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The United States Supreme Court is once again being asked to interpret one of the most debated sentences in the Constitution. The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. The case centers on birthright citizenship and whether children born in the United States to illegal immigrants automatically become American citizens. President Donald Trump has challenged the long-standing interpretation of that clause arguing that the Constitution does not grant citizenship to every child born on US soil.
Supporters of that view point to the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof claiming it places limits on who qualifies for citizenship. Others argue the opposite. They maintain that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States regardless of their parents immigration status. That interpretation has guided American law for more than a century. So, what does the Constitution actually say and how did this debate begin? Should birthright citizenship be granted and if so, why?
Do other nations offer birthright citizenship? Is the argument to abandon the practice feasible? What does the law say and how can that be challenged? Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. Beginning of the toughest 26 days in Marine Corps history. With confidence in our armed forces 36 President of the United States died this afternoon.
Tell them there are children and women in here to call it off. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states in section one \{quote\} "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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The argument against continuing this practice surrounds the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof and this is the problem.
Foreigners who are not citizens or even legal residents do not owe allegiance to the United States. Their allegiance is to their nation of origin, not America, and federal law does not allow non-citizens to vote in national elections, buy firearms, or make campaign donations. Given these examples of the law, supporters of abolishing birthright citizens stand on solid ground and there is also legal precedent. American Indians were only granted US citizenship on June 2nd, 1924 when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, also called the Snyder Act. This was because they belonged to their separate self-identified respective nations such as the Sioux, Cheyenne, Apache, Comanche, etc.
Their allegiance was not to the USA. Before 1924, some Native Americans had already become citizens through other paths such as military service, independent treaties with various Indian nations, marriage to US citizens, and accepting land allotments under the Dawes Act. But the US is not that unique. Despite what a lot of people assume, the United States is not the only country with birthright citizenship, but it is part of a small club. According to a 2026 Pew Research analysis, only 33 countries including the US currently grant automatic citizenship at birth regardless of the parents' legal status. Most of them are in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Countries like Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States are on that list along with a smaller number of in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region such as Benin, Chad, Lesotho, Mozambique, Pakistan, and Tuvalu. The bigger global picture is simple. Automatic birthright citizenship is the exception, not the rule. One important fine print point, even in countries with broad jus soli, meaning justice or right of the soil, there are usually narrow exceptions especially for children of foreign diplomats. Many other nations only have conditional forms of birthright citizenship tied to a parent's citizenship, permanent residence, or years of lawful residence.
The challengers say the 14th Amendment does not grant citizenship to every child born on US soil because the text includes the limiting phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. They argue that this phrase means more than just being physically present in the country and obeying its laws. In their view, it means being born to parents who owe full political allegiance to the United States, not merely temporary obedience while living here. Under that argument, children born in the United States to people here illegally or only temporarily such as tourists or some visa holders are said not to be fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in the constitutional sense.
The theory is that their parents still owe primary allegiance to another nation, so the child does not automatically receive citizenship at birth. Reuters reported that this is the position advanced by the Trump administration in the current litigation which argues that citizenship should be limited to children of US citizens and lawful permanent residents or at least those with a more permanent legal tie to the country. Supporters of this challenge often point to the historical context of the 14th Amendment. They say it was written to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War, not to
create a universal rule covering everyone born in the country no matter their parents' status. They also argue that the traditional exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats and invading armies showed that simple birth on US soil was never the whole test. Allegiance and jurisdiction matter, too. The legal obstacle for that argument is huge. The long-standing understanding of the citizenship clause and especially the Supreme Court's 1898 decision in United States versus Wong Kim Ark which held that a child born in the US to foreign parents who were not diplomats was a US citizen at birth. That case is widely treated as the main precedent supporting modern birthright citizenship juxtaposed to the American Indian argument.
The rebuttal against Trump's position says the restrictionism argument tries to smuggle in a concept of complete political allegiance that the citizenship clause itself does not use. The text does not say born to citizen or lawful resident parents. It says born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. They say that if the framers had wanted to make parental immigration status a requirement, they could have written that. They did not.
Others would say that they never anticipated illegal immigration on a scale such as that allowed by the Biden administration. Cornell's Constitution Annotated traces the clause back to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the constitutional adoption that followed. Another rebuttal point is practical and historical. For well over a century, the United States has treated everyone born on US soil as a citizen.
