The hard right has long wanted to end birthright citizenship in the United States. The view only came into vogue with the Republican mainstream — and entered the White House — in the last decade.
But the policy cannot escape its origins: In adopting the view that birthright citizenship should end, the Trump administration and its allies put forth arguments and language long used by nativists and white supremacists to push for a transformation of American citizenship.
Its yet another reflection of how anti-birthright citizenship advocates, long relegated to the fringe, are, under Trump II, reveling in a degree of power and inclusion at the top of the federal government that many never believed they would obtain.
At one point during the arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Solicitor General John Sauer about a justification that MAGA’s more thoughtful adherents have put forward for ending birthright citizenship: so-called “birth tourism.” It’s a process marketed to wealthy foreigners through which they fly into the United States, give birth to a child, and then return to their home country with a newly minted U.S. citizen.
The practice is real, but its extent — and whether it should affects the underlying law and principle — is hotly debated. Roberts homed in on this, asking what the “scope” of the problem was.
Sauer replied first by saying that it’s not clear. Second, he gave a few estimates: there may be up to 1.5 million “birth tourists” from China alone, he theorized, citing “media reports.” He then said that there are “500 birth tourism companies in the People’s Republic of China” devoted to this practice.
Where Sauer got his information from is totally unclear. But this has long been a focus for a relatively small group of hard right activists and news outlets. Breitbart News has long been on the case; in 2019, the DOJ secured a guilty plea from a Chinese national over conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, labeling it part of a “birth tourism” scheme.
Much of the Trump-era counter to birthright citizenship has come via panic over China. The irony that this flavor of nativism cropped up in 2026’s Supreme Court arguments over birthright citizenship is hard to miss. The issue was largely decided in an 1898 case called Wong Kim Ark, which examined the citizenship of the U.S.-born son of Chinese immigrant parents. In that case, the court found that Wong Kim Ark qualified for citizenship under the 14th Amendment by virtue of having been born in the U.S.
More broadly, nativists on the right have pushed the idea of a “heritage American” in recent years. That concept, popularized in recent years by a teardrop trailer manufacturer, is European-style citizenship in America: it describes Americans with ancestry dating back to the Civil War or before. Vice President JD Vance alluded to the concept in a speech to the Claremont Institute last year.
The Trump administration taking an argument long relegated to this fringe and putting in the solicitor general’s office has given many nativists a sense of potential that they’ve typically been deprived.
The most fevered of these fantasies involve removing 100 million Americans — more than a quarter of the country’s population, and many times the number of undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the U.S. Greg Bovino, the CBP official who oversaw DHS operations in cities across America before the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, says he wants 100 million deportations. (Bovino recently retired.) DHS’s trollish Instagram account posted a photo last month labeled “America after 100 million deportations.”
It’s starting to become boilerplate for some on the hard-right, especially if they have little to do with immigration policy. A candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, which helps regulate oil, called for 100 million deportations.
Sauer asked for something far more limited than that on Wednesday.
The Trump Executive Order only applies prospectively, he said. The administration is not asking Congress to undo the citizenship of those whose ancestors received it after being born to parents who did not have legal permanent status or who had not yet received citizenship.
Sauer admitted that during arguments, though much of his argument was grounded in a historical reading of the debate around the framing of the 1868 amendment.
After Sauer finished discussing the supposed “scope” of birth tourism, he remarked that it’s a “new world” where people from across the globe are a plane flight away from the United States. Roberts gave a reply that infuriated some on the nativist right.
“It may be a new world, but it’s the same Constitution,” Roberts remarked.
Archived: https://archive.is/UfiVn
Funny how the folks in this maladministration never talk about those here before and right after the Revolutionary War. Don’t remember being taught how all males got sworn in as citizens.
And they never seem to mention that the folks living in the Louisiana Purchase area weren’t made to take some citizenship test either.
“Sauer admitted that during arguments, though much of his argument was grounded in a historical reading of the debate around the framing of the 1868 amendment.”
Indeed. Much of it can be reduced to a new perversion of “originalism” (which is itself already a perversion): “The guys who lost he argument when this was drafted should have won and so you should re-read the 14th Amendment to make it mean what they wanted instead of what the people who actually won the argument intended.”
The total number of yearly visitors from China is around 1.5 million. I guess they’re all pregnant.
Another “for me, but not for thee” privilege Trump has grabbed onto.