BORN IN THE USA:
THE EASY WAY TO BECOME A U.S. CITIZEN

SYNOPSIS:

    Birthright citizenship means that children are automatically
citizens of the country in which they were born.
In the USA, this fact has resulted in families with mixed citizenship.

    If this automatic-citizenship assumption is changed,
so that children born to citizens of other countries
have the same citizenship as their parents,
then many of the problems of unauthorized immigration
will be simplified and eventually solved.   

OUTLINE:

1.  WORLD-WIDE ASSUMPTION:
            CHILDREN BORN IN ANY COUNTRY
            ARE AUTOMATICALLY CITIZENS OF THAT COUNTRY.

2.  UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP.

3.  CITIZENS OF OTHER COUNTRIES LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES
            HAVE CHILDREN WHO BECOME AMERICAN CITIZENS AT BIRTH.

4.  NOT REWARDING UNLAWFUL BEHAVIOR.

5.  WE CANNOT CANCEL THE CITIZENSHIP
            OF CHILDREN ALREADY BORN.

6.  THE REVISED LAW MIGHT BE THE SAME
            AS NOW APPLIES TO AMERICAN CHILDREN BORN ABROAD.

7.  IF IT WERE PROPOSED NOW,
            BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP WOULD NEVER PASS.

8.  LAWFUL IMMIGRATION DOES INCLUDE WHOLE FAMILIES.

9.  AUTOMATIC U.S. CITIZENSHIP FOR GRANDCHILDREN?

RESULTS:

    Readers who assumed that birthright citizenship was fine
will discover some new perspectives
that might undermine the assumption that location of giving birth
should automatically determine the citizenship of the baby.

    How would immigration change
if birthright citizenship were repealed in the United States?

    Might postponing automatic citizenship by one generation
be a good compromise?



BORN IN THE USA:
THE EASY WAY TO BECOME A U.S. CITIZEN
by James Leonard Park


1.  WORLD-WIDE ASSUMPTION:
            CHILDREN BORN IN ANY COUNTRY
            ARE AUTOMATICALLY CITIZENS OF THAT COUNTRY.

    Simply being born grants citizenship to everyone.
Each and every human being on the planet Earth
was born in one specific location.
Unless the mother was traveling at the time,
it is not difficult to specify exactly where
each of the 7 billion human beings on Earth was born.
(Where were you born?)
Some places have better record-keeping than others.
But at least the mother should remember where she gave birth.

    For the vast majority of human beings,
this fact of automatic citizenship presents no problems.
The parents and grandparents were citizens
—and so are the children.
When we present birth-certificates,
which show some place of birth within the United States or its territories,
that is enough to prove that we are citizens of the USA.

    And if our American mothers were traveling
or living anywhere else in the world when we were born,
at birth we were nevertheless U.S. citizens
and not citizens of the countries where we were born.   



2.  UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP.

    Ever since the concept of national citizenship emerged centuries ago,
there was no reason to question this assumption.
People were born every day.
And they became citizens of the countries where they were born.
Usually their parents were also automatic citizens of those countries.

    However, some people seeking citizenship in the USA
have been using this assumption in a way that was never intended.
Some pregnant women enter the United States without permission
in order to give birth to U.S. citizens.
And some pregnant women from other countries obtain visas
so that they can enter the United States with permission
with the hidden purpose of making their children U.S. citizens.
This is sometimes called birth tourism,
especially if they return to their home countries after giving birth in the USA.

    Pregnant women know they will not be turned back at the border
if they are in the process of labor, advancing toward child-birth.
Rather, they will be taken to local hospitals, where they will give birth.
And these children—no matter what the citizenship of the parents—
automatically become U.S. citizens under current law and practice.

    Only a minority of the nations on Earth have birthright citizenship.
And the U.S. policy could be changed for future births to foreign nationals.
In countries with a different policy, usually the citizenship of the child
is recorded to be the same as the citizenship of the mother.
Sometimes the citizenship of both biological parents is taken into account.

     Among developed nations, only the USA and Canada
grant automatic citizenship to all babies born on their land,
regardless of the citizenship of the parents.
In recent years, the following nations have ended their policies
that previously granted automatic citizenship to all babies born on their soil,
including babies born to foreign nationals living there without permission:
United Kingdom (1983), Ireland (2005), France (1993), Portugal (1981),
Australia (2007), New Zealand (2005), Malta (1989), & India (1987).

    When our assumption of citizenship emerged in the USA,
no lawmaker would have said that he intended to make
the children of citizens of other countries
living in the United States citizens of the USA.
During the many years of open borders and free immigration,
the idea of an "unauthorized immigrant" was inconceivable.

    However, if U.S. lawmakers were asked today
whether pregnant women should be permitted
to enter the United States in order to give birth to U.S. citizens
there would be some discussion of the pros and cons of such a proposal.