Courts, agencies, and Congress have operated on that assumption. They are trying to upend the settled understanding of citizenship with a much narrower reading that courts have generally not accepted. Reuters reported that during the April 1st, 2026 oral arguments, several justices appeared skeptical of the attempt to cut back birthright citizenship through executive action and questioned both the legal basis and how it could work in practice. So, boiled down to one sentence, the challenge is this. Birth on US soil is not enough by itself. The parents must also be under full US political jurisdiction and allegiance. That is the argument. As of April 2026, the Supreme Court
justices who heard the latest case appeared skeptical of that position during oral arguments. We shall see where they land on this issue. But Congress could amend the Constitution by changing and clarifying the law to support the anti-birthright collective. Even if the liberals prevail and birthright citizenship is upheld by the Supreme Court, there are still laws that will make their remaining in country quite difficult. A child born in the United States is considered a US citizen at birth, but that does not automatically give the parents legal status and does not by itself stop the government from deporting them.
The law treats the child's citizenship and the parents' removability as two different things. A US citizen child has the right to remain in the United States, but an undocumented parent may still be ordered removed. That creates the family split people argue about. In practice, the child usually is not deported as a legal matter if the child is a US citizen. The child either stays in the US with another caregiver, a legal resident parent or relative, if there is one, or a leaves with the parent as a practical family decision. Currently, the government can remove the parent, but it cannot cancel the child's citizenship just because the parent is removable.
Current litigation over birthright citizenship does not change that baseline for children recognized as citizens under existing law, but should the law be changed? As a general rule, it is legal to deport undocumented or illegal aliens or otherwise removable parents, even if they have a US citizen child. Having a citizen child is not an automatic shield against removal. Relief exists, but it is limited and hard to get. The main statutory form of relief is cancellation of removal for certain non-permanent residents, which requires, among other things, continuous physical presence, good moral character, and proof that removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual
hardship to a US citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse, parent, or child. That hardship standard is not ordinary sadness, disruption, or financial strain. The Board of Immigration Appeals has continued to describe it as hardship substantially beyond what would normally be expected when a close family member is removed. Recent BIA decisions in 2025 and 2026 show that citizen children can be qualifying relatives, but the parent must still meet the very demanding legal standard, and children can age out of that qualifying relative category once they are adults. Why this become such a legal and moral mess is because, under the current interpretation of the law, the child is a citizen with constitutional and legal
rights in the United States. That part is believed to be straightforward under the conventional reading of the 14th Amendment and federal statute. But if that were true, why were American Indians not given this consideration? They could not be deported, but until 1924 through or through other measures, they were not citizens, either. Second, the parents may still be removed under immigration law. Citizenship of the child does not erase unlawful presence, inadmissibility, or deportability, and being in an unlawful status and other bars still matter. Third, the family must choose between two bad options, such as if the child stays in America without the parent or parents, or if the child leaves America
with the parent or parents, even though the child has a right to stay. This is the human dilemma. The law can be technically tidy on paper and still produce a wrecking ball in real life. Therefore, a citizen child cannot usually fix the parent's status while still a minor. A US citizen can petition for a parent as an immediate relative only when the citizen is at least 21 years old. USCIS says plainly that the petitioning US citizen must be 21 or older to sponsor a parent or any relative for a green card. Even then, sponsorship is not always a magic wand because unlawful presence and other inadmissibility issues can still create separate
obstacles. Background checks, sponsorship, and proof of self-sustainability would also apply, although none of that mattered under the Biden administration, which allowed an invasion in violation of federal law. This is considered necessary because illegals who have children then expect to have immunity from deportation. The solid argument is, "No, they can be deported and they can't take their children with them." DOJ says a non-permanent resident generally must show at least 10 years of continuous physical presence, good moral character, and that removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a US citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse,
parent, or child. That is a very high standard. Ordinary hardship is not enough. If the children want to be considered US citizens, then they may legally return to the USA after they reach the age of majority, usually age 18. In several federal cases out of Southern California, operators helped pregnant Chinese clients come to the United States, hide the pregnancies from immigration officials, and give birth here so the children would receive US citizenship at birth. That's just another way of invasion. In December 2024, the Justice Department said one California operator was sentenced to 41 months in prison for running a scheme that helped Chinese clients obtain birthright citizenship for their children.
A person enters on a tourist visa, gives birth in the US, and leaves. That child may still be treated as a US citizen at birth under the traditional rule. But the parent may later face problems if the government concludes there was misinterpretation or visa fraud. The DOJ's Southern California birth tourism prosecutions were built on exactly that theory. The alleged fraud was in the entry and concealment, not in the child's citizenship status itself. These cases were prosecuted as visa fraud, immigration fraud, money laundering cases, not as proof that the babies were not citizens. In other
words, the child's citizenship and the parents' immigration violations were treated as separate issues. So, the question becomes straightforward. Should the current interpretation remain in place, or should the law be reconsidered? Should birthright citizenship continue as it has, or should the United States adopt a different standard? We let you decide. Thank you for watching this episode of Forgotten History. If you liked what you saw, please click like, share, and subscribe. And if you would like to assist with the ever-increasing cost of production, please consider becoming a channel member and joining our Patreon page.
