Why is *hereditary* citizenship status not considered a title of nobility under U.S. law? Being a citizen grants clear rights and privileges in the U.S. While citizenship can be granted by birthplace (14th Amendment), it is also granted to the child of a citizen with very lax conditions. Excluding the question of geographic location, the hereditary nature of citizenship seems to be in glaring contrast to other U.S. founding ideals. In Ancient Rome, for instance, being a citizen was more akin to being a nobleman. Similar to our current system, Romans could earn citizenship through service - usually militarily. Given that citizenship carries so much weight and is clearly hereditary in the U.S., why is it not considered as a title of nobility? While it does not indicate a British rank, it certainly indicates social rank. If all men are created equal, then why should this distinction exist?
The granting of citizenship is expressly recognized in multiple places in the US Constitution. It would be incoherent if the prohibition on titles of nobility meant that the US could not confer citizenship on people. It would also be totally out of sync with any public understanding of &quot;titles of nobility&quot; at the time of the framing or today. The US has conferred citizenship by parentage to children born abroad since 1790, which is further indication that the nobility clause was not understood to preclude citizenship by parentage. The concern behind the nobility clauses was the creation of &quot;super-citizens.&quot; As Joseph Story wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution at Vol. 3, p. 215: [the nobility clause] seems scarcely to require even a passing notice. As a perfect equality is the basis of all our institutions, state and national, the prohibition against the creation of any titles of nobility seems proper, if not indespensible, to keep perpetually alive a just sense of this important truth. Distinctions between citizens, in regard to rank, would soon lay the foundation of odious claims and privileges, and silently subvert the spirit of independence and personal dignity, which are so often proclaimed to be the best security of a republican government. He cited Federalist No. 84, in which Alexander Hamilton wrote: Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner-stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded, there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people. The worry was that titles of nobility would undermine the republican system of government. I also question your premise that citizenship is &quot;clearly hereditary in the U.S.&quot; As you say, the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to those merely born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction. For the vast majority of U.S. citizens, citizenship is based on their place of birth being in the U.S. Knowing that somebody is a citizen tells you nothing about their heritage.
This is weird. Within the EU, a passport is proof of identity, and it is also proof that you are allowed to take a job in the EU. There is nothing that a birth certificate would add to this. Either the bar manager is badly misinformed, or he doesn't want to give your brother a job, and will come up with something even more ridiculous if he gets the birth certificate.
It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of &quot;national or ethnic origin&quot; This is spelled out in the Canadian Human Rights Act s3(1). However, a person's citizenship is something that can (must) be discriminated on. Unless it is being used as a proxy for &quot;national or ethnic origin&quot;. Right to work in Canada To be allowed to work in Canada, person must be a: Canadian citizen (including dual-nationals), non-Canadian citizen and hold a work-permit, non-Canadian citizen and be doing exempt work. So, an employer asking about citizenship to determine eligibility is fine. An employer asking to discriminate in favour of group 1 over group 2 or 3 is not.
There are two approaches to determining citizenship: where you are born (jus soli – this holds in the US), and who you were born to (jus sanguinis – the case in India). There are mixes of these systems, such as where a person born to an American but not in the US is still an American citizen (e.g. Ted Cruz). Canada allows Canadian citizenship to be inherited outside Canada by 1 generation, so a child born outside Canada to Canadian parent born in Canada is a Canadian citizen. A child born outside Canada to Canadians born outside Canada is not a Canadian citizen. If that child is born in India and the parents do not have dual citizenship, the child is stateless because at least one parent has to be Indian to acquire Indian citizenship at birth. There are various exceptions to the generalization about only revoking citizenship with dual nationals. In 1962, about 20% of the Kurdish population in Syria had its citizenship revoked. Albert Einstein was stateless for 5 years, after he renounced his (German) Baaden-Württemberg citizenship. There is no law in the US that prevents you from renouncing your citizenship, there is simply a particular formality that has to be followed. Wikipedia names a half-dozen US citizens who relinquished their US citizenship and had no other citizenship (thus were stateless). The Japanese Nationality Law limits dual citizenship and requires children to make a decision at age 22. Iran, however, prohibits renunciation of citizenship to the offspring of an Iranian male (it is automatically assigned to the child). A Japanese-Iranian child born (in Japan) to an Iranian father would might seem to have to become Iranian; but apparently Japan requires you to perform the act of renouncing, and does not require that the other country recognize the