When Solomon penned the words "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11), he summarized a principle that undergirds the entire biblical approach to criminal justice. He identified delayed punishment as the singular cause of rampant criminality. Modern criminologists may propose complex theories about socioeconomic factors, psychological conditions, or systemic inequalities, but Scripture presents a remarkably straightforward explanation: people commit crimes when they believe they can escape punishment. This simple observation, that somehow seems to elude modern criminologists, finds support throughout both testaments and offers practical guidance for contemporary criminal justice policy.

Fear and Deterrence
 
Six distinct passages in Deuteronomy establish an unmistakable pattern connecting the public knowledge of punishment with the prevention of future crimes. The sequence begins in Deuteronomy 4:10, where God recalls the giving of the law at Horeb, saying "Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth." From the outset, God’s purpose for revealing the law included creating a healthy fear that would constrain behavior. This foundational passage establishes that the fear of consequences serves as a divinely ordained mechanism for promoting righteousness and restraining wickedness.
 
The final passage in this sequence, found in Deuteronomy 31:12-13, commands the nation to assemble every seven years to hear the entire law read publicly: "Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God." Between these bookends of the law's giving and its regular public reading, four passages explicitly connect the punishment of specific crimes with the deterrent effect on the wider population.
 
Deuteronomy 13:11 addresses the punishment of those who entice others to idolatry: "And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you." The execution of false prophets and their followers would serve as a visible warning to the entire nation. Similarly, Deuteronomy 17:13 prescribes death for those who presumptuously reject the judgment of priests or judges, noting that "all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously." The punishment of false witnesses receives the same treatment in Deuteronomy 19:20: "And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you." Finally, Deuteronomy 21:21 mandates the stoning of incorrigibly rebellious sons "and all Israel shall hear, and fear." The repetition of this formula cannot be accidental or incidental. Scripture presents deterrence as an expected and desirable outcome of properly administered justice.
 
Solomon and the Scorner
 
The book of Proverbs reinforces this deterrent principle through its treatment of punishment and correction. Proverbs 19:25 instructs, "Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware: and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge." The verse distinguishes between the scorner who receives physical punishment and the simple person who observes that punishment and adjusts his behavior accordingly. Punishment serves a dual purpose: it addresses the immediate offender while simultaneously educating observers about the consequences of similar actions. The simple, though not yet committed to evil, lacks the wisdom to foresee consequences without such object lessons.
 
Proverbs 21:11 presents a parallel truth: "When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise: and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge." The progression reveals different learning mechanisms for different types of people. While the wise can learn through instruction alone, the simple require the more visceral lesson of watching punishment administered to others. This passage acknowledges the reality that not all people respond to abstract moral teaching. Some need concrete demonstrations of cause and effect before they will modify their behavior. The punishment of criminals provides precisely this kind of tangible education.
 
Additional proverbs emphasize the necessity of consistent correction. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24) applies primarily to parental discipline but establishes the broader principle that withholding deserved punishment constitutes a form of hatred rather than mercy. Proverbs 20:8 describes a righteous king who "scattereth away all evil with his eyes," while verse 26 adds that "a wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them." These verses collectively portray justice as an active, visible process that disperses rather than tolerates criminal behavior.
 
New Testament Agreement
 
The New Testament maintains this emphasis on public punishment creating deterrent effects. Paul's instruction to Timothy regarding the discipline of elders in the church specifically invokes the principle: "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear" (1 Timothy 5:20). Although this passage addresses ecclesiastical rather than civil matters, it demonstrates the consistency of the deterrence principle across both testaments and both spheres of governance. Public rebuke serves to modify not only the offender's behavior but also the conduct of potential future offenders who witness the confrontation.
 
Romans 13:3-4 provides perhaps the most comprehensive New Testament statement on civil government's role in deterring crime: "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Paul explicitly identifies the magistrate as "a terror" to evildoers. The government's proper function includes creating fear in the hearts of potential criminals. The reference to bearing the sword indicates that this terror involves the credible threat of severe, even capital, punishment. Verse four's assertion that the magistrate does not bear the sword "in vain" suggests that the weapon must be used, not merely displayed, to maintain its deterrent effect.
 
The Consequences of Failure
 
The Bible also demonstrates the disastrous results when societies fail to maintain effective deterrents against crime. The book of Judges contains the phrase "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" in two strategic locations: Judges 17:6 introduces a section of particularly grave wickedness, and Judges 21:25 closes that same section. Between these bookends, is recorded some of the darkest episodes in Israel's history, including widespread idolatry, the brutal rape and murder of a Levite's concubine, and a devastating civil war that nearly exterminated the tribe of Benjamin. The absence of an authority capable of administering consistent justice led to complete moral chaos. Without the fear of punishment constraining behavior, the natural bent of human hearts toward wickedness expresses itself without restraint.
 
The failure of Eli to properly discipline his sons provides another instructive example. First Samuel 2:12-17 describes the contemptible behavior of Hophni and Phinehas, who "knew not the LORD" despite serving as priests. When Eli received reports of their wickedness, including adultery with women who assembled at the tabernacle door, his response was pathetically weak: "And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people" (1 Samuel 2:23). Eli rebuked his sons verbally but took no substantive action to remove them from office or punish their crimes. God's judgment came through the prophet in 1 Samuel 3:13: "For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." The failure to administer proper punishment resulted in the death of both sons in battle, the capture of the ark, and the end of Eli's priestly line.
 
