Birthright Citizenship
What is Birthright Citizenship?
Birthright citizenship is a legal principle under which citizenship is automatically granted to individuals upon birth. There are two forms of birthright citizenship: ancestry-based citizenship and birthplace-based citizenship. Birthplace-based citizenship, which grants citizenship based on place of birth, is formally referred to as jus soli, a Latin term meaning "right of the soil." In the United States, birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Specifically, it states that "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." This principle was confirmed by the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which clarified that children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents are citizens, regardless of their parents' immigration status. The U.S. employs a combination of:- Unrestricted birthplace-based citizenship (jus soli): Granting citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents' status, with exceptions like children of foreign diplomats.]
- Restricted ancestry-based citizenship (jus sanguinis): Extending citizenship to children born abroad to U.S. citizens, provided statutory requirements are met.
Birthright Citizenship in the United States
- Birthright Citizenship
- March 13, 2025
This fact sheet explains birthright citizenship, the Fourteenth Amendment, and its interpretations. Who is eligible for birthright citizenship? Can birthright citizenship be…
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Birthright Citizenship: What It Is and Why We Need to Preserve It
- Birthright Citizenship
- August 21, 2015
There has been a media frenzy over one of the more draconian components of…
Read MoreBirthright Citizenship: Myths, Facts and Why It Matters
- Demographics
- September 16, 2009
The issue of birthright citizenship, although not traditionally a sexy topic, is not without…
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A Much-Needed Spotlight on Families Ripped Apart by Deportations
On December 12, dozens of children delivered thousands of letters to Capitol Hill, calling upon lawmakers to stop the senseless division of families that is caused by the deportation of mothers and fathers who are not a threat to anyone. The event was part of “A Wish for the Holidays,” a campaign with a simple but powerful message: “Every day, families across the country are separated by deportations and immigrant detentions. 5.5 million children live with the fear that a parent could be deported, and these policies threaten the fabric of all of our communities. It just isn’t right.” Read More
American Heritage Dictionary Redefines “Anchor Baby” Term as “Offensive” and “Disparaging”
The firestorm around the inclusion of the term “anchor baby” in the new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has led to a dramatic reversal in the definition. Not only did the executive editor, Steven Kleinelder, emphatically apologize for the initial definition, he promised swift action to change it. By Monday morning, the term was labeled as “offensive.” By Monday afternoon, a new definition appeared online, one that was crafted to reflect more accurately just how artificial a term it really is: Read More
“Anchor Baby” Added to New American Heritage Dictionary
The degree to which the immigration debate has coarsened over the last few years is no more evident than in the pages of the recently released fifth edition of the New American Heritage Dictionary. Among the new entries is the term “anchor baby.” You might think that the definition would read something like: slang, a pejorative description of a child born in the United States to parents without legal status, implying that the parents intend to leverage the child’s citizenship to “anchor” their own presence in the U.S.” You would be wrong. Read More
Eliminating Birthright Citizenship Would Not Solve the Problem of Unauthorized Immigration
There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. just to give birth. Read More
Restrictionist Group Strikes Out in Latest Report on Children of Diplomats
BY MARGARET D. STOCK, COUNSEL TO THE FIRM, LANE POWELL PC The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has been known for coming out with some odd reports over the years—but their latest is notable for its factual and legal flaws—and for argument that we should expand several different government bureaucracies to chase down the dozen or so children born in the U.S. each year to diplomats with immunity. The CIS report, “Birthright Citizenship for the Children of Diplomats?,” is about the one group of people that everyone agrees is exempted from birthright citizenship—the children born to foreign diplomats. It claims that, even though these people are not U.S. citizens, they are de facto citizens because they are able to receive Social Security numbers. If you look at the facts, their argument doesn't hold water. Read More
Constitutional Citizenship: A Legislative History
Attacks against the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment have picked up in recent months, with legislators at both the national and state levels introducing bills that would deny U.S. citizenship or “state citizenship” to the children born to unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. There are two strands of attacks on birthright citizenship. One strand arises out of simple nativist anger at the impact of immigrants, legal or otherwise, on society. The other argues that the current interpretation of the Citizenship Clause as covering the children of “illegal” immigrants is inconsistent with the “original intent” of the Framers of the 14th Amendment. Originalism is often used as a method to clarify unclear portions of constitutional text or to fill contextual gaps in the document. This is not, however, how originalism is being used in the context to the Citizenship Clause. Here, originalists use clever arguments and partial quotations to eradicate the actual text of the Amendment. In essence, they claim the Framers did not really mean what they said. Read More
Report on Birthright Citizenship Low on Facts, High on Fantasy
Sometimes it’s easy to miss the most outlandish and unrealistic statements made in the immigration debate given the level of dialed up rhetoric. A recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), however, appears to have been written to test just how far into the realm of fantasy the debate can be taken. In Birthright Citizenship for the Children of Visitors: A National Security Problem in the Making?, author W.D. Reasoner (a pseudonym) makes so many preposterous assumptions and calculations that one wonders whether the author used an alias to avoid embarrassment. Read More
Some States Applying Brakes to Legislation Denying Citizenship to U.S.-Born Children
Yesterday, a panel in South Dakota’s legislature voted to halt legislation aimed at denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. South Dakota’s bill—and others like it—propose measures which challenge the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which states that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. While conservative lawmakers continue to introduce bills challenging the birthright citizenship clause, other states—like Arizona and Montana—are joining South Dakota's lead in deciding whether to move these bills forward. Read More
What Does the Vitter-Paul Resolution to Amend the Constitution Solve, Exactly?
Senator David Vitter (R-LA). Photo by SIR: Poseyal. In the latest attack on the Constitution and U.S. citizenship, Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution (S. J. RES. 2) last week proposing an amendment to the constitution to limit citizenship to children born in the U.S. if 1) one parent is a U.S. citizen, 2) one parent is a legal permanent resident residing in the U.S., or 3) one parent is on active duty in the U.S. military. Arizona State Rep. Kavanaugh also introduced two bills last week attempting to deny citizenship to children born in the state to undocumented immigrants and require state officials to issue distinctive looking birth certificates to those children the state does not consider citizens. While these bills might make for splashy headlines, they do nothing to end undocumented immigration. In fact, it would make life more difficult for every person in the U.S., who would then have to prove their citizenship status in order to determine the status of their newborns. Read More
A One-Man Wrecking Crew: New Report Details the Costly Career of Kris Kobach
It is hardly surprising that the newly elected Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, ran an election campaign which featured the baseless claim that “the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive” in the state. As a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes in detail, Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants; first in the Bush Administration, targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries, and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants. Yet, while Kobach’s anti-immigrant initiatives have served to advance him politically and financially, virtually all of them have ended up being costly failures for which taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. Read More
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