before the civil war, no black person could be a citizen. it was to set a standard of citizenship for everybody, not just black people. children of immigrants, irish immigrantses. as you said before, it was debated about the km e ed aboute west coast. everybody understood this meant all persons born in the united states with a couple of exceptions. it didn t apply to native americans, because they were members of their own little nations, their tribes, and it didn t apply to like children of diplomats born in the embassy or something like that. the idea that this was not meant to apply to aliens, children of aliens illegally there was no such thing as illegal aliens then, there were no laws preventing people from entering the united states. technically they re correct, when someone says, the framers never had illegal aliens in mind, because at the time there weren t illegal aliens. there were no immigration laws. they did have immigrants in mind and the children of immigrants. th