David's failure to punish Amnon for raping Tamar set in motion a chain of events that nearly destroyed his kingdom. Second Samuel 13:21 records that "when king David heard of all these things, he was very wroth," but the text conspicuously omits any account of David actually punishing his son. This failure to act allowed bitterness to fester in Absalom's heart for two full years before he murdered Amnon (2 Samuel 13:23). David's subsequent failure to properly deal with Absalom for that murder created the conditions for Absalom's rebellion, which cost tens of thousands of lives and nearly cost David his throne. The absence of swift, appropriate punishment for initial crimes created an environment where greater crimes flourished.
 
Application to Contemporary Criminal Justice
 
If modern societies were genuinely serious about reducing crime, they would abandon the fiction that criminals can be reformed through lenient treatment and therapeutic intervention alone. Scripture offers no support for the notion that understanding a criminal's difficult childhood or socioeconomic disadvantages should mitigate punishment. Instead, biblical teaching consistently emphasizes that the certainty and severity of punishment deter crime more effectively than any other factor. A justice system that regularly releases violent offenders after serving a fraction of their sentences, that plea bargains away serious charges, or that delays trials for years violates the fundamental principle of Ecclesiastes 8:11. When potential criminals observe others committing serious offenses and receiving minimal consequences, they rationally conclude that crime pays.
 
The biblical model requires several key components. First, punishment must be certain. The numerous Deuteronomy passages emphasize that "all Israel shall hear" of crimes being punished, suggesting a justice system where conviction and punishment are the expected outcome rather than the exception. Second, punishment must be proportional. The "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" principle (Deuteronomy 19:21) establishes that penalties should match the severity of the crime. Third, punishment must be swift. Ecclesiastes 8:11 specifically identifies delayed sentencing as the problem, not just lenient sentencing. A justice system that takes years to bring cases to trial and execution fails to provide the deterrent effect that God desires. Fourth, punishment must be public. The repeated emphasis on the community hearing about and witnessing punishment suggests that deterrence requires widespread knowledge of consequences.
 
None of these principles require abandoning concerns about wrongful conviction or the rights of the accused. The Mosaic law's requirement for multiple witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15) and its severe penalties for false accusers (Deuteronomy 19:18-19) demonstrate that biblical justice values both punishment of the guilty and protection of the innocent. Nevertheless, these procedural safeguards exist to ensure that punishment falls on the right person, not to prevent punishment altogether. Contemporary debates about criminal justice reform often focus exclusively on the possibility of wrongful conviction while ignoring the certainty that delayed and insufficient punishment encourages additional crimes. Both concerns merit attention, but Scripture clearly endorses the deterrent effect of consistent, proportional punishment as the primary means of maintaining social order and protecting the innocent from victimization.
 
Conclusion
 
The biblical testimony on criminal deterrence admits of no ambiguity. From the Pentateuch through the historical books, from Proverbs to the New Testament epistles, Scripture consistently teaches that the fear of punishment constrains criminal behavior while the absence of that fear unleashes it. Societies that genuinely desire to reduce crime must embrace the reality that human nature responds more reliably to the disincentives of punishment than to appeals to conscience or programs of rehabilitation. As God made clear in Ecclesiastes 8:11, delayed punishment emboldens criminals. Until our modern justice system acknowledges this fundamental truth and restructures itself accordingly, crime will continue to plague our communities regardless of how many billions of dollars the government spends on prevention programs, social services, or prison reform initiatives. The key to reducing criminal activity has been available for more than three millennia. The question is whether contemporary societies possess the wisdom and the courage to implement it.

Over the past year, there have been many incidents of ICE officers ordering U.S. citizens to vacate areas, move their vehicles from public streets, and comply with various commands.  In cases where citizens have refused to comply with these commands, ICE has often resorted to the use of force. But does ICE actually possess the legal authority to issue such commands? A careful examination of federal statutes and court precedents, demonstrates that ICE’s legitimate authority is constrained by significant limitations.

The broader question extends beyond just immigration enforcement to the relationship between citizens and any federal agency with a specialized mandate. When an officer of an agency that was created for a specific purpose begins to operate outside that mandate, he has left his realm of authority and is acting only as a private citizen. Discovering where ICE's authority ends is not just an academic exercise. It can also help guide citizens who may encounter federal agents during their daily activities. The legal framework governing these encounters is based on constitutional principles about the limits of governmental power and the rights that citizens retain even in the presence of law enforcement.
 
The Statutory Foundation
 
Federal law establishes ICE's authority through Title 8 of the United States Code, specifically section 1357, which grants immigration officers certain enforcement powers. When we read through this statute, we can see a consistent pattern of limitation. For example, subsection (a)(1) grants ICE officers the power "to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States." Congress did not grant ICE authority to interrogate anyone they wanted but specifically restricted ICE’s interrogation authority to aliens and those believed to be aliens. This distinction excludes United States citizens. ICE has no authority whatsoever to interrogate citizens.
 
The arrest authority in subsection (a)(2) continues this pattern by permitting officers "to arrest any alien" who enters unlawfully or is believed to be unlawfully present and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. Again, the statute uses "alien" rather than "person," creating a categorical boundary around the power thus granted.
 
When Congress wanted to extend authority beyond aliens, it did so explicitly, as seen in subsections (a)(4) and (a)(5) regarding criminal arrests. These provisions allow arrest of "persons" who commit federal offenses but only if the officer is an eyewitness of the crime or the crime is serious enough to be considered a felony.  However, this authority is specifically limited to federal crimes. ICE has no authority to make arrests for violations of state and local laws such as traffic laws or laws governing public assemblies. This means ICE can arrest a United States citizen who commits a federal crime such as harboring unauthorized aliens, but their authority does not extend to general law enforcement.
 
