Let's hope the SCOTUS decides on the right side of The Constitution of the United States. If they don't - We the People - means nothing.

 

What ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ really meant

To really understand the 14th Amendment, we must examine a little-known but crucial aspect of Civil War history.

Larry Moore | April 21, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

The Supreme Court is now considering a fundamental question: Is a person born in the United States automatically a citizen?  The answer turns on a single phrase in the 14th Amendment: that a person born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a citizen.  The language appears simple.  The history behind it is anything but.

To understand what that phrase meant, we must revisit a part of American history that is often overlooked if not outright hidden.  The conventional narrative portrays the Civil War–era North as uniformly noble and anti-slavery.  And it is true that many Northern states abolished slavery well before the Civil War.  But now, the rest of the story.

After ending slavery, several Northern states enacted laws that made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for free black people to remain within their borders.  These laws required proof of freedom; registration with authorities; and, in some cases, the posting of substantial financial bonds.

Consider Ohio.  After abolishing slavery, it required free black individuals entering the state to present proof of freedom, something a runaway slave could not produce, and they had to post a bond, typically $500.  In today’s terms, that is roughly $14,000.  For a family of six, that would amount to approximately $84,000.  The practical effect was obvious: Most newly freed individuals could not afford to stay.

Other states followed similar paths.  Indiana imposed registration and bonding requirements and ultimately prohibited black immigration altogether.  Illinois required proof of freedom and later barred black settlement entirely.  Iowa imposed bond requirements.  Oregon enacted laws ordering free black residents to leave and prohibiting future settlement.  Michigan required registration and bonding.

These were not isolated policies.  They formed a broader pattern: the legal exclusion of free black people from most of the North.  This context also sheds light on the origins of the Underground Railroad.  Whereas it is commonly associated with escaped slaves fleeing the South, the reality was that early migrants were freed black individuals who had been effectively driven out of Northern states.  With few viable options, many went north to Canada, where such restrictions did not apply, while slaves escaping from the South were not welcome to stay and had to keep moving to Canada.

At the same time, other Union-aligned states were still slave states.  Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware all permitted slavery until the end of  the Civil War.  The division between “free” and “slave” states was more complex than modern accounts often suggest.  New England states abolished slavery early but did not free those in bondage, so there were older blacks still enslaved.  In reality, the Northern states were not as sympathetic to black freedom as portrayed by history.  There were even national proposals, such as the colonization movement, that sought to resolve the issue of slavery by relocating black Americans abroad, most notably to Liberia.  These efforts, though supported by some political leaders, were largely rejected by black Americans themselves.

Against this backdrop, the 14th Amendment emerges with greater clarity.  The amendment’s Citizenship Clause was designed to resolve a specific problem: the legal status of formerly enslaved people, almost all of whom had been born in the United States by 1860 and lived under its laws, and were unquestionably subject to its jurisdiction.  Yet prior to this amendment, they could have been denied citizenship and deported, as was done in many Northern states.

The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was not incidental.  It was intended to confirm that those who were born in a state but were not citizens, nor owed allegiance to any other sovereign, and were fully subject to U.S. law, were in fact citizens.  In the context of its adoption, that meant ensuring that black Americans could not be excluded, displaced, or denied citizenship, as had been done in many Northern states.

The 14th Amendment was, at its core, a preventive measure.  It would not allow the United States as a nation to do as the Northern states had done: to free black residents, then push them out, whether through bond requirements, exclusion laws, or financial barriers.

 

This post explains how the method of 'parole' is used to accommodate immigration. Numerous 'methods' are provided within immigration policy; parole is one of them.

 

Wife of active-duty U.S. Army soldier detained by ICE in Texas at immigration appointment

By Camilo Montoya-Galvez CBS News 4-20-26

An active-duty U.S. Army soldier who has served in the military for 27 years, including in Afghanistan, said he still does not "understand why" his wife was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week in Texas.

In an interview with CBS News Sunday, Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano, 51, said his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, was arrested by ICE on April 14 during an appointment at an immigration office in El Paso.

