Show results for

birthright citizenship

What to know

During his second term, President Donald Trump initiated moves to end birthright citizenship. In January 2025, he issued Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order directed federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the US without at least one parent who is a US citizen or has permanent lawful residency. If the order were implemented, children of undocumented immigrants or temporary Visa holders would not automatically be recognized as US citizens. Children of lawful permanent residents would retain birthright citizenship.

The order was challenged in court and temporarily stopped from going into effect. Journalists can refer to the American Immigration Council and American Immigration Lawyers Association for timely and reliable information to inform their reporting.

History and context

Institutionalized forms of discrimination, exclusion, and abuse have long denied people equal protection under US law. Examples include: chattel slavery; the Act to prohibit the “Coolie Trade”; the Chinese Exclusion Act; Jim Crow practices and laws; and US Immigration Law. One landmark Supreme Court decision was especially consequential for birthright citizenship: Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that based on the intentions of the constitution’s framers, Black Americans—enslaved and free—had never been, nor could they be, citizens of the US. Taney also declared void the Missouri Compromise, a federal measure restricting slavery to some territories and states. The decision helped push the nation toward war.

For former Confederate states after the Civil War, readmission to the Union was contingent on their endorsement of the 14th Amendment, per the Reconstruction Act of 1867. The amendment was intended to void the Dred Scott decision and guarantee citizenship for those born on US soil, regardless of ancestry.

Citizenship rights in the US have expanded in various ways since the ratification of the 14th Amendment: the 15th Amendment (1870) granting Black men the right to vote; a 1898 Supreme Court decision applying birthright citizenship to the children of Chinese and all eligible foreign nationals born in the US; the 19th Amendment (1920), which, in theory if not in practice, extended the right to vote to women; and the Indian Citizenship Act (1924), which granted birthright citizenship to members of Indigenous tribes.

Multiple laws and court decisions in the mid-20th century eroded Jim Crow policies and practices, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed racial discrimination in a variety of settings. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended the quota system, which had favored immigration from northern European countries and severely limited or completely barred it from other countries. In 1986 and 2017, laws were largely eliminated that had subjected the children of married US citizen women to different requirements for citizenship than those of married US citizen men. (Some differences continue for married and unmarried parents, but those born to at least one US citizen parent generally are eligible for birthright citizenship).

Birthright citizenship now

Today, the major groups not granted birthright citizenship are US-born children of foreign diplomats and those born in American Samoa, who are considered non-citizen US nationals. Children born abroad to US citizens, including on US military bases, and children adopted from other countries, require paperwork to formalize their citizenship status. Citizens of the Freely Associated States (Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau) have the right to live, work, and study anywhere in the US without a Visa.

In calling birthright citizenship into question, the Trump administration focused on the criterion in the 14th Amendment granting birthright citizenship to those “subject to” US “jurisdiction.” In Congressional testimony offered in February 2025, Charles J. Cooper, a Republican lawyer, argued that being subject to US jurisdiction “requires more than just one’s physical presence in the country.” Lawyers representing the Trump administration made similar arguments, as have bills introduced to the House and Senate.

Penn State’s Population Research Institute and the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimate that the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment would increase the undocumented population in the United States by 2.7 million people by 2045, including some who would also be stateless. This would create a new and young population potentially eligible to be removed from the US and susceptible to deportation or detention in a third country to which they have no connection. Some analysts have drawn a connection between moves to end birthright citizenship and two conspiracy theories: ”Great Replacement,” which has been implicated in multiple hate crimes, and “invasion” by migration, which has served the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Guidance for usage

Thoughtful reporting on birthright citizenship will clarify the rationale for individuals’ support or opposition and relevant personal, political, or organizational affiliations and experiences. Countering inaccurate claims is necessary to avoid spreading misinformation. Leaving inaccurate ideas unmitigated—even those expressed by sources in quotes—can register as tacit agreement. Reporting on birthright citizenship that fails to account for racism, xenophobia or antisemitism can lack vital context.

Additional resources

A history of birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court (SCOTUSblog)
A Brief History of Citizenship in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Letters and Science)
Compiled Proceedings in Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford (National Archives)
Trump Invoked the Alien Enemies Act to Speed Up Deportations (The New York Times)

Summary

Birthright citizenship grants citizenship to a person at birth, either by being born in that country or, in some cases, being born abroad to citizen parents. Nearly three dozen countries, mostly in the Americas, offer unrestricted birthright citizenship. The 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment made it a constitutional right in the US. During his second term, President Donald Trump moved to end automatic birthright citizenship with Executive Order 14160, which directed federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the US without at least one parent who is a US citizen or has permanent lawful residency. The order was challenged in court and temporarily stopped from going into effect. Journalists can refer to the American Immigration Council and American Immigration Lawyers Association for timely and reliable information to inform their reporting.