Nowhere in the statutory framework does Congress grant ICE the authority to give orders to bystanders, establish exclusion zones, or direct persons who are not suspected of violating immigration laws. These are considered general police powers, and they fall within the scope of state and local authorities. If ICE officers want a street cleared of protesters or bystanders, they must rely on local and state forces for the execution of police functions outside of their mandate.
 
Regulatory Standards
 
The Code of Federal Regulations at Title 8, Part 287 also limits ICE’s authority. Section 287.8(b)(1) states that "An immigration officer, like any other person, has the right to ask questions of anyone as long as the immigration officer does not restrain the freedom of an individual, not under arrest, to walk away." This explicitly confirms what many Americans already assume to be true. Those not under arrest must be allowed to leave whenever they feel like it. An ICE officer approaching someone on the street has no more authority to restrict that individual’s movements than any private citizen would have.
 
The regulations governing use of force impose further constraints that protect uninvolved parties. Section 287.8(a)(1)(iii) requires officers to "always use the minimum non-deadly force necessary to accomplish the officer's mission" and to escalate force "only when such higher level of force is warranted by the actions, apparent intentions, and apparent capabilities of the suspect, prisoner, or assailant." The regulation's focus on suspects, prisoners, and assailants suggests no authorization for applying force against individuals who are not committing federal crimes. When officers use force against persons who are either observing/recording operations or declining to comply with commands, the officers are operating outside the boundaries these regulations establish. ICE officers are prohibited from escalating the use of force against anyone except suspects, prisoners, or assailants.

The arrest standards in section 287.8(c)(i) further provide that "an arrest shall be made only when the designated immigration officer has reason to believe that the person to be arrested has committed an offense against the United States or is an alien illegally in the United States." This provision excludes arrests of United States citizens who have committed no federal crime, regardless of whether they refuse to comply with officer commands during immigration operations. The regulatory framework thus reinforces what the statutes establish. ICE's authority extend to aliens and suspected aliens, federal crimes personally witnessed, and federal felonies. ICE has no authority over the general citizenry who happen to be present during enforcement operations.
 
Supreme Court Precedent
 
The constitutional boundaries of immigration enforcement have been tested in several Supreme Court. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, decided in 1975, addressed roving Border Patrol stops and established that officers cannot stop vehicles when "the only ground for suspicion is that the occupants appear to be of Mexican ancestry." The Court emphasized that "Assuming that Congress has the power to admit aliens on condition that they submit to reasonable questioning about their right to be in the country, such power cannot diminish the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens who may be mistaken for aliens." This principle applies broadly to all immigration enforcement activities. Officers must have "specific articulable facts" to justify stops, and the mere possibility that someone might be an alien does not suffice.
 
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Delgado, decided in 1984, examined factory surveys where officers questioned workers about immigration status. The Court held that these encounters did not constitute Fourth Amendment seizures of the entire workforce, but the operative standard confirmed that persons remain free to walk away during routine immigration operations. The court established that these surveys were only permissible if "a reasonable person would not have reason to believe that he could not leave the questioning." This standard places the burden on the government to demonstrate that any detention was justified. The mere presence of a federal officer does not create a duty to comply.
 
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, decided in 1976, permitted checkpoint stops without individualized suspicion but carefully limited them to "a brief detention" requiring "a response to a brief question or two." The Court stated explicitly that "any further detention or search must be based on consent or probable cause." Even in the checkpoint context, where Fourth Amendment standards relax somewhat, officers cannot extend encounters beyond narrow limits without providing specific justification.
 
When Citizens Have Been Wrongfully Detained
 
Federal courts have repeatedly found Fourth Amendment violations when ICE detains United States citizens based on insufficient evidence of alienage. In Gonzalez v. ICE, the Central District of California issued a permanent injunction after finding that ICE violated constitutional rights by issuing detainers "based on evidence of a person's foreign place of birth and the absence of information about a person's citizenship or immigration status in federal databases." The named plaintiff, Gerardo Gonzalez, was a natural born United States citizen born in California who was wrongfully detained. The court's injunction demonstrates that mere suspicions about citizenship cannot be used to justify detaining actual citizens.
 
Brown v. Ramsay, decided in the Southern District of Florida in 2025, presents another example where the court held that Peter Sean Brown's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was detained on an ICE "incorrectly identified Mr. Brown as a deportable Jamaican immigrant." The court found that ICE "lacked probable cause to issue the detainer in the first place." Similarly, in Morales v. Chadbourne, decided in the District of Rhode Island in 2017, the court described the detention of naturalized United States citizen Ada Morales as revealing "dysfunction of a constitutional proportion" as a result of which "a United States citizen lost her liberty due to a baseless immigration detainer."
 
These cases establish an important principle: ICE cannot detain citizens based on mere suspicion. The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for arrests. When an officer lacks this individualized justification, the arrest of an American citizen is a violation constitution regardless of the officers' good faith beliefs. The Third Circuit's decision in Galarza v. Szalczyk clarified that ICE detainers are voluntary requests rather than mandatory orders, and courts have consistently held that compliance with such requests without independent probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment.
 
Bystanders, Journalists, and First Amendment Concerns
 
Recent litigation has addressed ICE authority over bystanders and journalists during enforcement operations with results that further confirm these limitations. In litigation regarding the Chicago ICE facility decided in the Northern District of Illinois in 2025, Judge Sara Ellis issued findings that "federal agents have used excessive force in response to protesters' and journalists' exercise of their First Amendment rights, without justification, often without warning." The court held that the presence of "unruly individuals" among "peaceful protestors, journalists and legal observers does not give Defendants a blank check to employ unrestricted use of crowd control weapons." This decision confirms that even during immigration enforcement operations, the constitutional rights of observers and protesters must be observed.
 
