Trump Critiques Birthright Citizenship Policy

President Donald Trump expressed concerns over wealthy foreigners exploiting the United States’ birthright citizenship policy, which allows their foreign relatives to come to the country after securing citizenship through their U.S.-born children.

In a recent interview with Politico, Trump, alongside journalist Dasha Burns, conveyed hopes that the Supreme Court would overturn the policy that grants citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and other foreign nationals, regardless of their parents’ lack of ties to the U.S.

Trump remarked, “This case is intriguing because it goes back to the issue of slave babies, and when you trace the origins of the case, it connects to the Civil War.”

He emphasized that, “This doesn’t mean some wealthy individual from another country steps into the U.S. and their entire family immediately becomes citizens. This was fundamentally about slaves and their children. And now, more people are grasping that.” He highlighted that a ruling against this understanding would be a significant setback.

Trump further stated that the U.S. “cannot manage the influx of millions who gain entry through birthright citizenship.”

Last year, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) pointed out the rising issue of wealthy Chinese parents leaving their children in the Northern Mariana Islands just to secure U.S. citizenship.

Tiffany noted during a House Judiciary Committee meeting that since 2009, holders of communist Chinese passports have been granted access to the Northern Mariana Islands without needing a U.S. visa. He added, “More children are born there through birth tourism than in the U.S. itself. And they don’t even require a visa to enter.”

The U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, commonly referred to as “anchor babies,” receive citizenship even if their parents have minimal ties to the country and have only recently arrived. After a few years, these children, once considered adults, can sponsor green cards for their parents or other relatives, allowing families to settle in the U.S. for generations.

In 2023, estimates indicated that between 225,000 and 250,000 anchor babies were born to undocumented parents, making up about 7% of all U.S. births that year.

The Supreme Court has never definitively stated that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants should automatically receive birthright citizenship, and many legal experts debate this notion. Some leading conservative scholars argue that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t guarantee birthright citizenship for these children, as they were not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction when the amendment was ratified.