    This fact of U.S. law emerged with little discussion.
But to change birthright citizenship will require elaborate debate.
And such discussions will necessarily cause us to review
many other aspects of immigration law,
especially the parts concerning family structure and relationships.

    Birthright citizenship is completely independent
of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
That Amendment (ratified in 1868—just after the Civil War)
made certain that former slaves (and their children)
were citizens of the United States and of their respective states.
The author of this amendment meant to exclude
the children born to foreign nationals while residing in the United States.
Birthright citizenship was assumed long before the 14th Amendment.
All children born in the USA would be citizens of the United States
even without that part of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution.
Interestingly, when American citizens give birth outside of the USA,
their children are almost always U.S. citizens from birth.

    When the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was passed by a 2/3 vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress
and ratified by 3/4 of the states in 1868,
did any of the people who proposed it or voted for it
even imagine that it would grant automatic American citizenship
to children born to foreigners living in the USA?
Everyone involved in this process just after the Civil War
believed that they were guaranteeing that freed slaves and their children
would all be citizens of the USA and of their respective states. 

    Creating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1868
required the votes of thousands of legislators.
When voting for this amendment, did any of these lawmakers
consider that they were making the children of foreign nationals
living in the USA without permission automatic citizens of the USA?
This might be an unintended consequence of the 14th Amendment,
based only on the words then inserted into the Constitution.
But these lawmakers thought they were assuring citizenship to freed slaves.
Not until 1882 did the United States create a general immigration law. 
Only thereafter could there be such a person as an 'unauthorized immigrant'.
Before immigration restrictions were created by new laws (in the 1880s),
"illegal alien" was an impossible concept.

    The thousands of lawmakers who voted to approve the 14th Amendment
had the citizenship of one group of people in mind
—black people who had only 5 years earlier been freed from slavery.
Citizenship had always been denied to these enslaved people from Africa.
Slavery was an everyday fact of life in the southern states
for as long as anyone then living could remember.
But, now, as a result of the Civil War, slavery was abolished.
And the citizenship of the freed slaves had to be guaranteed.
(And adult male former slaves would be authorized to register to vote.)

    Not one lawmaker could have thought
that this change in the Constitution
would give citizenship to the children of foreign women
if they gave birth within the United States.
In the absence of any general laws controlling immigration,
it was impossible to form the concept "unauthorized immigrant".

    The words they added to the Constitution
did have the unintended consequence of granting citizenship
to the children of foreign women
if they happened to give birth within the borders of the USA.
But none of the people asked to help create the 14th Amendment
could have predicted this later outcome.
It would have been much better if they had said openly and clearly:
"All persons recently enslaved in the former slave states
are now full citizens of the United States of America
and full citizens of the individual states in which they reside."

    As an interesting historical oddity,
American Indians became U.S. citizens 56 years later (1924)
by an act of Congress signed by the President.
For these aboriginal peoples, being born in the USA
did not make them automatic American citizens until 1924.
If American Indians were not citizens,
even tho they had been living on this land for thousands of years,
why would anyone assume that a pregnant woman visiting from India
would give birth to an American citizen?

    Wikipedia provides all of the legal details concerning birthright citizenship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States_of_America

3.  CITIZENS OF OTHER COUNTRIES
            LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE CHILDREN
            WHO BECOME AMERICAN CITIZENS AT BIRTH.

    We also know that many of the citizens of other countries
settled in the United States without permission
do have children in the normal course of conducting their lives.
But they have the additional perverse incentive
of adding more U.S. citizens to their families.
There are millions of citizens of other countries living within the USA.
And each year they live here offers another opportunity
to establish themselves as a family with a right to continue living in the USA
by virtue of having babies within the borders of the United States,
which (under current law) automatically makes the new babies U.S. citizens.

    Perhaps there have been no studies of birth-planning
among citizens of other countries settled in the USA without permission.
But many foreign nationals paid thousands of dollars
to smugglers to get them into the United States of America.
And they bought false documents for more thousands of dollars.
Is having children an easier way to gain U.S. citizenship?

    Hospitals do not turn pregnant woman away
even if they are known to citizens of other countries.
The hospital is there to serve the health needs of all who come,
no matter what their citizenship.
What percentage of all births in the USA
are to mothers who are citizens of other countries?
Some estimates put this figure at 8% of all live births in the USA.

    If and when the law is changed,
the birth-rate among foreign nationals will probably decline,
since they will lose the citizenship incentive for having additional children.
The children already born under the old assumption will be U.S. citizens.
And if and when the law is changed,
any additional children born to foreign nationals will not be U.S. citizens.
Thus, to the extent that they plan additional children in their family,
they will reproduce for all of the ordinary reasons,
not because additional children will allow them to stay in the USA.

