In the very old times, it didn’t matter too much whether you have jus soli or jus sanguinis. People rarely moved between villages, let alone between nation states, so the cases when they did could be handled individually. Still, jus soli probably made a bit more sense back then, because if someone took the great effort to come to your country they probably really wanted to live there and deserved citizenship.
In the americas, the rationale used to be genocide. If your state is started & built on europeans eradicating the indigenous population, you’d want to only give citizenship to those europeans. The 14th amendment in the US was not about birthright citizenship per se, it was about extending the existing citizenship system to some non-white people - note that indigenous victims were not originally included!
Nowadays the reason is humanitarian. If a person is born in your territory, it is cruel to make their life hell just because their parents are not citizens. And I do get that immigration is now easier than ever, but I still think some variation of a non-racist jus soli is a good idea.
In the very old times, it didn’t matter too much whether you have jus soli or jus sanguinis. People rarely moved between villages, let alone between nation states, so the cases when they did could be handled individually. Still, jus soli probably made a bit more sense back then, because if someone took the great effort to come to your country they probably really wanted to live there and deserved citizenship.
In the americas, the rationale used to be genocide. If your state is started & built on europeans eradicating the indigenous population, you’d want to only give citizenship to those europeans. The 14th amendment in the US was not about birthright citizenship per se, it was about extending the existing citizenship system to some non-white people - note that indigenous victims were not originally included!
Nowadays the reason is humanitarian. If a person is born in your territory, it is cruel to make their life hell just because their parents are not citizens. And I do get that immigration is now easier than ever, but I still think some variation of a non-racist jus soli is a good idea.