Birthright Citizenship Isn’t Real
23rd January 2025
There is a common misconception in the United States that the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution mandates that the US government grant citizenship to anyone and everyone born within the borders of the United States.
This misconception is largely due to the fact that, for several decades, US courts and technocrats have conspired to redefine the original meaning of the amendment, and thus apply it to every child of every tourist and foreign national who happens to be born on this side of the US border.
UPDATE: Birthright Citizenship: Game On!
Claremont Institute scholars, including me, Ed Erler, Tom West, John Marini, and Michael Anton, President Trump’s incoming Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, have been contending for years—decades, really—that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship for everyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances. Other prominent scholars, such as the late University of Texas law Professor Lino Graglia, University of Pennsylvania Professor Rogers Smith, and Yale Law Professor Emeritus Peter Schuck, have come to the same conclusion based on their own extensive scholarly research.