Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a constitutional amendment taking aim at birthright citizenship.
“I am introducing a Constitutional Amendment to end Birthright Citizenship. Under current interpretations of American law, anyone born on American soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen, regardless of whether the parent was here legally or not,” Paul wrote on X. “This is wrong and not at all the intent of those who wrote the 14th Amendment. We are a country filled with immigrants, and legal immigration is valuable and should be protected. But we are also a country whose borders have been too open and our generosity exploited too often. President Trump has moved to seal our border from illegal immigrants more than any other president. But we will have more to do.”
“We need to make sure that only children born to legal residents of the U.S. are automatically citizens,” he continued. “I have supported protecting birthright citizenship from abuse since the beginning of my tenure in the Senate, when I cosponsored the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011, and now I am proposing an amendment to protect United States citizenship in case the Supreme Court fails to address this issue correctly.”
According to the joint resolution, a person born in the United States may only be considered subject to the U.S. if at least one parent is “a citizen of a national of the United States,” an “alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States,” or an “alien with lawful states under the immigration laws performing active service in the Armed Forces.”