A case involving journalists in the Central District of California in 2025 reached similar conclusions, with the court finding that "federal agents' indiscriminate use of force will undoubtedly chill the media's efforts to cover these public events and protesters seeking to express peacefully their views on national policies." The First Amendment protects the right to observe and record government officials performing their duties in public spaces.
 
There is an obvious tension between ICE's desire to control the environment during enforcement operations and the constitutional rights of citizens to observe, document, and protest government action. However, officers cannot establish ad hoc exclusion zones simply because observation makes operations more difficult or subjects agents to public scrutiny. Any restriction on citizen movement or activity must be carried out by local or state police acting on specific, articulable safety concerns rather than general preferences for operational convenience. When ICE officers order bystanders to leave public areas or move vehicles, they are exceeding their authority and violating the constitutional rights of American citizens.
 
Comparing ICE to Other Federal Agencies
 
Examining other federal law enforcement agencies shows that ICE's authority over citizens is notably narrow compared to some agencies while similar to others. The United States Marshals Service possesses unique authority under 28 USC § 566(c) to "command all necessary assistance to execute its duties," which includes the explicit authority to recruit civilian assistance. No other federal agency shares this sweeping power. When a United States Marshal commands assistance, federal law makes that command legally binding. ICE has no comparable authority.
 
The Secret Service achieves effective control over civilian movement through a different mechanism. 18 USC § 1752 creates criminal penalties for entering "restricted buildings or grounds" near protected people, with violators facing up to ten years imprisonment. This statutory scheme gives the Secret Service functional control over civilian activity by criminalizing unauthorized presence in designated areas. Again, ICE has no parallel mechanism to establish exclusion zones or criminalize civilian presence near enforcement operations.
 
ICE operates without several of the mechanisms that give other agencies broader authority over civilians. This naturally leads to the conclusion that ICE's jurisdiction remains tightly focused on immigration enforcement and does not include additional authority over citizens. Congress deliberately constrained ICE's power to its specific mission rather than granting it the broader police powers that were granted to other federal agencies.
 
Practical Implications for Citizens
 
We can draw several conclusions from this analysis.

1) Immigration officers have no general authority over United States citizens except when those citizens are reasonably suspected of federal felony offenses.

2) Bystanders and third parties retain their constitutional rights during immigration operations, including the right to observe and record as well as the right to decline to comply with commands.

3) The use of force against citizens exceeds the authority granted by federal law with very few exceptions.
 
When an ICE officer orders a United States citizen to vacate an area, move a vehicle, or comply with other commands, that officer is operating outside of the law. ICE officers cannot establish broad exclusion zones or issue sweeping commands based merely on operational preference or a desire to avoid observation. They must act within the confines of the law. Citizens retain the freedom to walk away from encounters with ICE, the right to remain in public spaces, and the liberty to document government officials performing their duties.
 
Federal law grants ICE officers specific, enumerated powers focused narrowly on immigration enforcement, permitting them to interrogate aliens, arrest those found in violation of immigration law, and execute warrants issued for immigration violations. There are no federal statutes which empower ICE agents to exercise general police authority over bystanders, journalists, or protestors. When ICE officers resort to force against citizens who refuse commands that fall outside of this limited grant of power, they are exceeding their statutory authority and violating the constitutional rights of their victims.
 
Addendum:

Several people have responded to this post by claiming that Title 18 section 111 gives ICE the authority to arrest citizens who impede, intimidate, or interfere with ICE officers. The Trump administration has also attempted to make the same claim in court cases involving ICE arrests of citizens, and that claim has been rejected by the courts over and over and over again. Here’s the reason why:

18 USC § 111 states:

“(a) In General.—Whoever—

(1) forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person designated in section 1114 of this title while engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties; or

(2) forcibly assaults or intimidates any person who formerly served as a person designated in section 1114 on account of the performance of official duties during such person’s term of service,

shall, where the acts in violation of this section constitute only simple assault, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, and where such acts involve physical contact with the victim of that assault or the intent to commit another felony, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.”

Those who claim that this authorizes ICE to arrest anyone impeding their operations are treating the words "impedes, intimidates, or interferes with" as standalone offenses without consideration for the rest of the statute. 18 USC § 111 does not criminalize mere impediment of federal officers. Rather, it criminalizes conduct by anyone who "FORCIBLY assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with" designated federal officers. That single adverb applies to all of the listed offenses and thus excludes from criminal liability any conduct that falls short of actual force or credible threats of violence.

The question of whether "forcibly" modifies only "assaults" or extends to all subsequent verbs was resolved by the Fourth Circuit in Long v. United States, 199 F.2d 717 (4th Cir. 1952). The court addressed this precise grammatical issue by saying: "The use of the adverb 'forcibly' before the first of the string of verbs, with the disjunctive conjunction used only between the last two of them, shows quite plainly that the adverb is to be interpreted as modifying them all." The court explained that ordinary rules of grammatical construction require this interpretation, and that any alternative reading "would be absurd to limit the modifying effect of 'forcibly' to the word 'assaults,' since this is the only one of the succeeding verbs in which the use or threat of force is necessarily implied." The court further noted that Section 111 appears in Chapter 7 of the Criminal Code, titled "Assault," alongside other provisions defining crimes "in which force is a necessary element.” In the words of the court, this placement of the statute is "not without significance."

