Trump push to restrain birthright citizenship gets ammo from unlikely source: liberal polling group

President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 14th Amendment and end birthright citizenship could be stronger after a recent study from the Pew Research Center found 9% of births in the U.S. in 2023 were to illegal migrants. 

The Supreme Court is weighing the legality of Trump's executive order that looks to end birthright citizenship, which the administration argues “rewards illegal immigration." 

Trump imposed the order last year as a means to deter pregnant tourists from having their babies in the United States and to stop illegal migrants from using the method as a way to remain in the country. 

The administration is urging the Supreme Court to rule that children of temporary visitors and illegal migrants should not be deemed citizens at birth. 

The president has also argued that the amendment was intended to confer citizenship on the children and babies of slaves after the Civil War, but courts have since ruled that it also pertains to children of immigrants.

The Supreme Court's ruling would take effect only on future births and would not therefore impact the citizenship of children who were already born in the United States to illegal migrants.

Illegal immigration birthrate:

A Pew Research Center study last month found that 320,000 babies were born to illegal migrant mothers in 2023, which amounts to roughly 9% of all 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. that year.

A closer look found that roughly 245,000 of those babies had fathers who were also not citizens or lawful permanent residents. 

The trends in births to illegal migrants also followed the growth and decline of the illegal migrant population, with more children born in the U.S. to illegal migrants during the Biden administration than in other administrations.

The study also found that if the president's executive order was in effect today, it would impact 5.1 million Americans who were born in the U.S. to illegal migrant mothers from 2006 to 2023, and 4.4 million had illegal migrant fathers. 

The executive order would also impact mothers who were granted temporary legal status and gave birth to children while they were legally in the United States but were not actual citizens. 

These include mothers, referred to as "birth tourists," who typically give birth to their children in the U.S. in order to give them citizenship. The study found that in 2023 there were about 9,000 children born to "birth tourists."

Push to end birthright citizenship supported by other countries:

Although the United States established birthright citizenship in 1868, only 32 other countries have passed similar citizenship laws, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

In most countries, citizenship is determined by the citizenship of the parents, meaning that most of the countries in the study confer citizenship to children born in the country if one or both parents are citizens of that country.

The study found that only 52 countries allow a child to gain citizenship simply by being born there, while another seven require parents to apply for their children to be declared citizens.

The study also found that 17 of those 59 countries only grant citizenship to children born in the country and whose parents are also living in the country legally.

Another group of 26 countries requires people to have at least two generations of in-country birth for birthright citizenship, meaning at least one of their parents must have also been born in that country to achieve that status.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.