A threat this week by President Donald Trump to end “birthright citizenship” would seem destined for the courts.
Trump’s widely cited hot-button declaration from outside the White House on Aug. 21 was “We’re looking at that very seriously—birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land. You walk over the border, have a baby. Congratulations, the baby is now a U.S. citizen … It’s frankly ridiculous.”
He reaffirmed his position the next day.
Where does the U.S. concept of birthright citizenship come from?
It was codified in the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, not because of immigration, although the courts have also applied it that way for well more than a century.
Birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted by Congress on July 9, 1868. It was intended to define as citizens U.S.-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied. The amendment was part of a package of changes, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which also declared Blacks full citizens, and the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, that gave Black males the right to vote. Women did not win the right to vote until the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920.
Suppression of minority voting rights led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The difficulties continue.
The first section of the 14th Amendment says: “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.”
About 30 countries have provisions that confer citizenship based on where people were born, although Trump says the U.S. is the only country that does that. Some opponents of birthright citizenship question what “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means. A court fight would be in keeping with the amendment’s reputation as one of the most controversial ever adopted.
“100 Questions and Answers About Immigrants to the U.S.” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.