The Department of Justice's own Criminal Resource Manual reinforces this interpretation in Section 1565, which addresses the "Forcible Act Required" under 18 USC § 111. The manual states unequivocally: "Force is an essential element of the crime." Citing Long, the manual explains that courts must determine "whether the element of force, as required by the statute, is present in a particular case" based on "all of the circumstances." The manual extends this force requirement beyond assault to the other verbs: "These judicial decisions suggest a similar construction of the statutory words 'resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates or interferes with.'" In other words, the government's own prosecutorial guidance acknowledges that impediment, intimidation, and interference must be forcible to constitute criminal conduct under Section 111.

What qualifies as "forcible" conduct? The standard jury instruction, cited in United States v. Schaefer (D. Oregon 2023), provides an answer to that question: "There is a 'forcible assault' when one person intentionally strikes another, or willfully attempts to inflict injury on another, or intentionally threatens another coupled with an apparent ability to inflict injury on another which causes a reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm." The DOJ manual similarly explains that force may be satisfied by "a threat uttered with the apparent present ability to execute it, or with menacing gestures, or in hostile company or threatening surroundings." These definitions share a common thread: they require either actual physical contact, attempted physical injury, or credible threats that create reasonable fear of imminent harm.

The practical application of this force requirement can be seen in United States v. Chapman, 528 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2008), where the Ninth Circuit confronted a case involving a protester who resisted federal officers through passive civil disobedience. The court held that "viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, no rational trier of fact could find that Chapman's conduct rises to the level of a criminal offense under 18 U.S.C. § 111." The court explained that all circuit interpretations of Section 111 "have adopted a construction that leaves no room for a conviction that does not involve at least some form of assault."

The Chapman court explicitly rejected the government's argument that "mere passive resistance is sufficient for a conviction under § 111(a)." The court explained that if this section actually made passive resistance a crime, then "A protester who resisted arrest by merely standing still would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to eight years imprisonment, whereas an individual who attempted to punch an arresting officer could be guilty only of a misdemeanor, so long as the attempted physical contact was unsuccessful." The court demonstrated that treating non-forcible resistance, impediment, or interference as federal crimes under Section 111 would reduce the rest of the language in that section to pure absurdity.

8 USC § 1357 authorizes immigration officers to arrest individuals for "any offense against the United States" committed in the officer's presence. However, passive obstruction—standing in a roadway, blocking a driveway entrance, sitting in place and refusing dispersal orders—does not constitute an offense against the United States under 18 USC § 111 because such conduct lacks the essential element of force. Citizens who engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to protest ICE operations may be violating state or local traffic laws, trespass statutes, or disorderly conduct ordinances, but they are not committing any of the federal crimes defined in Section 111.

ICE agents therefore possess no authority to arrest citizens for passive impediment of immigration enforcement operations. The claimed offense simply does not exist. Unless protesters use actual physical force, attempt to inflict injury, or utter credible threats coupled with apparent ability to execute them, their conduct—however obstructive—falls outside Section 111's scope and thus outside ICE's statutory arrest authority for offenses committed in their presence.

Since my picture is featured prominently on Mark Ward’s KJB Study Project, I figure he shouldn’t have any problem with me exposing some of the flaws inherent in his survey.  I mentioned a few of these flaws to Ward as a passing comment in one of our discussions, and he dismissed my concerns by saying, “I did not perform this survey with academic standards in mind, because I did not and do not have academic resources.”  That’s a poor excuse for the type of errors I found in this study.  An honest evaluation of Ward’s infamous study reveals significant weaknesses in survey design, execution, data presentation, and interpretive framework that should lead any serious researcher to question the validity of the results.

Sample Selection and Representation
 
The survey claims to have polled "100 pastors who preach and teach exclusively from the King James Bible," but provides no information about how these pastors were identified, selected, or recruited. The only data given about their selection is “Volunteers built a database of KJV-Only pastors by checking countless church websites and reading their doctrinal statements.”
 
The absence of any significant demographic breakdown beyond this basic statement raises immediate concerns. Were these pastors randomly selected from a comprehensive database of KJV-using churches? Were they volunteers who responded to a call for participants? Were they selected through convenience sampling? The complete lack of transparency about sampling methodology makes it impossible to assess whether these 100 individuals represent any definable population.
 
Furthermore, the survey provides no information about the actual views of the respondents regarding the KJV.  Ward admits in his book that the term "KJV-Only" encompasses a wide spectrum of positions, from those who simply prefer the KJV for its literary value while acknowledging the legitimacy of other translations to those who hold to the Ruckmanite view that God re-inspired the KJV translators.  The survey claims that Extremists/Ruckmanites were not targeted, but admits that some were included.  Without disaggregating these distinct groups, the survey lumps together pastors with vastly different theological commitments and levels of linguistic sophistication.
 
Methodology and Verification Problems
 
This survey of 100 pastors was conducted entirely by phone between November 2022 and April 2023.  That statement in itself is very concerning.  It took Mark Ward and a team of an undisclosed number of volunteers 5 months to make 100 phone calls.  Such an extreme length of time raises serious questions about how selective Ward was in determining which pastors to call.  If he just wanted a random sampling of KJV pastors, he could have personally completed the entire survey in less than a week.  Having a team of volunteers should have reduced that time even further.  The fact that the survey took five months to complete reveals that the goal was something other than a representative sampling of pastors who preach from the KJV.
 