renunciation. The point is that renouncing citizenship involves the laws of two countries: the country that you renounce may or may not accept the renunciation, and the country that you renounce in favor of may or may not accept the renunciation. Section 10 of the Norwegian Nationality Law exemplifies a further variation in concepts of renunciation as part of gaining Norwegian citizenship, and statutorily acknowledges the problem or countries not allowing citizens to renounce citizenship. There is a requirement of naturalization that "the applicant must be released from any other nationality before the application may be granted", which also allows that it's okay if you can be so released after being granted Norwegian citizenship: or, ultimately, "An exemption may be granted from the requirement regarding release if release is deemed to be legally or practically impossible or for other reasons seems to be unreasonable". (The law in Norwegian is here: a Norwegian lawyer would be better able to comment on the interpretation of the text, but my reading of the law, especially the requirement to be "løst fra annet statsborgerskap", specifies the realized result of being released, and not the act of renunciation, hence "release" in the translation). If a person has dual US-Ukrainian citizenship, they might symbolically renounce their Ukrainian citizenship to avoid an expected revocation of US citizenship and deportation to Ukraine. But the US has no law that says that it must recognize the renunciation of a foreign citizenship. Canada and Australia do not allow you to renounce your citizenship if it would result in statelessness, but not all countries have such a requirement. See for instance sect. 9 of the Citizenship Act of Canada: Subject to subsection (2.1), a citizen may, on application, renounce his citizenship if he (a) is a citizen of a country other than Canada or, if his application is accepted, will become a citizen of a country other than Canada... There is, however, no specific law that compels Canada to recognize a person's renunciation of some other country. So whether the described strategy would have any effect depends on the extent to which the "retained" state is compelled to recognize a renunciation of a foreign citizenship.
Why has this never been interpreted by SCOTUS? It has never been interpreted by any court, because the interpretation you're advocating is nonsensical, and nobody has ever tried to advance it in any court. Therefore, no court has had an opportunity to rule on it. Congress, however, has (at least implicitly) interpreted this clause to mean that all natural-born citizens are eligible to be president if they also fulfill the other requirements, regardless of when they were born, so that is the prevailing interpretation unless someone manages to challenge the interpretation either before congress or in a court. If such a challenge is made then there will be an explicit ruling.
Paying taxes need not have any legal connection to citizenship or potential citizenship. There is no constitutional provision, or law, which limits taxation to citizens or those on a path to citizenship. Legal immigrants, those on visas, and indeed tourists, must all pay various taxes, including hotel taxes and sales taxes. Lawful immigrants who work in the US must pay federal and (in most states) state income tax, and I believe some undocumented immigrants pay Federal income tax as well. Many countries tax people who are not citizens, nor immigrants in line for citizenship, and this has been true far back in history. Indeed the Romans taxed pretty much every inhabitant of and visitor to the Roman Empire, most of whom were not Roman Citizens. Things haven't changed that much since. It might be argued on philosophical grounds that such people should not be required to pay taxes, or should not be required to pay certain specific taxes. But that is not the law at this time, and this forum is not for debating what the law should be.
Both Congress and the state legislatures are expressly forbidden by the Constitution from passing bills of attainder. That means neither can ever pass a law that names an individual and says "they are suspended." It is so important that it's one of the very few restrictions on government that the original Constitution (before any amendments) prohibited in bot state and federal governments. (Also, a "bill" is not a law. It's what a legislature is considering making a law.)
Some are, some aren't. For instance, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits all employment discrimination on the basis of race, including discrimination against whites. On the other hand, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act explicitly only protects people who are at least 40, and the Supreme Court held that it only applies to discrimination against older workers in favor of younger workers in General Dynamics v. Cline. While both laws forbid discrimination on the basis of X, the Supreme Court held that Congress clearly meant to limit ADEA to discrimination against older workers. You specifically use veteran status as an example. Veteran status is protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The point of the law is explicitly to make it easier for people to serve in uniform without messing up their career. The law specifically bans discrimination against veterans (or a couple other service-related categories) on the basis of service. It does not ban discrimination in favor of veterans. In fact, the federal government (which is supposed to be a model employer under USERRA) gives veterans a preference in hiring decisions. Congress's goal in enacting Title VII was to make race a non-factor in employment; their goal with USERRA was to encourage military service.