Tag: reform

Following President Donald Trump’s controversial day-one executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, several Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would reform U.S. law to accomplish exactly that.

Titled the “Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025,” the bill would end the practice of automatically conferring citizenship status on people born in the U.S. of parents who are either illegal aliens or who are in the country legally on a temporary basis. The bill was introduced in the Senate on Jan. 31 by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas.

The bill’s sponsors said in a statement that the measure would address what they called “one of the biggest magnets for illegal immigration,” which they believe poses a weakness to national security.

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The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates there are 33,000 births to tourist women in the U.S. annually. CIS further estimates that there are hundreds of thousands more births to illegal aliens or aliens present on temporary visas.

A 2022 report by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs revealed the existence of several “birth tourism” companies in the U.S., including one called “Miami Mama” that catered to wealthy Russian clients looking to gain legal status in the U.S.

“It is long overdue for the United States to change its policy on birthright citizenship because it is being abused in so many ways,” Graham said in the Friday statement. 

He pointed to the practice of birth tourism, which he said was enabling “wealthy individuals from China and other nations to come to the United States simply to have a child who will be an American citizen.”

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“When you look at the magnets that draw people to America, birthright citizenship is one of the largest,” said Graham. “I also appreciate President Trump’s executive order to address birthright citizenship. It is time for the United States to align itself with the rest of the world and restrict this practice once and for all.”

Currently, standard practice in the U.S. is to grant automatic citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil. This has been the practice only since the 1960s and is based on what some believe is a flawed interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which reads that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 would clarify that to meet the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause, a person born in the U.S. must have at least one parent who is a citizen, national, legal permanent resident, or legal alien serving in the U.S. military on active duty.  

The law clarifies that it would not affect the citizenship of anyone born before the law’s passage and would only restrict the citizenship of those born in the U.S. after.

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This comes after Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” on his first day in office. The order, which has since been temporarily blocked by a court ruling, directed government agencies to refrain from issuing any documents recognizing the citizenship of any children born in the U.S. to illegal and temporary migrants.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that he believes “if this issue gets to the Supreme Court, and it is highly likely that it will, if the court applies the actual text of the amendment and looks at its legislative history — what the sponsors of the bill said at the time — and follows its own precedents in the three cases that looked at this issue, then they will rule in Trump’s favor. This bill would simply clarify what we already know about the amendment and its intent.”

“The most important point here is that this bill is not trying to amend the 14th Amendment,” he said. “It is simply explaining what the terms of the 14th Amendment mean.”

“I think it is important for Congress to reemphasize what it said when it first sponsored and passed the 14th Amendment: that the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the U.S. would not apply to the child of an alien who is illegally in the U.S. and is, when born, a citizen of the country of the child’s parents, and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.,” he went on. “The current statute, 8 USC 1401, simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment. It has been totally misinterpreted in recent decades by those who mistakenly say the amendment and the federal law only require birth in the U.S.” 

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Echoing the language used in Trump’s order, Britt said that “the promise of American citizenship should not incentivize illegal migration, but that’s exactly what has happened for far too long.” 

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“It’s time to fix this,” said Britt. “Senator Lindsey Graham’s and my Birthright Citizenship Act would codify President Trump’s commonsense stance and end the abuse of birthright citizenship that I do not believe is consistent with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. This will protect our nation’s sovereignty, disincentivize illegal migration, and ensure America’s citizenship practices are stronger and better aligned with peer countries around the globe.”

This comes after House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas, introduced a bill on Jan. 21 to similarly clarify that the 14th Amendment does not include children of those who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis.