Under the 14th Amendment: “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 clause from 1868 has far surpassed its original intent. It has been abused as a method for citizenship by illegal migrants who often intentionally travel to the US to give birth, but not in the way the media portrays it. Recent data suggests at least 400,000 “anchor babies,” as they are called, were born in the US in 2024 alone.
The Common Law Doctrine of Jus Soli under English common law protected “right of the soil,” which deemed anyone born on a country’s soil to be a citizen. The US Constitution never clearly defined citizenship until the Naturalization Act of 1790, which granted citizenship to “free white persons” born on US soil. The advent of the Civil War left dire uncertainty for slaves who had no homeland to return to after the war came to an end and slavery was abolished. The 1844 case Lynch v Clarke in New York reaffirmed that anyone born to non-citizen parents would be considered an American. The Reconstruction Amendments remained vague, and Dred Scott was expanded in 1868 to include:
“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.”
The law remained open to interpretation. Native Americans, for example, were not seen as Americans since they did not pledge their allegiance to the federal government. It was not until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 that Native Americans were considered full citizens.
America’s complicated past with citizenship has led to today’s debacle. Nowhere along the way did the Supreme Court or any other entity grant citizenship to parents of children born in the US. However, the system often looks the other way to prevent separating families. American-born children may sponsor their parents for a green card when they turn 21. Then, the parents must wait five years before applying for naturalization. Parents often must leave the US for a decade before applying for citizenship. Yet, in recent years, we have seen people completely bypass the system by claiming asylum. Under Biden-Harris, the borders were simply wide open.
Hence why, the media is attacking incoming border tzar Tom Homan for insisting that families can leave the US together if they want to prevent separation. The parents are here illegally — plain and simple.
Donald Trump vowed to end birthright citizenship. “Joe Biden has launched an illegal foreign invasion of our country, allowing a record number of illegal aliens to storm across our borders,” Trump said on X. “Even though these millions of illegal border crossers have entered the country unlawfully, all of their future children will become automatic U.S. citizens. Can you imagine?” Trump believes birthright citizenship incentivizes migrants to illegally cross into the US and calls it a form of tourism.
Donald Trump CANNOT end birthright citizenship through an executive order. The president simply cannot change the Constitution without a revision of the amendment. But the president may deport the parents of “anchor babies,” as that term does not hold weight since it is a false notion that having a child on US soil grants parents automatic citizenship.
