Should the parents. after the child is born here. leave it either to the care of friends or strangers. and the child grows up in the United States to mans estate. then the fourteenth amendment steps in. and by that constitutional provision he is a citizen as a "person born in the United States." It needs no act of Congress to make him such. nor could an act of Congress deprive him of that constitutional right. That portion of this conglomerate paragraph which provides that "a child born within the United States of parents" "who are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States shall not be regarded as a citizen" is completely superfluous. inasmuch as all persons born under such direumstances -are specially excepted from the operation of the fourteenth amendmont. and no additional negative is required from Congress to make the exception any more valid. How an infant born under circumstances not entitling him to citizenship by right of birth may acquire it through the naturalization of his parents during his minority is alreatly amply provided for by long existing laws. and all such new requirmunts as the filing of a declaration with the State Department. which this paragraph seeks to establish. are. obnoxious innovations. They break into the accepted principle that naturalization is a judicial proceeding terminating with a solemnm adjudgment of a court of competent jurisdiction. and not dependent on the favor or discretion of an executive officer of a department. The attempt to introduce the system here is a weak copy of the English practice. where naturali. zation isa favor granted or withheld by the Crown as it chooses. Even the British naturalization act of 1870. in its seventh section. fully recognizes this royal prerogative. In this Republic naturalization has ever been a right founded in law to be adjudged by a court. and the executive branch of the Government should have neither control over nor part i i it. 5. The second subdivision of this section. from line 27 to 32. is thoroughly objectionable. In the first place it is useless. since the status of children born of American citizens in foreign countries is clearly defined by the first section of the act of February 10. 1855.
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naturalization