What Is Birthright Citizenship? | 5-Minute Videos | PragerU

Transcript:
What Is Birthright Citizenship?
Presented by Amy Swearer

Does the Constitution grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States?

Even the children of people who’ve entered the country illegally? Or the children of foreign tourists who owe our country no allegiance?

That’s the question underlying the controversial issue of birthright citizenship.

Many people today take it for granted that the answer is yes: if you’re born on American soil, you’re an American citizen.

Period. End of issue.

But is that what the Constitution says?

Let’s first look at the text of that document, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment. It reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...”

Case closed, right?

Not so fast.

The key phrase here is, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” — it creates a second condition for birthright citizenship beyond merely being born on American soil.

But it also raises another question: who is born subject to U.S. jurisdiction?

To answer that question, we need some historical context.

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War.

Its purpose was to rectify the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Court declared that black Americans were not and could never be citizens.

Even after slavery was abolished in 1865, Dred Scott technically remained the law of the land. Black Americans were left in limbo—they were no longer slaves, but they still were