Ending birthright citizenship has been on President-elect Donald Trump’s wish list for years, and he has vowed to kill it once and for all in his next term. But ending it may not be as easy as he promised.
Under longstanding interpretations of the Constitution and federal law, children born in the United States automatically become American citizens, even if their parents are not enrolled. Trump certainly did That promise“On day one of my new term, I will sign an executive order clarifying to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the children of illegal immigrants will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.”
Specifically, that would be executive orders order At least one parent of their child must be a US citizen or green card holder to qualify for automatic citizenship. Federal agencies would be directed to deny passports, Social Security numbers, and public benefits to children of two undocumented parents.
The executive order will almost certainly be challenged in court. While it’s impossible to say what the Supreme Court might ultimately decide, history and precedent are not in Trump’s favor.
“I think that birthright citizenship is such a bedrock principle of American law that it’s the least likely of all the things on Trump’s agenda to succeed,” said UCLA School of Law professor Hiroshi Motomura.
Trump As a solution, policies have been formulated “Birth tourism” – when pregnant people travel to the US to give birth in order to secure US citizenship for their child – and is a way to remove a pull factor for unauthorized immigration, which Strongly rejected On the southern border in 2024. The policy also reflects Trump’s long-standing effort to assert a certain vision of what it means to be American in an era when the U.S. The white population is declining in numbers. During his first term, he “reportedly abandoned immigration from”Shithal country,” referring to Haiti and African countries And he more recently claimed that immigrants “Blood poisoning“of the country.
It is unclear how many people may be affected by the policy. However, about 5.5 million American citizen children currently live in mixed-status families, some of them with two undocumented parents, making them ineligible for automatic US citizenship under Trump’s proposed policy. This suggests that the affected population of future children born in the United States may be large.
What the law says
The prevailing belief among legal experts is that ending birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment, that there is not enough support in Congress to pass one, and that Trump’s proposed executive order would not hold up in court.
“President Trump can’t do it,” said Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “President Trump cannot change the Constitution by executive order.”
He said ending birthright citizenship by executive order violates the 14th Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War to allow formerly enslaved people to be considered U.S. citizens.
The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Chemerinsky says that this has “always been understood to mean that everyone born (or naturalized as a citizen) in the United States is a citizen of the United States,” in addition to any person under US jurisdiction abroad, such as children born to overseas US military personnel. The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of” the country was intended to exclude Native Americans born on tribal lands as well as children of enemy occupiers and foreign diplomats.
Supreme Court judgment in 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Arch “Clarifies that those born in the United States are citizens,” Chemerinsky added. The case concerned a child born in California to Chinese immigrants who were lawful permanent residents of the United States. At the time, no Chinese nationals were allowed to become US citizens under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The court ruled that the child was a US citizen because he was born in the US, even though his parents were non-citizens.
Can Trump ban birthright citizenship anyway?
Right-wing immigration hawks have argued that the “subject to its jurisdiction” clause should be interpreted differently to exclude children of unauthorized immigrants from automatic citizenship benefits. The clause, they argued, was meant to exclude anyone who owes allegiance to a foreign power, including citizens of another country.
But some of Trump’s allies — including Mark KrikorianThe director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant think tank – appeared to acknowledge that he would face an uphill battle in court to implement his plan.
“I think it will be challenged in court immediately, and I think that the challenge will have all the history and legal origins behind it,” Motomura said. “I can’t predict what any court will actually do, but I think the historical record is so clear.”
Still, if Trump succeeds in implementing his executive order, the implications will be far-reaching. Birthright citizenship has served as an “engine of integration” for immigrant populations in the United States, and ending it would also undermine America’s cultural identity as an “inclusive immigrant society,” Motomura said, adding that it would hurt people of Mexican and Central American descent. the most difficult
“This aspect cannot be ignored,” Motomura said. “It’s a resurgence of U.S. citizenship rules with a real racial impact, and I think an intentional racial impact.”
