Does Barack Obama understand the 14th Amendment or did he just misrepresent it? (anchor babies)

Back on January 12, Molly Ball of the Las Vegas Review-Journal offered "Obama rocks Vegas faithful" (via this). Bearing in mind that Barack Obama was a University of Chicago lecturer in constitutional law for several years (link), let's see if he has a firm grasp of the Constitution:

Obama took questions from the audience for more than half an hour. One person wanted to know what he would do about "anchor babies," the term for children of illegal immigrants who are automatically made citizens because they are born on U.S. soil and then serve as "anchors" for their families.

[He promoted immigration "reform"... ] But, he said, "I'm not going to change the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution says if you're born here, you're a citizen."

It might say that in his bowdlerized version, but not in the official version (link):

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.

The "and" makes a world of difference, and that's only been interpreted to mean that the children of illegal aliens are automatically citizens. The 14th Amendment itself is not as cut-and-dried as Obama would have had his listeners believe.

Our only options aren't too good:
1. He can't figure that out.
2. He was deliberately misleading.
3. He didn't want to get "too complicated".

It's clear to me that Obama is basically an empty suit, and if someone had pressed him on that issue by asking a follow-up making my point, I don't think he would have ended up looking too good at all. Please go to his appearances and engage him on these issues.

There's also an issue regarding the 14th Amendment and abortions discussed here.

Immigration2008a · Sat, 02/16/2008 - 10:12 · · Importance: 1