A phone survey was a poor choice for this type of research. Phone surveys rely on the immediate recall and articulation of respondents without opportunity for reflection, reference materials, or careful consideration, and they are often conducted at inopportune times for the respondents. The survey acknowledges that pastors "were offered the opportunity to look at a Bible or to hear the verses read to them again," but this format does not allow the researcher any control at all over environment factors that may have affected the respondent’s ability to think clearly.
 
More importantly, there is no information about who conducted these phone interviews, whether the interviewers were trained in standardized survey methodology, how the responses were coded, or whether any quality control measures were implemented. The potential for interviewer bias, inconsistent question presentation, or subjective interpretation of verbal responses is extremely high in this type of survey.
 
The survey also provides no information about response rates. How many pastors were contacted? How many declined to participate? Did those who participated differ significantly from those who declined?  The website states that “every single response was used,” but that doesn’t answer the question of how many declined to respond.  These are standard methodological questions that any peer-reviewed study should address.

Question Design Issues
 
The survey's questions reveal significant problems in design and framing. For example, all of the questions were asked in isolation, divorced from any pastoral, theological or linguistic context. Asking a pastor on a phone call to immediately classify a pronoun tests something quite different from asking whether that pastor's actual preaching and teaching demonstrates an accurate understanding of the text. A pastor might answer a random grammar question incorrectly when put on the spot while nevertheless preaching passages with full and proper comprehension of their meaning when given time to think and prepare. 
 
Additionally, the lack of randomization of the questions in the pronoun section likely led many pastors to second guess their initial thoughts and give wrong answers simply because they had already given the exact same answer to several questions in a row.
 
The false friends section also demonstrates serious methodological problems. Each question asks pastors to define a single word or phrase, but the survey's open-ended format likely invited pastors to give theological or pastoral interpretations of entire passages rather than grammatically precise definitions of particular words. The survey then treats any answer that strays from a precise definition as incorrect, even when those answers were viable interpretations of the passage.
 
Data Presentation and Interpretation
 
The survey does not provide a detailed breakdown of how individual responses were coded. The "Full Survey Responses" page does provide the raw data from each respondent’s answers, but there is no explanation of the methodology used to determine which answers were correct and which were incorrect.  This flaw is even more obvious if the data is organized to collect all of the responses to one question into two columns labeled “correct” and “incorrect.” Comparing the two columns leaves one with the impression that Ward was intentionally baiting respondents into a trap. See the chart at the end of the article for an example.
 
The graphs show percentages but provide no measures of statistical significance, confidence intervals, or any other standard statistical information. More importantly, the survey makes no attempt to establish any baseline for comparison. What percentage of pastors using modern translations correctly understand the same passages in their Bibles? What percentage of users of other translations struggle with understanding ambiguous second-person pronouns? Without comparative data, the survey's results exist in a vacuum and have very little relevance to the real world.
 
The primary issue is that the survey appears designed to generate predetermined conclusions rather than to find answers to genuine questions. Every aspect of the design, execution, and presentation seems calculated to maximize the appearance that KJV pastors do not understand their Bibles. For these reasons, the results should be regarded with extreme skepticism and should not be accepted as reliable evidence about biblical literacy among KJV churches.
 
A Specific Example: “What is a help meet?”
 
The aforementioned flaws are readily apparent from the very first “false friend” question in the survey. The pastors who responded to the phone call were read the text of Genesis 2:18 and then asked “What is a help meet?” 
 
The question "What is a help meet?" is most naturally interpreted as a request for information about the thing being referenced—its nature, function, or identity.  Most people would not view this question as a request for grammatical parsing or etymological analysis. When someone asks "What is a fire truck?" the expected answer is "a vehicle firefighters use to fight fires," not "a compound noun where fire modifies truck." Similarly, when pastors heard "What is a help meet?" after listening to Genesis 2:18, they would have reasonably understood this as asking "What is this thing God created?" or "What role does a help meet fulfill?"
 
Their answers of "a wife," "a partner," "a companion," "a helper," or "one who completes" are entirely appropriate responses to that question as naturally understood. Ward apparently wanted a metalinguistic explanation that help meet consists of two words where meet is an adjective meaning "suitable." But he never actually asked that question. He didn't ask "What does the word meet mean in this verse?" or "How many words is help meet?" or "Define each component of this phrase." He asked an ambiguous question that naturally invited a theological or functional answer, then marked as incorrect those pastors who gave exactly that type of answer.
 
The flaws in this question become especially egregious when we note that Ward created an online version of the survey with multiple-choice options. The online survey presents four choices for the question “What is a help meet:” "I don't know," "A helper suitable," "A helpful companion or partner, especially one's husband or wife," or "A servant or keeper." The difference between the phone survey and the online survey reveals a calculated deception on multiple levels.
 
First, Ward marked pastors incorrect on the phone survey for giving answers like "a partner," "a companion," or "a wife," yet he includes these exact words—"a helpful companion or partner, especially one's husband or wife"—as one of the multiple-choice options in the online version, presumably as the wrong answer he expects people to see and avoid. This suggests Ward knowingly designed the phone survey to generate wrong answers that he understood to be natural, reasonable interpretations of his ambiguous question. He created a situation where pastors would predictably give answers he could then portray as incorrect, while simultaneously demonstrating through the online version that he knew these answers were the obvious responses to how the question was phrased.
 
Second, the disparity between open-ended phone questions and multiple-choice online options creates an unconscionable double standard. Multiple-choice testing is dramatically easier than producing answers spontaneously because test-takers can recognize correct answers they couldn't generate unprompted, eliminate obviously wrong options, and take time to compare choices without pressure. Educational testing literature consistently demonstrates that recognition tasks (multiple choice) require far less knowledge than production tasks (open-ended responses). By using the harder format for pastors and the easier format for online users, Ward engineered a comparison designed to make the pastors appear incompetent. The online version serves as an invitation for readers to take the "same" test and feel intellectually superior when they pass using multiple-choice options that the pastors never received.
 
