For more than a century, most Americans have assumed that anyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen, regardless of their parents’ status. But this modern understanding of “birthright citizenship” isn’t what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended — and it’s time we revisit this crucial question.
When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, its drafters aimed to resolve the legal status of formerly enslaved people, affirming their citizenship unequivocally. The Amendment’s Citizenship Clause states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
At first glance, the phrase seems straightforward. But those final words — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — were meant as a clear limit, not an empty formality.
The lawmakers of the time repeatedly explained that “subject to the jurisdiction” meant complete, undivided allegiance to the United States. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lyman Trumbull explicitly stated that it meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” Senator Jacob Howard, who presented the Amendment on the Senate floor, confirmed that the clause would exclude “foreigners, aliens, [and] ministers” — groups whose loyalty belonged elsewhere.
This understanding wasn’t just theoretical. Children born to foreign diplomats, enemy soldiers, or tribal members living under their own governments were long excluded from automatic citizenship precisely because their parents were not fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Crucially, this distinction depends on the principle of allegiance — a foundational concept for any sovereign nation. Citizenship is not merely a happenstance of geography; it is a mutual bond of loyalty and responsibility. By this logic, if a child’s parents are in the country illegally — without lawful status and without having accepted U.S. jurisdiction — they retain allegiance to their home countries. Their children, though born here, do not automatically meet the Amendment’s original conditions for citizenship.
This was the view upheld in early interpretations and by key Supreme Court justices even decades later. The 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark case, often cited as the bedrock for modern birthright citizenship, actually involved parents who were lawful permanent residents. It did not settle — nor did it even directly address — the question of children born to those in the country illegally.
Moreover, the first federal citizenship law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, contained almost identical language, granting citizenship only to those “not subject to any foreign power.” The drafters were consistent: allegiance, not mere soil, defined who belonged.
Opponents of clarifying this issue often invoke fairness or compassion. But a nation must first decide who it recognizes as members of its community. No major European country grants unconditional birthright citizenship. Even Canada, often cited as an open society, has recently debated restricting its policy to prevent so-called “birth tourism.”
The United States can and should be a welcoming nation. But our generosity must be rooted in law and principle, not in misinterpretations of our Constitution. Recognizing that the Fourteenth Amendment was never meant to confer citizenship on children of those here unlawfully does not diminish our compassion — it strengthens our sovereignty.
At a time when immigration policy is among our most contentious debates, we owe it to future generations to get this right. Let’s return to the original meaning of the Constitution and reaffirm that American citizenship is a sacred bond, not an automatic entitlement.
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