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Paul Washington
Salona
There are only three ways of obtaining American citizenship:
1) being born in one of the 50 states (this is what is called "birthright citizenship" and is the original meaning of "natural born American"),
2) being born outside of the U.S. under circumstances that the law awards citizenship at birth, and
3) through naturalization. These categories have been the same for the entire history of the United States.
Most Americans, including myself, are citizens through birth (i.e., we have birthright citizenship). It hasn't mattered how long such a citizen's parents and ancestors have lived in the United States, or even what their legal status was at the time of birth. Thus, Donald Trump, despite being the President with the fewest ancestors born in the United States (and the states' colonial predecessors), is just as much a natural born American citizen as any of the other Presidents. It is his birth at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, N.Y., (i.e., in the U.S.), that makes him a citizen and eligible to be President. Birthright citizenship is also why most Americans prove their citizenship with a birth certificate.
Elon Musk, on the other hand, is a naturalized citizen. Generally, the only limitation on the rights of naturalized citizens is the barrier to becoming President or Vice-President. However, if a naturalized citizen is found to have fraudulently qualified for naturalization, or is convicted of insurrection or treason, there is a possibility that their citizenship can be revoked.
Citizens at birth by law include people born in four of the five American territories (i.e., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Northern Marianas Islands -- but not American Samoa), and children of American citizens born abroad. The American children born abroad automatically get naturalization papers when they claim their American citizenship.
The reason for the 14th Amendment's section defining birthright citizenship is that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott decision in 1857, excluded slaves and their free descendants from birthright citizenship. Not only did this fly in the face of historical practice, but only 20 years earlier, the Vice President had been known to have slave ancestry. So, right after the Civil War, Congress proposed, and the states ratified, the 14th Amendment with the clear definition that anyone born in the United States was automatically a citizen. It was definitively affirmed as having no limitations based on the circumstances of birth in a Supreme Court decision in 1898.
The current attempt to change the interpretation of that language to exclude the children of illegal or temporary residents, even when those children are born in the U.S., is essentially trying to deny those children their birthright based solely on what their parents have done -- essentially blaming them for their parents' actions. Doing so would be akin to reversing the Constitutional ban on "corruption of blood." Besides being cruel and "un-American," taking retribution against these children would undoubtedly cause resentments and animosities that would haunt the U.S. in the years to come.