I’m a bit disappointed in the articles I’ve read about the Supreme Court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship. People have focused on the patchwork of opinions supporting or dissenting in whole or in part from Justice Roberts’ majority decision. What I’m not seeing is a rationale for why birthright citizenship is important.
Many countries don’t have birthright citizenship, though it’s not true that we alone have this guarantee. Countries that don’t have it, may have a provision that anyone born in that country can become a citizen when they turn 18 simply by applying. Other countries have provisions that a child with one parent who’s a citizen becomes a citizen at birth. The variations are many. But people who oppose birthright citizenship often assume that every newborn is a citizen somewhere; that, sadly, is not the case.
Most newborns are citizens somewhere because most of their parents are citizens somewhere. But think back to the time of our founding, and citizenship was not a thing in much of the world. I’ve thought a lot about this, and that was a thought that I had to grapple with! People were born and grew up in a place, often within a tribe or community. The community protected its own (or sent them packing into the unknown), but people often didn’t grow up with a sense of their individual rights. The US, in contrast, was founded on the sense that individuals had rights, soon spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Over time, we have extended these rights to more and more of our population, not just men who owned land. Now we (Americans) all have rights, and if you are born here, you, too, have those rights.
Because other countries have different rules about who is a citizen, some babies are born without rights. Without rights? But of course they have “natural rights” or “human rights” or surely have some rights, do they not? Actually, to assert your rights necessitates that there is a government to appeal to, but governments only protect the rights of their citizens. What about human rights? Doesn’t the United Nations assert that everyone has human rights? It does. But the United Nations is not a government. (It’s a bit of a mess, actually.) All the UN can do is urge its various member states to adopt those human rights, but most tinker with the language of the Declaration of Human Rights.
If the US were to restrict citizenship to certain babies and not others, some will be born into the condition of being alien everywhere in the world. It will not happen to most babies, but it will happen. This is terrible status to attach to a newborn, and it is why I care so much about preserving birthright citizenship.
Following upon the Court’s decision, some have immediately started clamoring for new laws or a constitutional amendment to “fix” the problem. For starters, I don’t agree that it’s a problem. I fear the fixes being proposed will only create more problems. Shocking arguments have emerged to bolster the case for overturning birthright citizenship, some with basic racism at their roots. The US must stay white majority or Christian majority, or some other majority. We cannot allow the “nature” of our country to evolve over time. (Doesn’t everything evolve over time?)
Anchor babies are another concern. I’ve no idea how many “anchor babies” are born in the US each year meaning a baby whose mother came here just to give birth so her baby would have US citizenship. I’m not sure how you’d count anchor babies. I’ve heard that Chinese women are especially clever at timing their travel to the US just in time to give birth. Could be true? Is it a problem? Perhaps not, given how capable many Chinese people become. Perhaps we should welcome them?
In any event, I recently learned that Scott Galloway is an anchor baby! Scott, or ProfG, is a person with opinions and a lot of money. Look him up if you’re curious. in any event, as I was saying, his mother came to the US from Canada on a visitor visa timed around his due date, and he obtained citizenship at birth. We can argue about whether or not we need a rich person with his opinions in the US, but here he is, he’s thriving, people listen to him, people pay to hear his opinions, so he seems to be an American success story.
To conclude, I don’t worry much about anchor babies. I do worry about any person being born without rights, without the protection of a country that counts you as a citizen. Whenever this topic comes up, I want you to remind people that without birthright citizenship, the US will create a class of people without rights. We just cannot do that. In my humble opinion.
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