Senate confronts the question of birthright citizenship
Witnesses came in for and against. Who made the better case?
Wendi Strauch Mahoney | March 17, 2026 www.americanthinker.com
At the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution’s March 10 hearing, “Protecting American Citizenship: Birthright Citizenship for Illegal Aliens and Tourists,” senators and witnesses confronted the fundamental question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause has been stretched beyond its meaning. Attorney Charles J. Cooper, Professor Ilan Wurman, and author and Government Accountability Institute president Peter Schweizer argued that current doctrine is too broad. Professor Amanda Frost and Marine veteran Alejandro Barranco defended birthright citizenship as both constitutionally settled and central to the American civic tradition.
Cooper offered legal arguments for restriction, arguing that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means “full and complete” jurisdiction, “requiring a permanent reciprocal political bond between the parents of the new citizen and the United States.” He added that a “reciprocal bond” means “an enduring allegiance,” reserved for those “who have made this country their lawful and permanent home.” It does not apply to children of parents who are here temporarily, even if they are lawful visitors to the United States. As such, Cooper argued, it follows that children of illegal aliens “are excluded as well.” He said that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment modeled the citizenship clause after the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which he argued “unequivocally excluded from birthright citizenship children of aliens here temporarily and of aliens who have deliberately entered the country illegally.”
Wurman explained that the original common-law and Fourteenth Amendment understanding of birthright citizenship turned not on mere birthplace, but on whether the child’s parents were lawfully under the sovereign’s protection and thus subject to its full jurisdiction — an argument that would exclude at least the children of illegal aliens, and possibly some children of temporary visitors, from automatic citizenship at birth.
Frost argued that the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause guarantees birthright citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil, with only the traditional narrow exceptions for children of diplomats, enemy occupiers, and historically members of sovereign Indian tribes, and that this understanding is supported by the text, the 1866 debates, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and more than a century of federal practice and case law.
She contended that President Trump’s Executive Order 14160 is an unconstitutional attempt to rewrite both the Constitution and 8 USC §1401(a) by denying citizenship to children born here to illegal aliens and many temporary lawful visitors, and she rejected the administration’s alternative theories based on “allegiance,” parental “domicile,” or federal “consent” as arguments unsupported by the citizenship clause’s actual language or history. Frost also stated that the consequences of adopting the Trump administration’s policies “would be dire for all families in the U.S.”
Specifically, Frost predicted that if the executive order were to remain in effect, its consequences would be sweeping: roughly 250,000 children born each year to legal temporary immigrants and illegal aliens could be treated as noncitizens from birth and denied Social Security numbers, passports, and access to benefits, with some potentially rendered stateless and even subject to removal despite being newborns. The disruption would not stop with those families, according to Frost. Parents across the country, including green card holders and even U.S. citizens, could be forced to prove their own legal status at the time of a child’s birth before that child would be recognized as American, even though hospitals and state agencies are not set up to collect or verify that kind of complex immigration documentation. In effect, Frost said, “the United States would have replaced the egalitarian rule that we are all American at birth with a test of lineage and ancestry — a legal rule at odds with our Constitution and antithetical to the nation’s founding values.”
Barranco brought a compelling and personal perspective to the hearing. Born in the United States to Mexican immigrants, he proudly served in the Marines and was “taught to respect the flag, to be thankful for the opportunities this country gave me and to give back whenever I could.” He told senators that birthright citizenship is what made it possible for him to attend school, graduate, enlist in the Marine Corps, and serve the country, and he argued that Americans are judged by allegiance and service, not by where their parents were born. He also shared that he “raised three sons who all chose to serve as Marines.”
Schweizer’s testimony was arguably the most thought-provoking and timely because it shifted the hearing away from a purely legal dispute over the Fourteenth Amendment and recast birthright citizenship as a long-term national security and sovereignty issue, especially in relation to China. According to Schweizer, birth tourism is being deliberately exploited by PRC nationals and CCP-linked elites who travel to U.S. soil so their children acquire automatic American citizenship. Ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) challenged Schweizer’s claims, saying they were “ridiculous.”
Schweizer then cited estimates of 50,000 to 100,000 Chinese birth tourism cases annually and claimed that over time, this may have produced from roughly 750,000 to 1.5 million Chinese nationals with U.S. citizenship by birth. Many of those children end up moving back to China while keeping their U.S. passports. Schweizer explained,
These individuals grow up in China, often educated in CCP-controlled schools with distorted views of U.S. history, values, and culture. They have no lived connection or demonstrated allegiance to our country, yet they possess full rights as U.S. citizens: the ability to vote in elections, relocate here at will, and — upon turning 21 — sponsor their parents as permanent residents.
Schweizer also highlighted U.S.-based surrogacy arrangements involving Chinese clients and politically connected figures, arguing that Beijing tolerates or encourages these practices because they create strategic advantages, including future voting rights, residency options, and family-based immigration pathways. Citing a “prominent example” of such surrogacy arrangements, Schweizer continued,
A prominent example emerged in May 2025, when authorities discovered 15 children, ages two months to 13 years, in an Arcadia, California, mansion owned by a Chinese businessman and CCP insider. He used his own company, Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, to arrange surrogacies across multiple states. In total, 21 children were linked to him. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story about another Chinese executive who is said to have over 100 children via surrogacy.
Schweizer added,
These cases highlight a largely unregulated surrogacy industry in states like California, where over 100 companies with “surrogacy” in their names are owned by Chinese individuals. IVF and surrogacy services for Chinese clients have even been tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Schweizer’s central point was that birth tourism and related surrogacy practices are not just immigration loopholes, but a potentially serious long-term national security threat that allows people with no lived connection or demonstrated allegiance to the United States to obtain the full benefits of American citizenship. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a Feb. 26 letter to investigate Chinese-owned surrogacy centers and related allegations involving exploitation of U.S. surrogacy and birthright citizenship laws.
Image: JSMed via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
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