Additional Concerns
 
The FAQ page of the KJB Study Project website claims "grading was done according to the standard set by the Oxford English Dictionary," yet the OED says that meet is a current English word with modern usage examples through 1983 and beyond, defining it as "suitable, fit, proper for some purpose or occasion." If Ward had actually consulted the OED as his grading standard, he would have discovered that meet is not a “false friend,” which of course, would have invalidated his entire hypothesis. Either he did not actually consult the OED despite claiming to use it as his standard, or he consulted it, saw that it contradicts his premise, and proceeded anyway. Either possibility indicates dishonesty rather than mere incompetence.
 
The FAQ section also reveals that "survey organizers" graded the false friends responses themselves. Having the same people who designed the study to validate Ward's predictions about false friends also grade the responses themselves means that the very people with the strongest investment in achieving particular results controlled the scoring. The website provides no information about inter-rater reliability, blind grading procedures, or any safeguards against scorer bias. When we combine this with the ambiguous question like "What is a help meet?" that naturally invite theological rather than grammatical answers, the potential for subjective scoring becomes a near certainty.
 
Most damning of all is the study's explicit statement of purpose: "It is a delicate and difficult matter to persuade people that they don't understand their favored traditional Bible translation as well as they think they do." The survey's goal was persuasion, not discovery. The website claims the survey was designed "to find out whether Mark Ward's predictions about false friends were accurate, AND to inform the Bible-reading public about the existence of such words” (emphasis mine). The fact that the study was designed to inform people about the existence of the very thing it was supposedly designed to test for proves that this is not neutral research seeking truth wherever it leads; it’s a brazen attempt to fabricate evidence for a predetermined conclusion.
 
This isn't research; it's propaganda. Ward deliberately engineered every element to produce a predetermined outcome. The survey's reliability as evidence of biblical literacy is less than zero—it stands instead as yet another piece of evidence of Ward's willingness to manipulate, misrepresent, and publicly ridicule his opponents. No honest conclusion about KJV readability or pastoral competence can be drawn from a survey so thoroughly corrupted by malicious intent.
 
Get more quality analysis of Mark Ward’s claims in my new book False Friends and True Enemies, available now on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2BDX3NQ

Most Christians are familiar with Christ's comparison of faith to a mustard seed in Luke 17:5-6, but not many of us take time to read the rest of the passage.  Consider what Jesus said in the first two verses:

"And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." 

That's the part that most Christians are familiar with, but it's not the end of the passage.  Jesus continued His lesson on faith by giving an example of someone who did not have faith.  Here's what we find in the rest of the passage:

"But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." (Lk. 17:7-10)

Have you ever noticed that Christ did not teach his disciples to have faith the size of a mustard seed, but rather to have faith as a mustard seed? In Mark 4:31-32, Jesus taught that when the mustard seed is planted, it is the least of all seeds, but that it becomes greater than all the herbs as it grows into a large tree. This is the kind of faith that we need, not faith the size of a mustard seed, but faith of the same kind as the mustard seed - a faith that causes us to attempt great things regardless of our seemingly small potential.

Those that allow their limitations to dictate their ambitions are likened in verses 7-10 to a servant who works hard but is unprofitable because he has only done his duty and nothing else. We too are unprofitable servants if all we attempt to do is our Christian duty. Let's set our goals and ambitions on things that we can't ever hope to accomplish and watch God make us as profitable as the mustard seed.

The error in Ward’s claims about the word hell differs from those in his other videos in a very significant way. Ward’s entire video on this word can be refuted with a single exercise to expose his confirmation bias. Ward claims that the word hell describes a place where both the righteous and the wicked go after death before being ushered into either Heaven or eternal torment. About twelve minutes into the video, Ward said, “Here’s the key point: this is a place to which the righteous can also go. Presumably, it is the intermediate state. That’s really the key here.” Ward’s entire argument for hell being a “false friend” rests on his claim that the KJV translators sometimes used hell to refer to a place where both the righteous and the wicked go after death.

Ward walked his viewers through all five of his steps for discovering a “false friend,” but there’s another crucially important method of studying words in the Bible that Ward often neglects. That method is to simply look up and read every verse where a given word is used. Had Ward engaged in this simple yet foundational process, he would have seen just how silly his claims about the word hell actually are.
 
Here is the complete list of all fifty-four verses where the word hell is used in the KJV. Ward claims that this word was sometimes used by the translators to describe a place where the righteous went after death, so I’ve used bold type to indicate all of the verses that use the word hell to describe a place where a righteous man went after his death. Read through the list and see if you notice a pattern that Ward missed.
 
Deut. 32:22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
 
2 Sam. 22:6 The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me.
 
Job 11:8 It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
 
Job 26:6 Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.
 
Psa. 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
 
Psa. 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
 
Psa. 18:5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
 
Psa. 55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.
 
Psa. 86:13 For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
 
Psa. 116:3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
 
Psa. 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
 
Pro. 5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
 
Pro. 7:27 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
 
Pro. 9:18 But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
 
Pro. 15:11 Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?
 
Pro. 15:24 The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.
 
Pro. 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
 
Pro. 27:20 Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
 
Isa. 5:14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
 
Isa. 14:9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
 
Isa. 14:15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
 
Isa. 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.
 
