Hamdi v. Rumsfeld decision expected shortly

IRELAND OUTLAWS “BIRTHRIGHT” CITIZENSHIP AS SUPREME COURT PONDERS FATE OF “ASSUMED” U.S. CITIZEN YASER HAMDI

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the Supreme Court prepares to release its opinion in the controversial case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, voters in Ireland overwhelmingly approved a plan to do away with birthright citizenship in that country. Yaser Hamdi is an enemy combatant assumed to be a U.S. citizen because he was born here.

“The Irish have realized that a baby born to a foreign national should not be given the same citizenship rights as a child born to an Irish citizen simply because the baby happened to be born in Ireland,” explained Peter Brimelow, whose Internet magazine www.vdare.com features many articles on immigration issues.

Brimelow’s Center for American Unity filed a friend of the court brief in the Hamdi case explaining that “drive-by citizenship” or “birthright citizenship” was not the original intention of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Hamdi was never a U.S. citizen because he was not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States as required by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Brimelow said. “Our amicus brief demonstrates that the rule that any infant born in the United States is an American citizen is an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

“United States citizenship requires more than the accident of being born on U.S. soil -- an allegiance to the United States is necessary,” Brimelow said.

Ireland’s Justice Minister Michael McDowell said that removing citizenship-by-birth was “common sense” since Ireland was the only country in the European Union to allow it. The rest of Western Europe does not automatically grant citizenship to babies of tourists or those with temporary visas.

The “amici” on the brief include the Center for American Unity, The Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement, the National Center for Citizenship and Immigration, and eight Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Joe Barton (R-TX), Mac Collins (R-GA), John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), Steve King (R-IA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), and Tom Tancredo (R-CO).

The brief asks the Supreme Court to apply the Fourteenth Amendment’s jurisdiction requirement in its intended form -- including an allegiance requirement -- and to decide whether Yaser Hamdi is, as claimed, an “American citizen by birth.”

Yaser Hamdi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia who spent the first two years of his life in the United States, was captured by U.S. troops in 2001 when he was fighting for the Taliban. He at first identified himself as a Saudi citizen but then told troops that he was born in Louisiana.