   Should location-of-birth grant citizenship to children of foreign nationals?

4.  NOT REWARDING UNLAWFUL BEHAVIOR.

    One major reason for changing the born-in-the-USA assumption
would be to end the implicit practice of rewarding unlawful behavior.
When the family entered the United States without permission,
they violated U.S. laws of immigration.
And they should be held accountable for this unlawful behavior.
(Of course, visitors in the USA on visas have violated no laws,
unless they overstay their permission to be present in the United States
or misrepresented their reasons for visiting the USA.)
Non-citizens having children anywhere in America
should not create U.S. citizenship for anyone in the family.

    However, this is just what present law and practice does:
Each new baby born in the USA automatically becomes an American.
And all such baby-citizens can support citizenship for their parents,
which can later allow other relatives to be sponsored.

    Legally, the baby-citizen cannot sponsor its parents until it turns 21.
But frequently the following line of argument is heard from the parents:
"You should not deport us: Look, we have a baby who is a U.S. citizen."
Citizens of other countries who did not violate the immigration laws
but had their children in their homelands
cannot use their children's citizenship to support admission into the USA
or to argue for U.S. citizenship for themselves.

    Granting automatic citizenship to the children of foreign nationals
who were born within the boundaries of the United States
while the parents were not authorized to be present in the USA
seems to be a huge reward bestowed on those foreign parents.

    Should we allow this loophole in American immigration law
to allow babies to become anchor children
for gaining citizenship for the rest of the family?

    Changing the law will eliminate this odd reason for having children.

5.  WE CANNOT CANCEL THE CITIZENSHIP
            OF CHILDREN ALREADY BORN.

    The Constitution of the United States
prevents changing any law retroactively.
So all children born in the past within the boundaries of the USA
will always be full U.S. citizens.
Or at least they will have the full right to claim U.S. citizenship.
(This is the case with mothers on visas living the USA when they give birth:
When they become 21, the children can choose either to be U.S. citizens
or citizens of their mother's homeland on the day of their birth.)

    If the United States of America changes its immigration law
so that babies are not automatic Americans because of their place of birth,
then this unintended consequence of the present law will disappear.

    It will no longer be a citizenship-benefit to give birth within the USA.
Pregnant women might still prefer to give birth in the USA
instead of their country of citizenship.
For example, some foreign women who have difficult pregnancies
might still come to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota,
where they might be given better medical care than in their home countries.
But their children will not be Americans from the day of their birth.

    Parents and children alike will have to apply to become citizens
just as any other people in the world might apply.
If and when this citizenship-law is changed
—perhaps making the citizenship of the baby
as the same as the citizenship of the mother—
then no unfair advantage will be granted by the location of birth.

    Also many of the complex rules of immigration
relating to family structure will be simplified.
No longer will we have the very odd situation of
some children of a family being U.S. citizens
while their parents are citizens of some other country.
And 'wedge children' will no longer be useful
for prying open the door of immigration or citizenship.

    If the law is changed, there will be a long period of transition
because there will still be a large back-log of children
who became automatic Americans before the new law came into effect.

    But after the effective date of any such change in the immigration-law,
there will be no more automatic citizenship
for children born to foreign nationals inside the USA.



6.  THE REVISED LAW MIGHT BE THE SAME AS
            NOW APPLIES TO AMERICAN CHILDREN BORN ABROAD.

    When citizens of the USA give birth in some foreign country,
the babies are almost always automatic citizens of the USA,
not citizens of the countries where they were born.

    U.S. citizenship-law with regard to foreign births
also asks about the citizenship of the biological father, if known.

    If you would like to know some of the subtle factors involved,
read the Wikipedia article on: United State Nationality Law.

    The simplest application: If the mother is a U.S. citizen, so is the baby.
The birth must be registered with the U.S. consulate or embassy.

    The revised U.S. law on citizenship of children born to foreign nationals
might take into account the citizenship of the biological father.
But one likely result would be many false claims of American fathers.
If the institution of marriage continues to decline,
then the legal marital status of the mother should not count.

    Under a revised law of nationality, all children born in the USA
would automatically have the same citizenship as the mother.
The specifics will have to be detailed in any revised law.

    And then the U.S. Supreme Court would have to rule
whether the 14th Amendment should apply to children of foreign nationals.
If so, birthright citizenship cannot be changed by creating a new law.
Rather, the Constitution would have to be amended,
which would be much more difficult than changing immigration laws.
A new Amendment would have to say that children of foreign nationals
do not become citizens of the United States of America
simply because they were born in the USA.



7.  IF IT WERE PROPOSED NOW,
            BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP WOULD NEVER PASS.

     If birthright citizenship were not already a part of U.S. law and practice,
then such a law would probably not be proposed by any lawmaker.
It would not win a majority vote in either house of the U.S. Congress.
And it would not be signed into law by the President.

