A citizen cannot renounce his allegiance to the United States without the permission of government, to be declared by law;
The highest court in New York.
If we can find a way to enforce our laws and keep people from coming into our country illegally while maintaining a strong legal immigration system, I think that's going to benefit everyone. If you come here illegally, and you commit a crime, you're not going to be able to stay in our country.
A Japanese alien, even if he has lived here for forty years, cannot become a citizen if he wants to. But a Japanese child born here becomes one whether he wishes to or not. Obviously, it is absurd to deny citizenship to Japanese aliens on the ground of race when we force it upon their children.
Here's a proposal, offered only partly in jest: no resident of the United States, whether born here or abroad, should get to be a citizen until age 18, at which time each such resident has to take a test.
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
Well I don't know, I might have lost my citizenship, I don't think you can lose your citizenship though.
Like all other law-abiding Americans, I fully support legal immigration.
Illegal immigration continues to be a major problem in the United States. We have people waiting to come here legally. And we should not be rewarding people who have come here illegally.
I do not support citizenship for those already here illegally. Those who cut the line and broke our laws as their first act entering this country have foregone that opportunity.
Everybody knows that if you're born in America, you are a citizen. No, you're not.
On the other hand, the vast majority of all westernized countries, including every single European country along with Israel and Japan, do not offer birthright citizenship.
The Constitution says Congress has complete control over who is and who is not a US citizen.
I try and make it to the word exactly what I said four years ago and what I said was that those who've come here illegally should not be given a special pathway, a favored pathway to become permanent residents merely by virtue of having come here illegally. That they should be in line with everybody - they should be given the opportunity to get in line with everybody else but they go to the back of the line.
Amnesty is a big billboard, a flashing billboard, to the rest of the world that we don't really mean our immigration law.
The 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen.
Congress decides who becomes a citizen and how. To automatically say the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship, no, we can't change that. Amending the Constitution, not possible, takes too long. We gotta find another way of dealing with this. No, we don't, because it's not there. You don't have to amend the Constitution.
Amnesty is not the answer as it will only encourage more illegal immigrants to enter.
I don't want to talk politics, but what I do say is I believe in rules and laws, and if you come to this country, you've got to abide by the rules here.
The 14th Amendment, 2nd Amendment, there's nothing in the Constitution that says that if you are born to an illegal immigrant in America, that you are an American citizen. It's not there. People think it is. They confuse it with being born to an American citizen in America or overseas. But there's nothing in the law, nothing in the Constitution.
I do believe that if you continually go through a cycle of amnesty, that you undermine the respect for the law and encourage more illegal immigration into America.
The14th Amendment does not require birthright citizenship. It doesn't mention it.
No person shall be admitted as a citizen who holds any heredity title.
Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.
Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. That's right. People will know that you can't just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. It's not going to work that way. Those days are over.
Birth on U.S. territory has never been an absolute claim to citizenship.
