On Jan. 20, former president Donald Trump returned to the White House and swore an oath to “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He promptly passed an executive order on his first day in office seeking to end birthright citizenship for the children of non-U.S. citizens born on U.S. soil, directly violating the 14th Amendment. Immediately after the order was issued, five lawsuits sprang up in 22 states and various immigrant rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
When held up against legal scrutiny, Trump’s order falls flat. It contradicts the provisions of the 14th Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction on thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Trump’s order claims to reinterpret the Constitution, stating that non-U.S. citizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. However, this does not make any sense since U.S. law still applies to even undocumented immigrants and other non-U.S. citizens, meaning that they are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. Thankfully, the federal judge presiding over the first hearing for the order temporarily blocked it on the grounds of it being “blatantly unconstitutional.” Even after this development, the Department of Justice continues to defend the order, saying it correctly interprets the 14th Amendment.
This rule would especially affect undocumented immigrants and their children, people on a work, student, or tourist visa and refugees seeking asylum. To put that into perspective, there are around 11 million undocumented people living in the U.S. (PEW Research), and just 5.2 million non-immigrant visas were issued in the first half of 2024 according to an announcement by the U.S. Department of State. The number of refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. is not readily available. If Trump’s order is upheld, babies born to these populations after Feb. 19 will not be U.S. citizens. In fact, many of them may be at risk of not holding citizenship anywhere, and becoming “stateless.”
As a person who is a citizen of the U.S. because of birthright citizenship, I believe that this attempt to undermine immigrant populations and children, and to deny us hard-won rights of birthright citizenship goes against the values of our Constitution and will not hold up in court. There are expecting mothers now who urgently need this order to be overturned, or their children will end up not having any citizenship, blocking their access to federally funded aid like Medicare, Medicaid, and federal benefits like food assistance, housing and social security. That’s why I hope this order is overturned as soon as possible as birthright citizenship is and will continue to be a constitutionally protected right.
