# Birthright Citizenship Is Living on Borrowed Time **By:** R. R. Reno **Published:** 2026-07-02T13:28:34+00:00, 2026-07-02T13:28:34+00:00 **Source:** [First Things](https://firstthings.com/birthright-citizenship-is-living-on-borrowed-time) --- R. R. Reno The Trump v. Barbara decision concerning birthright citizenship did not surprise me. Mass migration is the most explosive issue in today’s politics. It puts tremendous stress on the postwar consensus in Europe and will perhaps shatter it. America’s history of assimilating immigrants makes the issue less explosive, but here as well questions of borders, residency, and citizenship have moved to the center of political conflict. Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court has sought to avoid political controversy when possible. Cleaving to precedent was the safest outcome, at least for the moment. But not for long. Plenary birthright citizenship is impossible to sustain in the twenty-first century. Aside from native Americans, who were understood to be citizens of their own nations, the principle of birthright citizenship was operative in the new American Republic from the outset. However, it was not defined and formally established until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. In the 1857 Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court stated that blacks, slave or free, did not possess American citizenship and therefore could not petition for the rights and protections accorded to white people. The purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to secure full rights of citizenship for freed slaves, and it did so by stipulating unequivocally that all persons born or naturalized within the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens, thus reversing Dred Scott. It is unlikely that those who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment imagined that it would apply to the child of a graduate student at MIT, or to migrant workers in California who toggle back and forth between their harvesting jobs and their homes south of the border, or to the millions who have violated immigration laws to enter the country. These realities were beyond their ken. In 1865, fully half of white residents of the United States were descendants of colonists. The slave trade was terminated in 1808, and thus a large majority of blacks were also children of a long-established population. The super-dominance of the native-born weakened with the great migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, those resident in America who were not native-born had risen to nearly 13 percent. In the event, the principle of birthright citizenship worked well. Travel was expensive and arduous. Those who came planned to stay. Moreover, the United States did not recognize dual citizenship. Attaining citizenship through naturalization required the renunciation of all foreign allegiances. The native-born could not acquire citizenship in a foreign land. That world is not ours. Beginning in the 1960s, the Supreme Court voided laws prohibiting dual citizenship. In 1960, six million people visited from abroad. Today, more than 70 million come for business or pleasure. In 1960, there were 50,000 foreign students enrolled in American colleges and universities. In 2024, that number had swelled to 1.1 million. Another four million are non-immigrants who have temporary legal status under various visa programs, again a dramatic increase from the previous century. And most significant of all, in 1960, very few people were illegally resident in the country. That number now exceeds 10 million. It is impossible to gain precise numbers, but we can conjecture. There are 67.4 million women of childbearing age in the United States. Because the population of those here illegally or with temporary status skews young, there may be four million women of childbearing age in the United States who are outside our official mechanisms for immigration and naturalization. Which means that it is possible that this population—illegals or those without any declared intent to seek permanent residence—accounts for 6 percent of all children born in the United States. This is armchair speculation. The numbers may be quite different. But it’s clear to supporters of the present policy of unlimited birthright citizenship, and to opponents like me, that it is consequential—not just as a source of demographic change, but also as a symbol. After admitting millions of Middle Eastern migrants in 2015 and 2016, Angela Merkel famously said, “Wir schaffen das”—we can do this. She reflected the hopeful notion that contemporary Western societies have an open-minded and accommodating ethos that can absorb and integrate newcomers. In the American context, birthright citizenship expresses this ideal and aspiration. Yes, there are abuses and our immigration system is flawed, perhaps broken, but this mindset is optimistic. We can renew the nation and ensure solidarity by maintaining a welcoming spirit. The European experience over the last decade suggests that this will not be easy, and it may be impossible. America is different. But we, too, are subject to the great pressures of mass migration that are transforming the West, and indeed the globe. The policies and principles that were suitable in the twentieth century (to say nothing of the nineteenth) are very unlikely to meet this challenge, especially something as indiscriminate as unlimited birthright citizenship. The Trump v. Barbara decision only delays the day of reckoning. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The passage of time often allows fundamental questions concerning our common life to mature and for public sentiment to consolidate around answers. I do not judge Franklin Roosevelt for postponing the action needed to ensure fair treatment of black Americans. It is unrealistic to imagine that a country can mobilize to fight a global war and, at the same time, transform its social fabric. The demand for civil rights could be postponed, but not indefinitely. The same is true for the demand to significantly tighten and restrict pathways to American citizenship, a demand sure to rise in an age of mass migration. MORE BY THE AUTHOR The Iran Failure We Needed This Catholic Moment The Church of Ratzinger BECOME A MEMBER Of America’s Most Influential Publication of Religion and Public Life YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE No Faith Worth Defending Carl R. 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