It’s really not, as the opinion in this case shows: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365_4hdj.pdf

The problem is that there’s accepted exceptions to birthright citizenship that aren’t apparent from the wording of the constitution. For example, everyone agrees children of ambassadors are not citizens at birth. Where does that exception come from? It doesn’t say anything about diplomats in the 14th amendment. It seems to come from the requirement that children be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US at birth. But what does that mean? Jurisdiction is a broad concept that means different things in different contexts.

Just look at the second amendment:

  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
  the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Just as the second amendment has this "militia" phrase that provokes arguments, the fourteenth amendment starts with

  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
  jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
  wherein they reside.

Natural language is just bad in expressing rules.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller#Decisi...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller...

Our what?

No, that's not how laws work

Applying laws retroactively is much less common than a "simple" rule change

This is an observation and not a judgement. Take what you will with this information.

1) What does it mean for someone to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.? Why are children of ambassadors not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, while children of illegal immigrants are subject to U.S. jurisdiction?

2) What does the 1866 civil rights act, adopted two years before the 14th amendment, mean when it says: “That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” Does that exclude people who are foreign citizens at birth under the laws of their origin country?

3) Why did Congress need to confer citizenship on american indians in 1924 when the 14th amendment already made everyone born on US soil citizens in 1868?

After that bit of logic, nothing the supreme Court decides would surprise me

Ironically, the same Court members who most often claim the plain text of the Constitution to support their ideas are the ones who put the most effort into finding a tortured reading of the 14th Amendment.

Offering birthright citizenship makes the US better than 95% of the other countries. Not worse.

Roll forward a few hundred years and the context has changed, so it seems reasonable that the law should too? But I guess it shouldn't be surprising that this is no bueno for SCOTUS, which has an infinite hard-on for Originalism [0] - I certainly can't imagine the conservative justices are ruling based on humanitarian grounds.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism

Of the remaining ones, two cancel each other out, and several others (including the most recent) are trivial. The Constitution has not been meaningfully amended in half a century, and it seems wildly unlikely that it ever can be.

The map of which countries have jus soli is pretty interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

>Jus soli is the predominant rule in the Americas; explanations for this geographical phenomenon include the establishment of lenient laws by past European colonial powers to entice immigrants from the Old World and displace native populations in the New World, along with the emergence of successful wars of independence movements that widened the definition and granting of citizenship, as a prerequisite to the abolishment of slavery since the 19th century.[5]

>There are 35 countries that provide citizenship unconditionally to anyone born within their national borders.

>

I typically find that the people using this logic don't seem to apply it to laws like universal healthcare, parental leave, or paid-time off. The lack of those benefits creates perverse incentives to already living citizens, not hypothetical future citizens. Why not focus on them?

Under what moral rules do genocidaires get citizenship but not, say, refugees?

He got dang close. He's only one justice replacement away from making it doable.

Gods, we are not as far from ripping up the Constitution as we'd like to think.

This case (placed alongside many others in recent memory) demonstrates that no matter how clear and unequivocal a legal text you write, the textualists can find a way to overturn it.

So what specific legal text for this amendment of yours do you believe is immune from that degree of sophistry?

So you are suggesting abrogating rights based on an event that occurs with minuscule probability. Get a grip.