BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIPWhat Is Birthright Citizenship and Could the Supreme Court End It?
The Trump administration’s efforts to nullify birthright citizenship for millions of U.S.-born children could overturn a nearly 160-year legal precedent.
The United States is one of a few dozen countries that guarantees citizenship to any individual born within its territory—a policy that has been in place since Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. But efforts to end the practice have increased as critics say it encourages unauthorized migration. On President Donald Trump’s first day in office, he issued an executive order seeking to redefine the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. The legality of this order has escalated to the Supreme Court, which is slated to hear oral arguments on May 15 in a consolidated case that experts say could have implications for the rights and status of millions of people born in the United States to undocumented immigrants or those with temporary legal status.
What Is Birthright Citizenship?
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1868, grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” There are few exceptions, including children born to foreign diplomats as well as those born in American Samoa, where they are instead considered U.S. nationals. (This distinction prevents them from enjoying the same full rights as citizens, such as voting and running for office.) The concept dates back centuries and draws on the English common law principle of jus soli (“right of soil”), which grants automatic citizenship to anyone born in a country’s territory regardless of their parents’ nationality. The United States also extends citizenship to children born to U.S. citizens irrespective of their place of birth, also known as jus sanguinis (“right of blood”).