Rivera Ortega, who married Serrano in 2022, has been in the U.S. for over a decade, since 2016. She was granted a legal protection in 2019 that prohibits her deportation to her native El Salvador, U.S. immigration court documents show. But the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News that Rivera Ortega entered the U.S. illegally, and Serrano said his wife has been informed she could be deported to a third country, like Mexico, where she has no ties.

 U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano and his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, in an undated photo. CBS News

ICE's online detainee tracking system indicated Rivera Ortega was being held at the agency's El Paso processing center as of Sunday evening.

"I don't really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one," Serrano said, noting his wife had an active work permit at the time of her arrest.

"I love the Army. (The) Army helped me out for almost 28 years. It's not the Army, sir. It's ICE," Serrano said later in the interview. "ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have."

If his wife is sent to Mexico, Serrano said he would likely not be able to see her without jeopardizing his military career, given restrictions on service members traveling to Mexico.

"We don't know nobody in Mexico," he said. "Plus, as a military, we're not allowed to go to Mexico."

Serrano, who was born in Puerto Rico, said his wife's detention has exacerbated his mental health challenges, noting he has been treated previously for a traumatic brain injury, PTSD and depression.

"Since this happened, I'm sleeping only two hours a day, two hours a night," he added.

ICE detentions like these are increasing

Historically, ICE has exercised its discretion to refrain from arresting immediate relatives of U.S. service members, absent national security or public safety concerns. But detentions of immigrant spouses and parents of U.S. service members have become more common under the second Trump administration, which has eliminated Biden-era limits on ICE operations and broadened who is eligible for arrest and deportation.

DHS has said those cases have involved people with deportation orders or who are otherwise in the U.S. illegally.

In a statement to CBS News, DHS said Rivera Ortega was ordered deported on Dec. 12, 2019, after receiving "full due process." It also called her a "criminal illegal alien" from El Salvador, saying she was convicted of illegal entry into the U.S., a federal misdemeanor offense. 

"Rivera-Ortega remains in ICE custody pending removal," DHS added.

Government documents reviewed by CBS News show Rivera Ortega was summoned to the El Paso immigration office for an interview related to an application for Parole in Place, a special program designed to offer deportation protections to military spouses or parents who are in the U.S. without legal status. If granted, Parole in Place can also help those spouses or parents obtain legal permanent residency.

Serrano said he submitted a Parole in Place application on behalf of his wife last year, and that the case remains pending. He added that he told officials at the immigration office about his military service before his wife was detained last week, and that he was not given an explanation following the arrest.

"They really don't care, sir. They said 'we cannot send her to El Salvador, but we gonna send her to Mexico,'" he said.

In December 2019, an immigration judge granted Rivera Ortega protection under the Convention Against Torture, a United Nations treaty designed to protect people who could be tortured if deported. That protection has blocked her deportation to El Salvador and allowed her to obtain a permit to work in the U.S. lawfully. Serrano said his wife had been working at the two hotels inside Fort Bliss before her detention. CBS News reviewed her military ID, which labels her the spouse of an active-duty Army soldier.

Those granted protection under the Convention Against Torture are simultaneously ordered deported, though that deportation is deferred. And while the protection shields beneficiaries from being sent to their native countries, it does not offer them a pathway to U.S. citizenship or prevent the government from deporting them to third countries.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has expanded detentions of individuals granted those limited immigration protections, seeking to deport them to countries that are not their own.

Matthew Kozik, an attorney helping Serrano and his wife, said he filed a habeas petition in federal court, arguing that Rivera Ortega's detention is unlawful. "I served the Army as a judge advocate for 10 years. And as a judge advocate and a combat veteran, bronze star service member, what is going on is absurd," Kozik said.

Danitza James, a U.S. military veteran and president of the group Repatriate Our Patriots, said ICE's actions were creating "uncertainty" for service members and their families.

"When the promise to protect those who serve is delayed, military readiness suffers, because a force cannot be mission-ready when its families are left in limbo," she said.

 

It is absolutely amazing how 'government' and the 'court system' has used 'parole' as a means of immigation!

 

Supreme Court to hear migrant parole case Wednesday

The case focuses on Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national who became a lawful permanent resident in the United States in 2007. In 2012, Lau was convicted of trademark counterfeiting in New Jersey and fled the country.

