Executive order limits birthright citizenship

On 20 January 2025 President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” one of a same-day package of immigration instruments that also included Executive Order 14159 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”), Executive Order 14161 (“Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” — vetting), Executive Order 14163 (“Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program” — suspending USRAP under INA § 207, 8 U.S.C. § 1157), Executive Order 14165 (“Securing Our Borders”), and the southern-border national- emergency proclamation (Proclamation 10886).¹²³⁴⁵⁶ Section 2(a) directs that “no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship,” to two categories of newborns; § 2(b) applies the directive to “persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.”¹ The first category is children whose mother was “unlawfully present” in the United States and whose father was neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of birth; the second category is children whose mother’s presence was “lawful but temporary” — including student, work or tourist visas and the Visa Waiver Programme — and whose father was neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of birth.¹

1. The order’s directives in § 2 run to four federal officers — the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Commissioner of Social Security — and do not address state-issued birth certificates. Federal-document issuance (Social Security numbers, US passports and consular reports of birth abroad) for affected newborns is directed to cease for births occurring after the 30-day window.¹

2. The order is in tension with the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — “All 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” — and with its statutory restatement at 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a) (“a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”).⁷⁸ The Supreme Court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 705 (1898), that a child born in the United States to parents who “have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity” “becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.” The decision was 6-2; Chief Justice Fuller, joined by Justice Harlan, dissented.⁹

3. State attorneys general from Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts and other states publicly committed to challenging the order in federal court on the day of signing.¹⁰ The order’s first directive deadline runs from 20 January and the operative cut-off for affected births falls outside the publication window of this report.