Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees “birthright citizenship”: “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.” Unrestricted birthright citizenship is under attack in America and must be defended to protect the nation’s future as a pluralistic, liberal democracy. Attempts to redefine birthright citizenship have taken the form of proposed state and federal legislation, executive orders, and, most alarmingly, a drive to initiate an Article V constitutional convention. Beneath the twenty-first century packaging, these proposals mirror the message of Dred Scott: “true” Americans are, by definition, white people.

Opposition to birthright citizenship, particularly for children whose parents lack legal immigration status, is a core tenet of white supremacy, a worldview that, in the modern era, has taken on many forms, including white nationalism, white Christian nationalism, and white replacement theory. Earlier iterations of these ideologies created the Dred Scott decision and the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the nineteenth century, and their influence is apparent in the modern assault on birthright citizenship. Eliminating unconditional birthright citizenship would restrict and redefine American citizenship, potentially stripping citizenship from millions of people who are descended from immigrants, most of whom are non-white. This constriction of citizenship would yield disastrous consequences, not just for the groups targeted by it, but for America as a whole.

Continue Reading From Dred Scott to Anchor Babies: White Supremacy and the Contemporary Assault on Birthright Citizenship