By Andrew Rice | The Center Square justthenews.com 4-19-26

 (The Center Square) - The U.S. Supreme Court will begin its final oral arguments sitting of the current term on Monday. The justices will hear several high profile arguments on various issues before the term ends in June.

On Wednesday, justices will hear arguments in Blanche v. Lau, a case to determine how immigrants are admitted into the United States. The case focuses on Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national who became a lawful permanent resident in the United States in 2007. In 2012, Lau was convicted of trademark counterfeiting in New Jersey and fled the country.

However, once Lau returned, immigration officers admitted him under parole, a status that allowed him to be brought into the United States but not to remain permanently.

“It’s kind of a catch-all way that DHS officers can allow someone into the country,” said James Rogers, senior counsel at America First Legal.

Once Lau returned to the country on parole, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings to take Lau out of the country. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, an immigrant admitted on parole is required to prove that they are admissible into the United States.

“It’s a lot easier to remove an alien in that sort of situation,” Rogers said.

The justices will hear arguements over whether the government had to establish clear evidence when Lau returned to the United States that he had committed a crime or if his later conviction proved that point. The justices will also likely decide how much authority federal courts have when reviewing parole determinations.

Lawyers for Lau argued that the United States cannot use charges of a crime to make a determination on how an immigrant can enter the United States.

“No one thinks that a pending criminal charge is clear and convincing evidence that the defendant committed the charged crime,” lawyers for Lau wrote. “To the contrary, criminal charges are not evidence at all.”

Rogers said the court’s decisionmaking process in this case will be important because the Biden administration used parole to allow immigrants into the country. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated the Biden administration granted parole to 2.86 million foreign nationals.

“The parole statute is supposed to only allow a narrow exception where a DHS officer is allowed to admit aliens on a case-by-case basis if the DHS officer determines that there’s a significant humanitarian need or significant national benefit to letting the alien in,” Rogers said.

Rogers warned that the Supreme Court’s definition of federal review with parole designations could have a large impact on future administrations. He said Democrat administrations could allow large numbers of immigrants in on parole without needing to review the decision in court.

“This can make it significantly harder in the future to challenge left-wing administrations attempts to open the borders and use parole again to let in aliens because there would be no review of those decisions in court,” Rogers said.

 

Very interesting, to say the least!

 

Shakespeare for Open Borders?

The world-famous Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen would have you think so. But his take misses a lot.

Jeremy Egerer | April 19, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

William Shakespeare is the greatest poet in English history — but if you don’t know English history, you can easily be made to think he’s the worst.

To prove this, Sir Ian McKellen says, in a recent monologue on The Late Show with Steven Colbert,

It’s all happening 400 years ago, and in London there’s a riot happening — there’s a mob out in the streets. And they’re complaining about the presence of strangers in London. By which they mean the recent immigrants who’ve arrived there. And they’re shouting ... and complaining and saying that the immigrants should be sent home wherever they came from.

And the authorities sent out this young lawyer, Thomas More, to put down the riots, which he does in two ways — one by saying, you can’t riot like this: It’s against the law, so shut up and be quiet. And also, being by Shakespeare, with an appeal to their humanity. And in order to set it up, I’m going to have to ask somebody to shout, “The strangers should be removed.”

Somebody shouts it, and then he launches on a beautiful monologue from Sir Thomas More — which you really should see for yourself.

It goes,

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise

Hath chid down all the majesty of England;

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,

Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silent by your brawl,

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;

What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

How order should be quelled; and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another.

He goes on later, with an appeal to The Golden Rule,

You’ll put down strangers,

Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,

And lead the majesty of law in line,

To slip him like a hound.

Say now the king (As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn)

Should so much come to short of your great trespass

As but to banish you, whether would you go?

What country, by the nature of your error,

Should give you harbor? go you to France or Flanders,

To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,

Nay, any where that not adheres to England,

— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased

To find a nation of such barbarous temper,

That, breaking out in hideous violence,

Would not afford you an abode on earth,

Whet their detested knives against your throats,

Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God

Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants

Were not all appropriate to your comforts,

But chartered unto them, what would you think

To be thus used? this is the strangers case;

And this your mountanish inhumanity.

