obtained.

We do not know the specific reason for the change in phraseology. However, it is irrelevant in our search for the meaning of the Amendment, because Senator Jacob Howard, the Amendment’s co-author, described it as “simply declaratory of … the law of the land already,”14 referring to the Civil Rights Act already enacted. Thus, he was confirming that the 14th Amendment, with slightly different wording, was intended to constitutionalize the statute’s requirement that the baby must “not [be] subject to any foreign power.”

This conclusion that no change of meaning was intended was also confirmed by the provision’s prime author, Senator Lyman Trumbull, who explained to the Congress before it voted, that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” required being “subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof,” meaning, as he put it, “not owing allegiance to anyone else.”15

You'll want to read this one.