President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship, or jus soli (right of the soil), has encountered legal challenges and created some uncertainty among immigrant families.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. It says that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of “birthright” citizenship.
Pretendian Controversy: Buffy Sainte-Marie Stripped of Order of Canada
Clarifying the 14th Amendment
For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been used to guarantee citizenship to anyone born on American soil. However, as part of his broader immigration policy, Trump seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children of migrants who are either undocumented or on temporary visas.
There is an automatic claim that children born of parents temporarily in the country as students or tourists are automatically U.S. citizens.
