Birthright Citizenship: Soil Beats Blood

The U. S. Constitution says anyone born on American soil and under its flag is a citizen, no matter who their parents are. This rule does not care about race, gender, religion, or whether the parents are U. S. citizens. It simply looks at where a baby is born and that the country’s flag is above them. In 2017, President Trump tried to change this by issuing an executive order. The order said that a baby born in the U. S. would only be treated as a citizen if at least one parent is a citizen or has a green card. All courts have so far rejected the order, and a Supreme Court case will decide it in 2024. The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens. ” The words “in” and “under” refer only to location, not to family ties. Thus a child born on U. S. soil under the flag automatically gains citizenship.

Historically, some areas inside U. S. borders—such as tribal lands or foreign embassies—were not covered by this rule, but those are special exceptions. No part of the amendment mentions parents or where they live. In the 1850s, Chief Justice Taney ruled that people of African descent could not be citizens. After the war, Abraham Lincoln and his government argued that citizenship should depend on soil, not blood. Attorney General Edward Bates wrote in 1862 that anyone born in the country is a citizen, regardless of race or parental status. Congress later passed laws that reinforced this idea. In 1940 and again in 1952, statutes made it clear that children of foreign parents born in the U. S. are citizens. The Supreme Court has upheld these principles, most famously in 1898’s United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Until the Constitution is changed, the government cannot strip newborns of their citizenship based on their parents’ immigration status.

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