Educational Resource
MRS Issue Briefing Series, Issue 2: Birthright Citizenship (2013)
USCCB Migration and Refugee Services and the Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs
Issue Briefing Series, Issue #2 Birthright Citizenship: The Real Story
Under current law, U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants are automatically considered U.S. citizens. Select states and certain Federal lawmakers are hoping to change that. In an effort to end birthright citizenship – which has its origins in English common law – for children of unauthorized immigrants born in the United States, state and federal lawmakers have proposed everything from state-level legislation to a constitutional amendment. They claim that by repealing birthright citizenship, the United States will deter immigrants from coming to the United States and giving birth to what they term “anchor babies” through who unauthorized family members allegedly then obtain legal status.
Countries confer citizenship following one (or both) of two key principles: citizenship by decent (jus sanguinis) or citizenship by birth (jus soli). Citizenship by decent is obtained by an individual based on the citizenship of her parents. Citizenship by birth, on the other hand, is obtained by any individual born within the country’s territory, irrespective of her parent’s citizenship. In the United States, like Canada and select other countries, citizenship is conferred by birth – meaning that any person born within the territory of the United States is a U.S. citizen. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which states in pertinent part, that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
The birthright citizenship controversy centers on the proper interpretation of the Citizenship Clause. The clause was intended to reverse the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in which the Supreme Court held that U.S.-born persons of African descent were not citizens thereby denying citizenship to slaves and freemen alike.