Here is the greatest case in the English language, I think, for helping refugees, and a reminder that in the majority of men, the love of justice is simply the fear of suffering injustice.

But there’s just one problem.

What Colbert and Sir Ian McKellen missed here — probably on purpose — is that Shakespeare was writing about Evil May Day.  This was May 1st, 1517, when English rioters, impelled by jealousy and greed, went around town, dragging lawful German and Flemish business owners out of bed, smashing up their shops, and beating them up.  Some sources estimate that around a dozen victims died.

In Shakespeare’s time (almost a century after the riots), this monologue would have been relevant — so relevant, in fact, that the royal censor banned it.  Over the past generation, the Huguenots had fled France and settled in England.  There was a religious war raging between the Catholics and Protestants across the continent, and one that was so sanguine that Catholics had gotten up in the middle of the night in France, formed into mobs, and proceeded to kill as many Protestant neighbors as possible.  This was known as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, now inconceivable in Europe.  We have a hard time imagining our ancestors doing it.

During this period, there weren’t just “hard times” in Paris.  The likelihood that Protestants would be jailed or murdered (or worse) was extremely high.  And they had no legal recourse, because the violence wasn’t only supported by the government, but many times instigated by it.

What this means is that most of the refugees in Shakespeare’s day were families.  They were of the same religion as the English — and almost guaranteed, due to persecution, to be sincerely religious.  They shared a common enemy with the English.  There was no modern welfare system in Shakespeare’s England, so they couldn’t be coming to leech off the system.  Thus, the English weren’t upset about an influx of criminals; they were worried about being outclassed by an influx of skilled and religious artisans.  This would be almost comparable, in our day, to an influx of Ukrainian doctors, engineers, MBAs, and techies.  In Shakespeare’s day, there was grumbling, but the royal censor made sure nobody acted like his grandparents.  He commanded Shakespeare to “leave out the insurrection wholly and the cause thereof.”

Thus, though Colbert’s and McKellen’s timing draws an obvious parallel between Shakespeare’s rioters and Republicans, the difference between Shakespeare’s day and ours couldn’t be more stark.  First of all, a large chunk of our immigrants today came against the laws.  We’re getting not families, but hordes of single, military-aged men.  Most of our migrants are coming from the poorest and least educated classes of the poorest and least educated nations.  We don’t share a border with the great majority of illegals.  We don’t share a common race or heritage with the great majority of legal immigrants, either.  We don’t have a common enemy, and in fact, according to our leftists, the common enemy of the new foreigners is white Americans and Republicans.  Oh, and Venezuela emptied its prisons and sent all its rapists to us.

We are currently housing large chunks of illegal aliens in our prisons — according to the Bureau of Prisons, foreign nationals make up around 16% — and the riots we see happening are mostly by Democrats to keep foreign criminals in house.  Due to our laws, migrants get access to food stamps and social security, and many illegal aliens get free medical care — adding time to wait lists and driving up the prices drastically for natives.  News about immigrants raping children, or drunk-driving over pedestrians, or butchering innocents, is routinely and notoriously buried.  And finally, it can be proved that no mass violence — ever, during my entire life — has ever been staged by our natives against immigrants.  To put it simply, we’re on the receiving end of a beating, not in the process of dishing one out.

Not only does this make Sir Ian McKellen’s parallel slanderous; it makes it stupid.  It’s an abuse of Shakespeare one could expect from an American ignoramus, or maybe from one of Shakespeare’s villains — maybe Macbeth’s wife or Othello’s Iago.  But certainly not from a Shakespearean actor.  And certainly not from the man who played Gandalf — a wise, noble old wizard who drove invaders back to Mordor and sent even more of them to meet Jesus.

Shakespeare’s play was banned by the law because it hit too close to home.  If Shakespeare were to live here a few years and see McKellen’s monologue, I doubt he’d know which home Colbert’s show was trying to hit.  But it’s apparent that with our home, Colbert doesn’t really know it; and if he does know it, it’s pretty clear he doesn’t love it.  Two things nobody could say about Shakespeare in his day without getting hooted off a soap-box.