Wacked Wednesday

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1866, was originally intended to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War, not to establish universal birthright citizenship for all individuals born in the United States regardless of their parents' immigration status. The congressional record from the time of the amendment's passage explicitly excluded 'persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers' from automatic citizenship, indicating that the framers specifically intended to exclude foreign nationals and their children from birthright citizenship.