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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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In other words, the exceptions are justified because the framers of the amendment sought to preserve those that were recognized at the time of ratification.

Interesting. I havent read enough of the legislative debates to say if they meant to enshrine common law generally or a fixed version of it, but I dont think it matters to me. This would catch the guys in this thread who argue about "allegiance" and such, but my argument is about the problems of distinguishing illegal immigration from invasions legally. It sounds like you didnt read the branch with Gillitrut, but it goes into this. I dont need general common law reasoning, because I dont think what Im suggesting is actually a distinct novel exception.

Whatever the legislative debates say doesn't matter at this point, because the exceptions have already been enshrined in law by the Wong Kim Ark decision. I did read the branch you refer to, but I didn't address it because what you guys were arguing was edge cases that, as far as I can tell, don't apply to any known persons. I'm unaware of any extraterritorial raids by natives, let alone whether any of these had children while they were here. Interestingly enough, you actually would need common law reasoning in this case, because the court specifically recognized the exception based on common law, and that's where you'd therefore go to test the bounds of it. That's assuming, of course, that there are no intervening court opinions that have already addressed the issue.