{
  "id": "R44251",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R44251",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
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    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 446893,
      "date": "2015-10-28",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T18:04:39.143737",
      "title": "Birthright Citizenship and Children Born in the United States to Alien Parents: An Overview of the Legal Debate",
      "summary": "The first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Citizenship Clause, provides that \u201c[a]ll 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.\u201d This generally has been taken to mean that any person born in the United States automatically gains U.S. citizenship, regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the person\u2019s parents, with limited exceptions such as children born to recognized foreign diplomats. The current rule is often called \u201cbirthright citizenship.\u201d\nHowever, driven in part by concerns about unauthorized immigration, some have questioned this understanding of the Citizenship Clause, and in particular the meaning of \u201csubject to the jurisdiction [of the United States].\u201d Proponents of a narrower reinterpretation of that phrase argue that the term \u201cjurisdiction\u201d can have multiple meanings, and that in the Citizenship Clause, \u201cjurisdiction\u201d should be read to mean \u201ccomplete jurisdiction\u201d based on undivided allegiance and the mutual consent of the sovereign and the subject. This has been termed a \u201cconsensual\u201d approach to citizenship. Conversely, proponents of the conventional view interpret the term \u201cjurisdiction\u201d to mean territorial jurisdiction, that is, the authority of a sovereign to enforce its laws within its boundaries. Under the conventional rule, citizenship is ascribed to a person at birth on the basis of the geographic location of that person\u2019s birth in the United States. This birthright citizenship rule has sometimes been termed an \u201cascriptive\u201d approach to citizenship.\nProponents of either side of this legal debate argue that a variety of sources and arguments support their respective positions. The two approaches differ in their interpretations of pre-Revolutionary English common law, pre-Civil War understandings of citizenship, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and subsequent case law. Two key Supreme Court cases in particular, Elk v. Wilkins (1884) and United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), interpreted the Citizenship Clause. Elk held that a member of a recognized Indian tribe was outside the scope of the Citizenship Clause because he was born owing allegiance to the tribe, rather than the United States, and the tribe was a political community not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Wong Kim Ark held that a person born in the United States to resident aliens became a U.S. citizen at birth, even when the person\u2019s parents were barred from ever naturalizing. However, some argue that Wong Kim Ark\u2019s statements limiting the exceptions to birthright citizenship were not necessary to its holding, and that no Supreme Court case has ever squarely held that the Citizenship Clause requires a broad view of jurisdiction that extends birthright citizenship to children of unlawfully or temporarily present aliens. Twentieth and 21st century case law also can be seen to support the conventional interpretation of the Citizenship Clause, but again, not in direct case holdings. \nBills have been introduced since the early1990s to deny birthright citizenship to persons born in the United States to aliens other than lawful permanent residents. While a few proposals have suggested constitutional amendments, most seek to change the birthright citizenship rule by statute. It would likely fall to federal courts to determine whether such a statute could be upheld as constitutional. The weight of the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment, the analysis and discussion in Wong Kim Ark, the statements in various cases defining \u201cjurisdiction\u201d more often on the basis of territory rather than undivided allegiance, and the embrace of the prevailing birthright citizenship interpretation by more than a century of subsequent law, would probably factor against the constitutionality of a statute limiting birthright citizenship. Nevertheless, the scope of the guarantee of the Citizenship Clause remains a legal question of great interest and importance to many.",
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      "topics": []
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  "topics": [
    "Constitutional Questions"
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}