The U.S. Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, often called the Citizenship Clause. It says that almost everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen at birth, regardless of their parents’ citizenship or immigration status, with a few narrow exceptions.

Constitutional text

The key language is in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment: people “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens of the United States and of the state where they live. This clause was adopted in 1868 to overturn the Dred Scott decision and ensure formerly enslaved people and their children were recognized as citizens.

What “subject to the jurisdiction” means

Courts and legal authorities have interpreted “subject to the jurisdiction” broadly to cover almost everyone physically present in the United States. The main traditional exceptions are children of foreign diplomats, children of enemy forces occupying U.S. territory, and historically some members of sovereign Native American tribes before later laws changed their status.

Supreme Court interpretation

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court held that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were not U.S. citizens was a citizen by virtue of his birth in the United States. This case cemented the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment protects birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, even when their parents are immigrants without U.S. citizenship.

Current legal understanding

Modern legal analysis from scholars, courts, and major legal organizations consistently treats the Fourteenth Amendment as guaranteeing birthright citizenship to virtually all people born in the United States. Changing this general rule would almost certainly require either a new constitutional amendment or a major reversal by the Supreme Court of this long-settled interpretation.