Isa. 28:18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
 
Isa. 57:9 And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.
 
Eze. 31:16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
 
Eze. 31:17 They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
 
Eze. 32:21 The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
 
Eze. 32:27 And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
 
Amos 9:2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.
 
Jon. 2:2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
 
Hab. 2:5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people.
 
Matt. 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
 
Matt. 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
 
Matt. 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
 
Matt. 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
 
Matt. 11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
 
Matt. 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
 
Matt. 18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
 
Matt. 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
 
Matt. 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
 
Mark 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
 
Mark 9:45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
 
Mark 9:47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
 
Luke 10:15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.
 
Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
 
Lk. 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
 
Acts 2:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
 
Acts 2:31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
 
Jas. 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
 
2 Pet. 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.
 
Rev. 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
 
Rev. 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
 
Rev. 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
 
Rev. 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
 
Do you see the pattern? There are only three verses which speak of a righteous man descending into hell after death, and all three of those verses are talking about the death of Christ. But even though Christ is eternally righteous, He did not die the death of a righteous man. He died in our place, which means He died the death of a wicked man. Thus, even these three verses are speaking about the death of a wicked man, and now the pattern is absolute. There is not one single time that the word hell is used in the KJV to refer to a place where righteous men go after death. Every time the KJV uses the word hell, it refers to the place where wicked men go after their death, not righteous men.
 
Ward may argue that the word hell enjoys a much broader usage in other works of English literature, but that has no effect on its use by the KJV translators. In the broader realm of English literature, hell has been used in many different views of the afterlife, some of which include the idea that the righteous and the wicked have a common destination immediately following their death. This is largely due to the use of hell in translations of various pagan mythologies. It is true that the word hell has been used many times in English literature to describe the immediate afterlife of both the righteous and the wicked. It is even used that way in some of our contemporary literature, but that is not how it is used in the KJV.
 
In the KJV, the word hell always means exactly what the average modern reader assumes it means. It is always a reference to the tortuous abode of the wicked after their death.

Click here to read about more words that are not "false friends" in the KJV.

When Senator Jacob Howard explained the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, he said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States."

Most people today read this statement and assume Howard was listing four separate categories of people who would not receive birthright citizenship:

1. Foreigners
2. Aliens
3. People who belong to families of ambassadors
4. Foreign ministers

This interpretation has shaped decades of constitutional debate, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Howard structured his sentence.

Testing the List Theory

There's a simple way to check whether a sentence actually contains a list. In English, when you have items separated by commas in a list, you can break the sentence apart into separate sentences for each item in the list, and they should all make sense.

Take this example: "Bob is wearing his hat, coat, and boots." You can split this into three separate sentences:

1. Bob is wearing his hat.  
2. Bob is wearing his coat.
3. Bob is wearing his boots.

Each one works perfectly, which confirms it's a genuine list.

What Happens When We Test Howard's Statement

Let's try the same test on Senator Howard's words. If he really meant to list four categories, we should be able to create four sentences that all make sense:

1. This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners.
2. This will not include persons born in the United States who are aliens.
3. This will not include persons born in the United States who are who belong to the families of ambassadors.
4. This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreign ministers.

The problem jumps out immediately in sentence three: "who are who belong to the families of ambassadors." This isn't proper English. The phrase is grammatically incorrect, and an accomplished nineteenth-century orator like Senator Howard would never have spoken this way.

This test proves that Howard wasn't creating a list of four different categories.

Understanding the Real Grammar

So what was Howard actually doing? He was using a grammatical construction called an appositive, where one word clarifies or restates another. In nineteenth-century English, the appositive was a common and sophisticated way to ensure precision.

In Howard's statement, "aliens" is an appositive for "foreigners"—he's using both terms to refer to the same group of people, not two different groups. The legal term "aliens" clarifies what he means by "foreigners."

The phrase "who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers" then describes which specific foreigners/aliens he's talking about.

A Modern Example

Here's a similar sentence that shows the same structure: "The team consisted of several teenagers, adolescents, who belonged to the parents or guardians watching from the bleachers."

No one would think this describes four different groups. We understand that "adolescents" is just another word for "teenagers," and the rest tells us which teenagers—the ones whose parents are in the stands.

Howard's sentence follows exactly the same pattern.

What Senator Howard Actually Said

When you read it with proper grammar, Howard's statement means: "This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners (that is, aliens) who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."

He's describing one specific group: children born in America to foreign diplomatic families. That's it. Not multiple broad categories, but one narrow exception based on diplomatic immunity.

Why This Distinction Matters

The difference between these two interpretations is enormous for constitutional law. The misreading suggests the Fourteenth Amendment contains several broad exceptions to birthright citizenship. The correct reading shows just one specific exception for diplomatic families.

This affects how we understand the amendment's scope and intent. The framers of the amendment didn’t create a narrow category of citizens with multiple exclusions—they were acknowledging a single established principle of international law regarding diplomatic immunity.

How the Mistake Happened

The misinterpretation stems from reading nineteenth-century sentences with twenty-first-century assumptions. Modern readers expect simple, direct constructions and assume that commas always separate list items. But nineteenth-century writers used more complex structures that served different grammatical functions.

Howard wasn't being unclear or overly complicated. He was writing in the sophisticated style that educated people of his era considered normal and precise. The problem isn't with his sentence—it's with our unfamiliarity with his grammatical conventions.

Click here for a detailed analysis of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction."

And click here to purchase my book The Birthright: A History of Citizenship in America where I use original source documents to trace the history of birthright citizenship all the way back to George Washington's administration.