    And if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution were proposed
granting automatic U.S. citizenship to all children born to foreign nationals
inside the USA even if the parents were here without permission,
it would not pass the U.S. Congress by a 2/3 majority in each house.
And it would not be ratified by 3/4 of the states.

    All laws and constitutions are created by the people of any country.
When the unintended consequences of earlier laws become evident,
it is the right to the people of any country to clarify or change their laws.

    Many other nations have abandoned birthright citizenship.
And now that discussion can begin for the United States of America:
What are the pros and cons of continuing birthright citizenship?
   


8.  LAWFUL IMMIGRATION DOES INCLUDE WHOLE FAMILIES.

    No changes will be needed for those parts of the immigration laws
that allow whole families to emigrate to the United State of America.
The parents will be admitted because they will contribute to U.S. society.
And when they bring young children,
their chances would be the same as any other children in America.
And when the parents have been lawfully admitted to the USA,
the citizenship of their children is not a problem:
If and when the parents become naturalized citizens,
any minor children also become citizens of the USA.
Children over 18 must apply for citizenship on their own.

9.  AUTOMATIC U.S. CITIZENSHIP FOR GRANDCHILDREN?

    Here is a possible compromise:
If automatic birthright citizenship is ended for the USA,
then the grandchildren of foreign nationals living in the USA without permission
should become automatic U.S. citizens.

    We do not want to create permanent ethic groups of non-citizens,
as has happened in other countries.
If their non-citizen parents were not normalized in any way,
the status of the grandchildren should be Americans by birth.
Grandchildren are two generations away from the country of origin.
 
    Here is one way to write such a law:
Automatic citizenship would be granted to any child born in the USA
if it can be proven that its mother was also born in the USA
and that this new mother has spend at least half of her life in America.
Thus, even if the mother never became a U.S. citizen,
her child would be an American because the baby is now
two generations removed from the original homeland.

    Postponing birthright citizenship by one generation
would completely eliminate 'birth tourism':
Coming to the USA to give birth would not produce an American baby.
That new baby would have the same citizenship as its mother.

    The revised law of citizenship will have to include any such details.
And, of course, all other ways of becoming American citizens
would also be available to all babies born in the USA to foreign visitors.



Has reading this chapter changed your thinking?

    Perhaps you have never before questioned birthright citizenship.
It has been a part of American immigration law for so long
that it seemed completely natural for children born in the USA
to be American citizens from birth—automatically—
even if everyone else in the family has foreign citizenship.

    But now you see that mixed-status families would disappear
if all members had the same status and citizenship.
All could be naturalized together
or all could return together to the homeland of the parents.


Created August 1, 2010; Revised 8-5-2010; 8-8-2010; 8-26-2010; 8-27-2010; 9-2-2010; 9-3-2010;
1-5-2011; 1-9-2011; 1-23-2011; 2-3-2011; 6-3-2011; 7-6-2011; 10-1-2011;
4-24-2012; 7-5-2012; 7-11-2013; 8-13-2013; 8-27-2013; 9-3-2014;
6-3-2015; 4-14-2016; 6-18-2016; 1-19-2017; 10-4-2017; 2-3-2018; 10-30-2018; 5-27-2019; 11-25-2020;

Should babies born to foreign nationals become U.S. citizens
just because they were born in America?
  This is Chapter 13 of Orderly Immigration: Creating a New America:
"Born in the USA: The Easy Way to Become a U.S. Citizen".

Would you consider joining a Facebook Seminar
discussing this Internet book?

See the complete description of this first-readers book-club:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/ED-IMM.html

The discussion of all of the issues surrounding immigration reform
takes place in a Facebook Group called:
"U.S. Immigration & Asylum Reform: Reasonable Middle Pathways":
https://www.facebook.com/groups/431865303561834



AUTHOR:

    James Leonard Park is an immigrant to the United States.
He became a naturalized U.S. citizen with two of his siblings
when their father was naturalized in 1955.
This story is told in another chapter:
"I am an Immigrant":
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/CY-I-IMG.html

Here are a few related chapters:

Immigration Problems and Solutions:
Keeping the Debate Constructive

Immigration Reform:
A Range of Options

Orderly Immigration into the United States

Children of Foreign Nationals:
New Pathways to Citizenship

Earning American Citizenship:
Be Above Average

End Deportation of Persons Likely to Qualify for
a Pathway to Citizenship under Immigration Reform 

Registration without Deportation:
Bringing Millions of Foreign Nationals out of the Shadows

Register all Foreign Nationals:
Carrots & Sticks



Much more information about James Park is available on his website,
James Leonard Park—Free Library