The executive order of the Trump administration to limit the citizenship of birth law is a serious challenge for the 14th amendment, which consecrated a radical principle of our democratic experiment: that any person born here is American. But the order will affect the average Americans more, whose own citizenship, until this point, has been presumed and assured, instead of the planned objective, illegal immigrants. The IONY hides in sight.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the citizenship of birth rights is not completely resolved by the Law of the United States. The Executive Order establishes: “The fourteenth amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to all those born within the United States” and is written very closely to exploit this uncertainty by rejecting citizens born in Trizzip Bornschtren Born Trianship Residents. Federal law and practice have recognized American citizenship to any person born here since the historical decision of 1898 of the Court in the US. V. Wong Kim Ark. But that case did not specifically protect the birth right of children born in the United States to non -resident -resident foreigners.
This is a massive blind spot in which states are passing the dream. They are raising the weak legal borrowing, the Federal Code, the policy and the division of hair on the meaning of “subject of the jurisdiction to it.” In a letter, the states argue that the “understanding of the citizenship of birth law has impregnated the orientation of the executive agency for decades, and no previous administration has deviated from it.” But that won the matter for this Supreme Court, which has demonstrated some joy to the dismantling of precedents. There is a clear risk that judges can fundamentally restrict the definition of citizenship of birth law and cancel the ruling of 1898.
Trump order
The Executive Order orders the Federal Government to do not issue or accept documents that recognize US citizenship for children born to illegal parents present here, but also for parents who are legal but temporarily. This second group is a potentially fixed population (the State Department issued 14.2 million nimmigrants in fiscal year 2024) that includes students, artists, executives, investors, workers, engineers, tours, Tours, Tello Andporis, femoras, side partners, andwits, andwits, andwits, and engineers, astilles, refugees, refugees and humanitaries.
A limited change aimed at a specific population, non -resident foreigners, will have great effects on those who wait for it: American citizen parents who give birth to children in the United States. So far, a valid and unique birth certificate established excellent evidence of American citizenship to all children born in the country. That would no longer be the case if citizens depend on verifying certain events about the parents of each child born in the United States. With that presumption eliminated by the Executive Order, citizens must be judged by a federal official.
I know what this award implies. I was a consular officer of the United States in Latin America, and my two children were born abroad from married parents of US citizens who carried diplomatic passports. But because they do not have the presumption of citizenship conferred by an American birth certificate, we had to go to the United States Consulate for the award of the transmission to demonstrate to the United States government that our children were US citizens.
This was an intensive and slow document. Every time, we complete forms. We photograph the baby in triplicate. We swore an oath before the consular officer. We burn our passports. We present the baby to the consular officer. We understood the local birth certificate. We demonstrate our hospital stay. Only then did we receive a consular report from birth abroad and only with that report we could request passports for our children. Without the report or a passport, our children could leave the country of their birth or enter the United States.
That is a probative and bureaucratic burden that all American natural citizens have not had to endure. The change of the Trump administration, if the courts allow it, will require those same parents to prove their own citizens for the federal government. Good luck, because showing its birth certificate would be sufficient in the new regime: the Government would require proof not only that it was born in the United States, but also that at least one of its areas was an American citizen at that time. (The judge of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court expressed skepticism about this “practical question” oral arguments this month).
Dismantling of the presumption
The Americans several generations eliminated from their immigrant ancestors, even those ancestors arrived in North America 10,000 years ago, will suddenly be treated as the illegal current parents who thought that this rule was designed to exclude.
This rule will lead to chaos, just danger. The federal bureaucracy will have to expand drastically to judge the 3.5 million children born here every year. (For comparison, 1 million people receive a state of permanent residence every year and 800000 become naturalized citizens. This population is usually much better documented than a newborn. Medical risk for the mother and baby. Because hospitals also generate birth certificates, such as justice Sonia Sotomayor also pointed out, those babies will form a large, new and completely avoidable population of the children without statistics.
It is a truth in some communities that ancestors and family members came to this country. But the administration is prepared to dismantle the presumption of citizenship that has a literal birth right for 125 years. American citizenship is about to become a privilege instead of a right, granted to those who can afford prolonged bureaucratic struggles. Most of the charge will fall on those who expected it least: the US parents themselves.
James Thomas Snyder is a former consular officer of the United States and a member of the NATO international staff. © 2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.