A mother bonds with her baby after delivery at Unity Hospital in Fridley, Minnesota. (Photo by: ... [+]
Donald Trump has raised the prospect of ending birthright citizenship by executive order, meaning, if approved by courts, children born on U.S. soil to unauthorized immigrant parents would not be U.S. citizens. However, less attention has been paid to the costs that ending birthright citizenship may impose on Americans.
Based on other government actions, it's clear that even if ending birthright citizenship is aimed at unauthorized immigrants, American mothers and fathers would be required to prove to the federal government or an intermediary that their baby boy or girl is a U.S. citizen by birth. Recall that when Congress passed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that aimed to prevent unauthorized immigrants from gaining employment, the law also placed a new burden on Americans who wanted to work. Under the 1986 law, any American starting a job needed to provide identification that proved he or she was eligible to work in the United States.
In a report for the National Foundation for American Policy, Margaret Stock, an attorney at the Cascadia Cross-Border Law Group and a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police with the U.S. Army Reserve, examined what ending birthright citizenship would mean for American parents. “While proponents of change have not agreed on any one new rule, they do agree that any new rule should create different classes of American-born babies, based on the status of the babies’ parents at the time of the birth,” writes Stock. “Creating two classes of babies will necessarily be more expensive to administer than the current system. The parents’ status will have to be verified by a government official, who will then determine whether a newborn is a U.S. citizen (or not).”
In short, one consequence of ending birthright citizenship is a larger federal government. “Any change to the current bright-line rule will inevitably add more complexity and bureaucracy to the lives of all Americans,” according to Stock. “Any new rule will require major changes to the way Americans document their lives to the government. Under the current interpretation of the [Citizenship] Clause, the status of one’s parents is not taken into account in citizenship determinations, except in cases where diplomats with diplomatic immunity have children in the United States. Thus, a change to the Clause will necessarily require the creation of a new system to manage and administer the new rules; this system will necessarily apply to all Americans who have children in the United States, as well as unauthorized immigrant parents.”
Stock has helped many military families provide documentation to federal authorities to ensure a baby is considered an American citizen by birth. “Based on current costs to verify the citizenship status of children born overseas to U.S. citizens, changing the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will cost new parents in the United States approximately $600 in government fees to prove the citizenship status of each baby and likely an additional $600 to $1,000 in legal fees,” writes Stock. “This represents a ‘tax’ of $1,200 to $1,600 on each baby born in the United States, while at the same time doing little to deter illegal entry to the United States. Direct fees to the federal government would reach $2.4 billion a year, based on current estimates.”
Since there are approximately 4 million babies born in America each year, both the costs and the bureaucracy are likely to mount. The analysis was based on 2012 figures, which means the costs today would be higher.
Michael Fix, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, has analyzed the societal impact of ending birthright citizenship and believes, given its implications, anyone with the country’s best interest in mind should not favor such a policy. “The reality is this: Repealing birthright citizenship would create a self-perpetuating class that would be excluded from social membership for generations,” writes Fix. “Under a scenario denying U.S. citizenship to babies with one parent who is unauthorized, our analysis finds that the unauthorized population would balloon to 24 million in 2050 from the 11 million today. . . .Touted by its supporters as a solution to reduce illegal immigration, repeal in fact would have the completely opposite effect.”
In effect, the American ideal that it does not matter who your parents are would change dramatically, since the legal status of a parent could determine a child’s fate. “The idea that the U.S.-born children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. of people born in the United States would themselves inherit their forefathers’ lack of legal status would have deep implications for social cohesion and the strength of the democracy itself,” notes Fix.
Would courts approve ending birthright citizenship as Donald Trump proposes? “President Donald Trump’s proposal to use an executive order to deny birthright citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to non-citizens and undocumented immigrants has virtually no support from legal experts across the political spectrum,” according to Ted Hesson of Politico, writing in October 2018. Margaret Stock and others believe a constitutional amendment would be required to end birthright citizenship.
Donald Trump may not mind issuing an executive order and forcing a court to strike it down. Those who argue for changing this long-established policy could be asked to explain the costs that ending birthright citizenship may impose on American parents and society.
